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Twisting   Listen
adjective
Twisting  adj.  A. & n. from Twist.
Twisting pair. (Kinematics) See under Pair, n., 7.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Twisting" Quotes from Famous Books



... perhaps my emotion, added to the heavy monotonous trotting of the old horse, must have put me to sleep, for after a while I was conscious of a great deal of noise, and of the old driver twisting about and shouting in a cheerful voice through the open window at the back of ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... my own practice according to my own views. In this Court I am subject to the Bench. In my own chamber I am subject only to the law of the land." The judge looking over his spectacles said a mild word about the profession at large. Mr. Chaffanbrass, twisting his wig quite on one side, so that it nearly fell on Mr. Serjeant Birdbolt's face, muttered something as to having seen more work done in that Court than any other living lawyer, let his rank be what it might. When the little affair was over, everybody ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... changing its appearance very quickly. Its head is growing rather "lopsided." The eye next the sand is, little by little, brought round to the upper side, until it looks up instead of down. Its mouth gets a queer one-sided look, owing to the twisting of the ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith

... of her bright moods, and Miss Sarah kept them laughing over her first experiences in paying her taxes. Miss Carpenter, as she separated long strands of raphia and initiated her pupils into the art of twisting and stitching, was almost as merry as Miss Pennington, whose infectious laugh, as she related James Mandeville's latest speeches, kept ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard

... woman lifted her eyes to the mountainside and dropped her gaze presently to her hands, which were twisting the switch in ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox

... sharply, so they turned, and he ran on alone. The Iroquois guns seemed to flash in his face. It was like throwing himself among furious wolves. Snarling lips and snaky eyes and twisting sinuous bodies made nightmares around him. He felt himself seized; a young warrior stabbed him in the side. The knife glanced on a rib, but blood ran down his buckskins and filled ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... forth beyond. Moaning he fell, and in the dust expired. 200 Then, treading on his breathless trunk, I pluck'd My weapon forth, which leaving there reclined, I tore away the osiers with my hands And fallows green, and to a fathom's length Twisting the gather'd twigs into a band, Bound fast the feet of my enormous prey, And, flinging him athwart my neck, repair'd Toward my sable bark, propp'd on my lance, Which now to carry shoulder'd as before Surpass'd my pow'r, so bulky was the load. 210 Arriving ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... the third toss. Jack stepped forward, and before the break could occur he had met the twisting ball with the point of his bat, sending it humming ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton

... authority. When her tall, gaunt figure—invariably arrayed in the blackest of black silks—was sighted in a room, those present either scuttled out of the way or judiciously held their peace, for everyone knew Mrs Pansey's talent for twisting the simplest observation into some evil shape calculated to get its author into trouble. She excelled in this particular method of making mischief. Possessed of ample means and ample leisure, both of these helped her materially to build up her reputation of a philanthropic ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... side by side along the street; Tchelkache twisting his moustache with the important air of an employer, the lad submissively, but at the same time ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky

... Davidge kept twisting his head about to see how Mamise comported herself. He was being swiftly wrung to that desperate condition in which men are made ready to commit monogamy. He felt that he could not endure to have Mamise ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... woman who sat near the window worked diligently with her distaff laden with hemp, except when the flashing lightning made her stop to raise her thin hand to her forehead. She was twisting the thread from which the sheets of the country are made. They are coarse, but they last longer than the hands that work the hemp, and descend ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... augmented by other springs, became a brook. Hot, dry, and barren at its beginning, this cleft became cool and shady and luxuriant with grass and flowers and amber moss with silver blossoms. The rocks had changed color from yellow to deep red. Four hours of turning and twisting, endlessly down and down, over boulders and banks and every conceivable roughness of earth and rock, finished the pack-mustang; and Slone mercifully left him in a long reach of canyon where grass and water never ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... mounted transversely across this frame at its rear end, while at its forward end is a small plane, called the elevator. The pointed end of the frame has on each side a turnbuckle G, for the purpose of winding up the shaft, and thus twisting the propeller, although this is usually dispensed with, and the propeller itself is turned to give sufficient twist to the rubber ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***

... that all through the day's proceedings Cauchon had had some clerks concealed in the embrasure of a window who were to make a special report garbling Joan's answers and twisting them from their right meaning. Ah, that was surely the cruelest man and the most shameless that has lived in this world. But his scheme failed. Those clerks had human hearts in them, and their base work revolted them, and they turned to and boldly made a straight report, ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... and down agin, and every time we went near the edge of the jetty she 'eld on to my arm for fear of stumbling agin. And there was that silly cook standing about on the schooner on tip-toe and twisting his silly old neck till I ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs

