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Blackening   /blˈækənɪŋ/  /blˈæknɪŋ/   Listen
Blackening

noun
1.
Changing to a darker color.  Synonym: darkening.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Blackening" Quotes from Famous Books



... rocks sit lone; The shifting sand lies so smooth and dry That not a wave might ever have swept by To vex it with loud moan. Only some weedy fragments blackening grown To dry beneath the sky, tells what has been; But desolation's ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... "No blackening and no smell of burned powder," he thought. "He must have been shot from outside the cab." But he found it hard to understand how such a shot could have been fired from the populous streets of London. The hole also seemed too far round towards the ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts

... year wouldn't be too often to seize upon sinners whose blameless life has placed them above suspicion, and turn them inside out before the community, so as to show people how the smoke of the Pit had been quietly blackening their interior. That would destroy character as a cult." He laughed again. "Well, this isn't business,—though it isn't pleasure, either, exactly. What I came for was to ask you something. I've finished at the Law School, and I'm just ready to begin here in the office with ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... the garrets and the cellars, calling them to come and be Anglicized. And they came in a great straggling procession recruited from every lane and by-way, big children and little children, boys in blackening corduroy, and girls in washed-out cotton; tidy children and ragged children; children in great shapeless boots gaping at the toes; sickly children, and sturdy children, and diseased children; bright-eyed children and hollow-eyed children; quaint sallow foreign-looking children, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... judgment has been prejudiced in Saul's favour by Samuel's curse, and to David's disadvantage by Samuel's blessing; the picture of the one has not suffered from the blackening so much as that of the ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... shortened sail off at an angle, and slowly, very slowly, the boat's bow fell off toward the island. Griswold was enough of a sailor to know that it was the thing to do, but there was a perilously narrow margin. The storm squall was already tearing across from the western shore, blackening the water ahead of it and picking up a small tidal wave as it came. If it should strike them before they were ready for it, it meant one of two things: a capsize, or an instant driving of the catboat upon the hazard of the ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... prepared, just hung up in the smoke of the fires, which hardens it, blackening the outside quickly; but when the lumps are taken out of the smoke, in a short time cracks occur in them, and the interior part proceeds to go bad, and needless to say maggoty. If it is kept in the smoke, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... evening after we arrived was most beautiful. The house, situated on its white plateau of barbicues, as the coffee platforms are called, where large piles of the berries in their red cherry like husks had been blackening in the sun the whole forenoon, and on which a gang of negroes was now employed covering them up with tarpawlins for the night, stood in the centre of an amphitheatre of mountains, the front box, as it were, the stage part opening on a bird's eye—view of the distant town and harbour, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... deep down on the ocean floor; the water now had a charged appearance, and was foul as the roadstead along the mouths of the Godivari—a thick, whipped, yeasty look. The changes were very rapid. Every few seconds, Bedient glanced at the Captain, and as often followed his gaze into the churning, blackening North. ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... they feed their young with strange delight, And knead the yielding wax, and work the slimy sweet. But when on high you see the bees repair, Borne on the winds through distant tracts of air, 70 And view the winged cloud all blackening from afar; While shady coverts and fresh streams they choose, Milfoil and common honeysuckles bruise, And sprinkle on their hives the fragrant juice. On brazen vessels beat a tinkling sound, And shake the cymbals of the goddess round; Then all ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... put up a shaking hand. "No, sir! Remember our bargain. I'll not hear it. I'll weigh no evidence on this subject. Enough for