... masters failing him, she alone was left. He went over to her and snuggled his head in her lap, nudging her arm with his nose—an old trick of his when begging for favors. He backed away from her and began writhing and twisting playfully, curvetting and prancing, half rearing and striking his forepaws to the earth, struggling with all his body, from the wheedling eyes and flattening ears to the wagging tail, to express the thought that was in him and that was denied ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... arms wax black and blue Only by hard encircling you: May she round about you twine Like the easy twisting vine; And while you sip From her full lip Pleasures as new As morning dew, Like those soft tyes, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... fourteen miles to a stony low range, thence East-North-East and east and south for six miles, turning and twisting, looking for water. Windich found some in a gully and we camped. Spinifex for the first fourteen miles, and miserable country. The prospect ahead not very promising. Barometer 28.06; thermometer 83 degrees at 5 p.m. Every appearance of rain. Latitude 26 degrees 8 ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest

... conscience; and with condescending to evasive, indirect courses, in the temper of a quibbler. Now the Chief Justice is something more than a lawyer, now considerably less. At one moment he is setting common law at defiance, at another he is twisting the law to the purposes of corruption, and taking refuge behind the forms which he is expressly charged with heroically setting at defiance. Had Lord Mansfield been less timorous, Junius might have been less daring. At the close of one of his letters the reckless assailant writes "Beware ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... the earliest arts. In the twisting of fibers, hairs, grasses, and sinews by rolling them between the thumb and fingers, palms of the hands, or palms and naked thigh, we have the original of the spinning wheel and the steam-driven cotton spindle; ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson

... be just as well for ye that ye don't," said Oakum Otie, twisting his straggly beard into a spill and blinking nervously. "There I was, headed straight and keeping true course, and then she looked at me and there was a tremble in her voice and tears in her eyes—and the next thing I knowed I was here in this telegraft place with this!" He ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... said, "my ankle feels so weak! I am walking in terror of twisting it again. You must let me stand a bit. I shall be ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... toe in his mouth. Somewhat surprised at this, and being of a dauntless and boastful nature, he set himself down beside the child; and, picking up his own toe, he essayed to place it in his mouth after the manner of the child. He could not do it. In spite of all twisting and turning, his toe could not be brought to reach his mouth. As he was getting up in great discomfiture to get away, he heard a laugh behind him, and did no more boasting that day, for he had been outwitted by a ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... like the teeth of lions. I have never been bitten by an Orthodox clergyman, and cannot say whether his teeth are at all leonine; though I have seen seven of them together enjoying their lunch at an hotel with decorum and dispatch. But the twisting of the hair in the womanish fashion does for us touch that note of the abnormal which the mystic meant to convey in his poetry, and which others feel rather as a recoil into humour. The best and last touch to this topsy-turvydom was ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... when the feet are alternately brought together and separated as widely as possible. A third movement which exercises the muscles at the side of the abdomen consists in raising the shoulders from the bed and twisting the trunk so that the weight of the chest rests now on the right, now on the left elbow. When these movements can be performed fifteen or twenty minutes without fatigue more vigorous exercises may be adopted. For example, the buttocks, ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... the Admiralty; but none of them could remember that anything was said about the delivery. It was to no purpose that Williams put leading questions till the counsel on the other side declared that such twisting, such wiredrawing, was never seen in a court of justice, and till Wright himself was forced to admit that the Solicitor's mode of examination was contrary to all rule. As witness after witness answered ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... four grey horses of the Stavrogins' own breeding. The general suddenly observed that he had met "young Stavrogin" that day, on horseback.... Every one was instantly silent. The general munched his lips, and suddenly proclaimed, twisting in his fingers his presentation ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... your advice," said Giovanni, twisting his brown hands together and fixing his bright eyes upon ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... to the shelter of an arching frond and, without a word, went crawling away. McGuire was behind him, and the two, as they came to open ground, sprang to their feet and ran on through the weird orchard where tree trunks made dim, twisting lines. They ran blindly and helplessly toward the outer dark that ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various

... and laughed. On and on, at a deadly pace, he rode, and shrilly rang out his awful cry. In a few moments, however, there came a cloud of ruin down the broad streets, down the narrow alleys, grinding, twisting, hurling, overturning, crashing—annihilating the weak and the strong. It was the charge of the flood, wearing its coronet of ruin and devastation, which grew at every instant of its progress. Forty feet high, some say, thirty according ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... under sealed orders and did not know their destination until they were enlightened by the Commandant, who received instructions from the headquarters in the field. They waited about in groups outside his door, slapping their riding-boots or twisting neat little moustaches, which were the envy of subalterns ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... do with it? ... The roofs of the native huts scattering in the wind! ... the absolute agony of the twisting palms!.... and those two beggars laughing as they breasted death! Girl, you've ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... again, the ground was marked off, the judges stationed, and the horses led up to one end. Two fine-looking old gentlemen— Don Carlos and Don Domingo, so called— held the stakes, and all was now ready. We waited some time, during which we could just see the horses twisting round and turning, until, at length, there was a shout along the lines, and on they came, heads stretched out and eyes starting,— working all over, both man and beast. The steeds came by us like a couple of chain shot,— neck ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... belong to Rajputana. Their special entertainment consists in playing with cymbals, and women are the chief performers. The woman has eight or nine cymbals secured to her legs before and behind, and she strikes these rapidly in turn with another held in her hand, twisting her body skilfully so as to reach all of them, and keeping time with the music played on guitar-like instruments by the men who accompany her. If the woman is especially skilful, she will also hold a ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... of a pound, found some paper, twisted it into a cone, tipped the peppermints into it, spilt them, tipped them in again, spilt them again, at last handed them to the boy, and took the money.... The boy gazed at him in amazement, twisting his cap in his hands on his stomach, and in the next room, Gemma was stifling with suppressed laughter. Before the first customer had walked out, a second appeared, then a third.... 'I bring luck, it's clear!' thought Sanin. The second customer wanted a ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... him go, a crooked smile twisting his lips. "Make the most of it, Manning," he muttered ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman

... of flickering weapons, of thrusting men, of grapples hand-to-hand. What happened, what was happening to any one, who it was fell, stabbed through and through by four, or who were those who still fought single combats, twisting round one another's horses, those on her right and on her left, she could not tell. For Badelon dragged her on with whip and spur, and two horsemen—who obscured her view—galloped in front of her, and rode down bodily the only man who undertook to bar her passage. ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... to the announcement that Vronsky had been at the Tverskoys'; and his black eyes shining, he plucked at his left mustache, and began twisting it into his mouth, a ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... balustraded so that little girls could not forget themselves and fall off. The pillars of these verandas at the rear of the house were connected by a network of wires, and trained up the pillars and branching over the wires were coiling twisting vines of wisteria as large as Gabriella's neck. This was the sunny southern side; and when the wisteria was blooming, Gabriella moved her establishment of playthings out behind those sunlit cascades of purple and green, musical sometimes ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... look—oh! don't let me look," cried Polly in the old gig, and twisting around, she hid her face against the faded green cloth side. "I ought not to see the little brown house before ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney

... shook the boy's frame, and his face blenched. Then he struggled again to free himself—turning and twisting himself this way and that; tugging frantically, fiercely, desperately—but uselessly—to burst his fetters; and all the while the old ogre smiled down upon him, and nodded his head, and placidly whetted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... He yawned and rubbed the stubble on his chin. Not yet long enough for scissors, he decided. He pulled his feet up on the bench, twisting in an effort to get comfortable. The sun was in his eyes, so he reclaimed the discarded newspaper and spread it over his face. His eyes momentarily focused on MYSTERIOUS SIGNALS FROM OUTER SPACE, right ...
— Master of None • Lloyd Neil Goble

... It was enough to live in close companionship with the man she loved, and when, as occasionally she tried to do, she reasoned to herself about it, her mind seemed paralysed and utterly refused to make plans of any kind. So, twisting to her own purposes, as people do, the saying about the evil of the day being unto itself sufficient, she let time slip away unremarked and ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... a bright, clear, moonlit night, so beautiful indeed that, twisting a shawl about her shoulders, she went to her father's den, where he usually smoked alone, and, taking his arm, led him out for a walk into the park over that gravelled drive where, upon such nights as that, 'twas said that the unfortunate ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... meat was soon firmly secured, and twisting one end of the string round his hand, Tom took his old place beside me, chuckling and laughing, and began to ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... grind herrings and broth; first of all, all the dishes full, then all the tubs full, and so on till the kitchen floor was quite covered. Then the man twisted and twirled at the quern to get it to stop, but for all his twisting and fingering the quern went on grinding, and in a little while the broth rose so high that the man was like to drown. So he threw open the kitchen door and ran into the parlour, but it wasn't long before the quern had ground the parlour full too, and it was only at the risk ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... miles away. The mill was a small, primitive affair, almost lost in the straggling box-elders and soft maples that bordered the muddy Missouri, producing, amid noisy protestations, the most despisable of all lumber on the face of the globe—twisting, creeping, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... cropped to shoulder length, seemed to turn from chestnut to bronze fire, gleaming and crackling under the comb which she hastily passed through it before twisting ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... mother takes her baby and tosses her up into the little swinging bed in the tree, which her father made for her from the twisting vine that climbs among the branches. And the wind blows and rocks the little bed; and the mother sits at the foot of the tree singing a mild sweet song, and this brown baby falls asleep. Then the stars come out and peep through the leaves at her. The birds, ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews

... hesitated, twisting his fingers in his pony's mane. "Suppose," he ventured, "that a bunch of Sneed's riders was to run on to you? You'd ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... the paper was rolling and twisting around on the floor in a most remarkable manner, for Papa No-Tail inside was wriggling and twisting, and trying his best to get out. But the paper was wound around him too tightly, and he ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis

... got to get started now. All ready, fireman!" he called to Laddie, who was inside the barrel. "Start the steam going. I'm going to steer the boat," and Russ took his place astride the front end of the barrel, and began twisting on a stick he had stuck down in one of the cracks. The stick, you understand, was the steering-wheel, even if it didn't look ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope

... where the ladies can hear you better, Mr. Moffatt!" the minister called. Moffatt did so, steadying himself against the table and twisting his head about as if his collar had grown too tight. But if his bearing was vacillating his smile was unabashed, and there was no lack of confidence in the glance he threw at Undine Spragg as he began: ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... twisting. Same cane as in 1. Contestants grasp it as in 1, only the knuckles of both hands are up, and the arms are extended overhead. Object: The contestants endeavor to make the cane revolve in their opponent's hand without allowing it to do so in their own. The cane ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... well of Miss Melissa and Miss Araminta, her cousin, who were both very kind to the poor people. Having obtained these particulars, Spikeman went to bed: he slept little that night, as Joey, who was his bedfellow, could vouch for; for he allowed Joey no sleep either, turning and twisting round in the bed every two minutes. The next morning they arose early, ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... rubbing eye-wash, On your engine, comes a "Kibosch." As the Section-leader never looks at it, But a grease-cap gently twisting, She remarks that it's ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... womanly grace. Genuine beauty is a rare and wonderful gift, and, like genius, triumphs over adverse circumstances, and is often enhanced by them. Even prosaic Mrs. Wheaton was compelled to pause from time to time to admire the slender, supple form whose perfect outlines were revealed by the stooping, twisting, and reaching required by the nature of the labor. But the varying expressions of her face, revealing a mind as active as the busy hands, were a richer study. The impact of her brush was vigorous, and with ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... head to foot, Carr taking especial care to see that his upper body and face were thoroughly covered. Then, after using his own clothing to swab off the coating, they stepped back to view the result. He was exactly like one of the red men in color now, and he stood there twisting his face in a wicked grin ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent

... round my neck!" he cried. "I'm not going without you, so argument is useless and will only waste time. It will give you a bit of a twisting, I know. Now, stick tight!" And he started to run with the wounded man on ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry

... pleaded her mother, who had taken her hands out of the biscuit dough and now stood, twisting ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... Twisting my hand firmly in his collar I bent over and picked up the ornaments. "Allow me," I said, smiling. And as I was about to put the locket in his hand I could not avoid seeing the portrait that it framed. It was an open-faced, old-fashioned thing, set round with a rim of pearls. ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson

... a big blowfly has alighted. Judging from appearances, he has had his fill of good things, and is now making his leisurely toilet in the peculiar fashion of his kind, rubbing down his back and wings with his hind legs, twisting his front feet into spirals, and ever and anon testing the strength of his elastic neck attachment as he threatens to pull his head ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson

... line of lights twisting and leaping in the wind,—the vagrant gas-jets before the row of cheap shops on the east side of the Plaza. Magdalena hardly glanced at the medley of curious wares and faces as she hurried past; the wind was roaring about the open square, interfering with sight and hearing and headway. And ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... blows which she is at present delivering to it with her mallet, are fast driving all preconceived notions in regard to linen out of my head. Scrubbing it, as she does now, with a hard brush, against the asperities of the rough plank, and then twisting it up like a roly-poly prior to swishing it through the water a second time, would once have induced me to doubt the strength of delicate mother-of-pearl buttons and fine white thread. I shall ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... bows on to that rock. There is a wilder sweep of water rushing off the polished sides than on to them, and the instant that we touch that sweep we shoot away with redoubled speed. No, the rock is not as treacherous as the whirlpool and twisting billow. ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... coming for him yon night; we watched his coming, ay, away far out on the sea, the black stallions stretched to the gallop like racing hounds, and the hoofs o' them striking white fire frae the water, and the flames o' hell curling and twisting round the wheels o' his chariot. Ay, we watched oor lane, the dogs and me, and his whip was forked lightning, and his voice drooned ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars

... his feet, as if shot upwards by a spring; and as he turned and saw who had addressed him, took off his cap and, bowing, stood twisting it ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... more properly, the wire-mark—is obtained by twisting wires to the desired form or design, and sticking them on the face of the mould; therefore the design is above the level face of the mould by the thickness of the wires it is composed of. Hence the pulp, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... performance, the hermit demeaned himself much like a first-rate critic of the present day at a new opera. He reclined back upon his seat, with his eyes half shut; now, folding his hands and twisting his thumbs, he seemed absorbed in attention, and anon, balancing his expanded palms, he gently flourished them in time to the music. At one or two favourite cadences, he threw in a little assistance of his own, where the knight's ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... ye'll fin' that nearer hame," retorted Alec, twisting him round in that direction, and giving him a kick to expedite his return. "Lat me hear o' you troublin' Annie Anderson, an' I'll gar ye loup oot o' yer skin the neist time I lay han's upo' ye. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... off!" yelled the victim, twisting his body and banging his legs in the soft earth in his vain effort to free himself from Ben, who was pegging away at him. "Pull him off! Put me on ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis

... offended; she thought her mistress's behaviour unwarranted either by modesty or indignation. There were burning tears in Joanna's eyes as she flung herself out of the room. She was blind as she went down the passage, twisting her apron furiously in ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... in the shadow, bent far over, slowly twisting his thin, corded hands, the fingers tightly interlocked. It was a long time before he spoke, and his interlocutor had to urge him again before he answered, ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... the effect in the glass, and then settling it, with final approval, and in easier fashion, farther back upon her shoulders. He saw her raise her candle and turn her head in various ways, her eyes fixed on her twisting image. Then, with a smile of content, she blew out the candle. He saw the tiny red spark which remained on the wick standing guard where she had left it. She must be going to spend the evening somewhere and would demand his company, Henley reflected, in dismay ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... only yours," she continued. Then, with a quick gesture of the hand: "No, don't get up. Set right still now. One o' your friends here can get me a chair, I guess," and she looked very meaningly into the face of a foppish young courtier who stood near her, twisting ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... up late last night,' she replied while twisting the child's golden ringlets around her fingers, in pure idleness, for they did not ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... they must have almost every word of the tragical master-pieces by heart. And what quickness of perception was requisite to catch, in passing the lightest and most covert irony, the most unexpected sallies and strangest allusions, which are frequently denoted by the mere twisting of a syllable! We may boldly affirm, that notwithstanding all the explanations which have come down to us—notwithstanding the accumulation of learning which has been spent upon it, one-half of the wit of Aristophanes is altogether lost to the moderns. Nothing but the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... came on, with Jim ever retreating, twisting and dodging from one side of the huge room to the other, leaping over the smaller paralyzed insects and darting behind the larger carcasses. But now the thing's movements were very slow—as were ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst

... writhing and twisting, she said, with a deep groan, 'O my God, I am killed!' but would ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... Benjamin's mother, changing the subject on a sudden, and twisting back with a horrid, greedy quickness to those awkward money- matters which she had broached down in the parlour. "What we've done, one way and another for Mr. Forley, it isn't in words to tell! That nice little bit of business of ours ought to be a ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens

... for my failure. If I were to write a book that should go through twenty editions, why, I should be the very first to sneer at my reputation. Say I could succeed at the Bar, and achieve a fortune by bullying witnesses and twisting evidence; is that a fame which would satisfy my longings, or a calling in which my life would be well spent? How I wish I could be that priest opposite, who never has lifted his eyes from his breviary, except when we were in Reigate ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... him impatiently. "Words! you do not mean them. Nor do I, either," she added, hastily. After that neither spoke for a while. Gethryn, half stretched on the big rug, idly twisting bits of it into curls, felt very comfortable, without troubling to ask himself what would come next. Presently she ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers

... mean that I'm timid," he observed, "why, I don't know as I'd bother to dispute it." He moved over and sat on his heels facing her, twisting the ever handy cigarette. "Listen," he urged. "Let's you and I try to get along. Now if you'll only make up your mind that I'm not out to grab the Three Bar, not even the half of it that's supposed to be mine—unless ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... And Mareotis leaves the Egyptian strand; 80 To rendezvous they waft on eager wing, And wait, assembled, the returning spring. Meanwhile they trim their plumes for length of flight, Whet their keen beaks and twisting claws for fight: Each crane the pigmy power in thought o'erturns, And every bosom for the battle burns. When genial gales the frozen air unbind, The screaming legions wheel, and mount the wind; Far in the sky ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... red-brown trunk was bare, but in the branching top rocked an eagle's nest. The fugitive was now so audaciously bold that he climbed up there, while his pursuers looked for him on the wooded slopes. There he sat twisting the young eaglets' necks, while the hunt passed by far below him. The male and female eagle, longing for revenge, swooped down on the ravisher. They fluttered before his face, they struck with their beaks ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... 3d, 1778. A group of a dozen boys sat in the long grass that grew close down to the banks of the narrow, twisting Conestoga River, in eastern Pennsylvania. All of the boys were hard at work engaged in a mysterious occupation. By the side of one of them lay a great pile of narrow pasteboard tubes, each about two feet long, and in front of this ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland

... breaks through, but by a great sea of blood. It is across that we must survey their rights and duties; it is with that in view we must settle the terms of their readmission. It is idle to apply to 1866 the word-twisting of 1860. The Rebel communities which began the war are not the same communities which were recognized as States in the Union before the war occurred. No sophistry that perplexes the brain of the people can prevent this fact ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... Smetham" there is a passage to the effect that he felt extremely happy among English hedgerows, and found inexhaustible delight in English birds, trees, flowers, hills, and brooks, but could not appreciate his little back-garden with a copper-beech, a weeping-ash, nailed-up rose trees, and twisting creepers. After I had made a habit, till it became a passion, of seeking decorative motives, strange and novel curves—in short, began to detect the transcendent alphabet or written language of beauty and mystery in ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... more in him than could be discovered in casual gossip; I wished to know him better. Something of shyness marked his manner, and like all shy men he sometimes appeared arrogant. He had a habit of twisting his moustache nervously and of throwing quick glances in every direction as he talked; if he found some one's eye upon him, he pulled himself together and sat for a moment as if before a photographer. One easily perceived that he was not a man of liberal ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... Proceeding then to the lower corner of the cabin, he put up his hand to the top of the side wall, from which he took down a large stick, or cudgel, having a strong leathern thong in the upper part, within about six inches of the top. Into this thong he thrust his hand, and twisting it round his wrist, in order that no accident or chance blow might cause him to lose his grip of it, he once more looked upon this scene of unexampled wretchedness and sorrow, and pulling his old caubeen over his ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... which had been lying against the wall in a dark corner, and thrust the twisting wire of it over ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... buttoned to the throat, showed off his broad chest, and a black satin stock obliged him to hold his head high, in soldierly fashion. A handsome gold chain hung from a waistcoat pocket, in which the outline of a flat watch was barely seen. He was twisting a watch-key of the kind called a "criquet," which Breguet had ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... childish treasures, glass beads, empty scent-bottles still sweet, thrum of coloured silks, among its lumber—a flat space of roof, railed round, gave a view of the neighbouring steeples; for the house, as I said, stood near a great city, which sent up heavenwards, over the twisting weather-vanes, not seldom, its beds of rolling cloud and smoke, touched with storm or sunshine. But the child of whom I am writing did not hate the fog because of the crimson lights which fell from it sometimes upon the chimneys, and the whites which gleamed through its openings, on summer mornings, ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... inventor. During his residence in America, he had planned many contrivances in his mind, which he now proceeded to work out. The first was a duplicate writing and drawing machine, which he patented. The next was a machine for twisting cotton thread and forming it into balls; but omitting to protect it by a patent, he derived no benefit from the invention, though it shortly came into very general use. He then invented a machine for trimmings and borders for muslins, lawns, and cambrics,—of ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... and his needle. Is a little bit of a porter the man to make a woman rich—a fine woman like you? Ah, what a figure you would make in a shop on the boulevard, all among the curiosities, gossiping with amateurs and twisting them round your fingers! Just you leave your lodge as soon as you have lined your purse here, and you shall see what will ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... Llaneros, men who lived in the saddle, and were at home only on the plain, deserted on finding themselves on foot. To cross the frequent torrents there were only narrow, trembling bridges formed of tree-trunks, or the aerial taravitas. These consisted of stout ropes made by twisting several thongs of well-greased hides. The ropes were tied to trees on the two banks of the ravine, while from them was suspended a cradle or hammock of capacity for two persons, which was drawn backward and forward by long lines. Horses and mules were similarly drawn across, ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... know what is the matter with me tonight. I have positively been to bed, without going to sleep! After tossing and twisting and trying all sorts of positions, I am so angry with myself that I have got up again. Rather than do nothing, I have opened my ink-bottle, and I mean to go on with my journal. Now I think of it, it seems likely that the exhibition of works of ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... her wrists in my hands, prizing them backward, twisting them upward over her head. I said thickly, "The sun's down." And then I stopped ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... of the fresh, rosy life of the Englishman's face, that the new man's face was bleached and unhealthy to me. I happened to glance back from him to the Dominie, and saw, that, allowing for green spectacles, they were both of a color. We were so arranged on the top of the coach, that with reasonable twisting of necks we were able to maintain an animated conversation, and soon found our account in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... stem has a thin, glossy, black sheath, that is stripped off and used in twisting the decorative ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,

... said, in a paternal voice, leaning forward benevolently and twisting my snuff-box in my fingers. "Come, my dear Madame, and speak fearlessly; have you nothing to reproach yourself with? Have you had no impulses of—worldly coquetry, no wish to dazzle at the expense of ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... on one side so that the back of the head is exposed. Part the hair in the middle from the forehead to the nape of the neck. Comb only a small strand at a time. If there are tangles, comb from ends toward the scalp. Avoid pulling by twisting the strand around the finger and holding loosely between the comb and the scalp. When the hair on one side has been combed, braid it, having the top of the braid near the ear. Do the other side the same way. If very much ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... production of threads, other than those of raw silk, may be broadly described as consisting of devices capable of taking a mass of confused and comparatively short fibers, laying them parallel with one another, and twisting them into a cylindrical thread, depending for its strength upon the friction and interlocking of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... gable;[200] you don't suppose the man who built Stonehenge could have built that, or that the man who built that, would have built Stonehenge? Do you think an old Roman would have liked such a piece of filigree work? or that Michael Angelo would have spent his time in twisting these stems of roses in and out? Or, of modern handicraftsmen, do you think a burglar, or a brute, or a pickpocket could have carved it? Could Bill Sykes have done it? or the Dodger, dexterous with finger and tool? You will find in the end, that no man could have done it but exactly ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... fastened together, and Jan saw this was a much harder task than he had ever attempted before. He grabbed the edge of a plank in his powerful jaws and twisting sharply, struck back, for land. Several times the force of the water and the weight of the little raft made him let go, but each time he caught the driftwood and fought his way toward the beach. Land was still quite distant when he heard a faint noise, ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker

... chattering of squirrels and the moaning of the wind in the tree tops. How near was freedom and yet how difficult of attainment! She wriggled gently in her bonds but each motion seemed to make them tighter, until they began to cut more and more cruelly into her tender flesh. She tried by twisting her hands and bending her body to touch the knots at her knees but her elbows were fastened securely and she couldn't reach them. And at last she gave up the attempt, half stifled from her exertions and suffering acutely. Then she lay quiet, sobbing gently to herself, trying to find a comfortable ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... the sacred pyre Of sacrifice or holy death, Pale twisting wreaths of opal breath, From fire ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne

... Hilda fell to twisting pine tassels together into a kind of fantastic garland, while Pink looked on with ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... with the girl he sought lying within fifty feet of him, Bulan started off through the jungle with two of Ninaka's Dyaks as guides—guides who had been well instructed by their panglima as to their duties. Twisting and turning through the dense maze of underbrush and close-growing, lofty trees the little party of eight plunged farther and farther into the ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... exclaimed the professor as he jumped up. He reached the engine room ahead of any one else, and when the two boys got there they found him busy twisting wheels ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood

... mouth agape. Pederson was gazing at Beardsley with delight and admiration, seeming to visualize this little man as material for his next tele-column. Mandleco stood transfixed, a monument of agony, twisting a fist into his palm. "Beardsley, stop it! This ridiculous farce has gone far enough! I warned you ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse

... You know. You knew long, long ago. You know I love the big quietness of you, and your sureness, and the German way you have of twisting your sentences about, and the steady grip of your great firm hands, and the rareness of your laugh, and the simplicity of you. Why I love the very cleanliness of your ruddy skin, and the way your hair grows away from your forehead, and your walk, and your voice and—Oh, ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... He was twisting a twig in his fingers. "Oh yes, certainly. You've been a great comfort to him. You saved his life probably, and he really is a fine man in ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... first called to a stricture by a slight discharge, or smarting sensation, or the appearance of an undue amount of mucous deposit in the urine. Occasionally, some difficulty in starting the water, or a diminution in the size and force, or a twisting of the stream as it flows, is the first symptom. This passive stage is of variable duration. When skillful treatment is instituted at this stage of the disease, a speedy cure is easily effected without pain or danger. Any exposure, improper use of instruments, or irritating cause, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... plunderer That sucks its sweets. The massy rocks themselves, And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees That lead from knoll to knoll a causey rude Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots, With all their earth upon them, twisting high, Breathe fixed tranquillity. The rivulet Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o'er its bed Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks, Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice In its own being. Softly tread ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant

... sense to judge without the book. It startled me to find, that I had exactly alighted on the Romish objection to Protestants, that an infallible book is useless, unless we have an infallible interpreter. But it was not for some time, that, after twisting the subject in all directions to avoid it, I brought out the conclusion, that "to go against one's common sense in obedience to Scripture is a most hazardous proceeding:" for the "rule of Scripture" means to each of us nothing but his own fallible interpretation; and to ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... now, twisting her ring. "I'm afraid ... I'm not talented in that line. Somehow ... except for Lance, I can't regret it." She slid the ring over ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... his stand beneath one of the stately trees whose freakish branches and large, glossy, dark-green leaves spread perhaps ninety feet above his head, he reached the nearer boughs with an omei, a very long stick with a forked end to which was attached a small net of cocoanut fiber. Deftly twisting a fruit from its stem by a dexterous jerk of the cleft tip, he caught it in the net, and lowered it to the kooka on ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... was now happily answered by the circumstance of her being in my employment. Her child, I regret to say, was still grossly overfed, seldom having its face free from jam or other smears. It persisted, moreover, in twisting my name into "Ruggums," which I ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... capitulum of the humerus from the shaft. (5.) The truncated and angular end of the humerus to be divided, turned out through the incision, and smoothed across at right angles to the line of the shaft by means of the saw, whereby (6.) room might be afforded, so that partly by twisting and partly by dissection the external condyle and capitulum are removed without any division of the skin on the outer side of the arm.[56] Six ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... Allen was twisting his gloves nervously; he had not been conscious of transgressing any law, but he would not for worlds have invited Harwood's displeasure. He was near to tears; but he remained stubbornly silent until Harwood again demanded to know how he contrived ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... Vanikoro, and Society Islands. at Valdivia. causes of. effect of, on springs. on bottom of sea. effects of, on rocks. effects of, on sea. effects of, on a river-bed. line of vibration of. on south-west coast. tossing fragments from the ground. twisting ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... not," quoth the thief to himself, "a cat in climbing, a deer in running, a snake in twisting, a hawk in pouncing, a dog in scenting?—keen as a hare, tenacious as a wolf, strong as a lion?—a lamp in the night, a horse on a plain, a mule on a stony path, a boat in the water, a rock on land[FN135]?" ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... major, wiping his eyes, so comical was the monkey's seriously intent aspect, as he kept glancing up at them sharply, and then chattering and peering down at the half-denuded pigeon, his little black fingers nimbly twisting out the feathers, and his whole aspect suggestive of his being a cook in ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn

... twisting a little, "I knew I ought not; but they said I was afraid of a gun, and that I had no money. Now I see that was chaff, but I didn't then, and Norman ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... affecting, causes, symptoms, and treatment, 34-43 obstruction resulting from invagination, symptoms and treatment, 35 twisting and knotting, symptoms, post-mortem appearance, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... the door, and he saw a man at the head of his train mid-leg deep in snow, leading his horse, breaking the way for his followers, who were all on foot, crawling, stumbling, and twisting among the down-timber, unmindful of the ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... by the dog's teeth and irreparably dishonored in the encounter. He looked at it shuddering, with a countenance of intense disgust, and made a motion as if to hurl it into the street. But his eye again fell upon the cooper's squalid little figure, as he stood twisting his hands into his apron, and with voluble eagerness protesting that it was not his dog, but that of the English ship-captain, who had left it with him, and whom he had many a time besought to have the beast killed. Mr. Arbuton, who seemed not to hear what he ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells

... and his wife Katherine Briconnet, the couple who did so much for Chenonceaux. This ancient Chateauneuf, like the court end of so many old cities, has narrow, winding streets overtopped by high buildings. These twisting streets are so infinitely picturesque with their sudden turns and elbows that we are quite ready to overlook their inconvenience for the uses of our day, and trust that no modern vandalism, under the name of progress, may change ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... was screwing up, twisting, and distorting his features pretty much in the style of a poor artisan on Saturday night, whom some fellow-workman is barberously razoring and scraping by the light of a cobbler's candle: furious was his wrath at ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... beautiful valley, with high, rugged bluffs rising on all sides, and intersected by a clear stream of spring water, which fell in tiny cascades and little waterfalls, turning and twisting like a silver snake, stood Swanson's Ranche. The low frame building, surrounded on four sides by a wide porch, and standing on a gentle elevation which fell away to the creek, was the home of the redoubtable Swanson, ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton

... not appear to understand, as he stood there, twisting in his hands a terrible cap which ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... over a line of sixty miles, they gathered everything eatable within reach. Every now and then they would stop and destroy a railroad. This they did by taking up the rails, heating them in the middle on fires of burning sleepers, and then twisting them around the nearest trees. In this way they cut a gap sixty miles long in the railroad communication between the half-starved army of northern Virginia and the storehouses of southern Georgia. On December 10, 1864, Sherman reached the sea. Ten days ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing

... the sound and fire, nor the speaking with other tongues, but the communication of the Holy Spirit. The sign and result of that was the gift of utterance in various languages, not their own, nor learned by ordinary ways. No twisting of the narrative can weaken the plain meaning of it, that these unlearned Galileans spake in tongues which their users recognised to be their own. The significance of the fact will appear presently, but first note the attestation of it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren



Words linked to "Twisting" :   torture, whirl, pirouette, straining, rotation, twist, birling, arm-twisting, voluminous, falsification, distortion



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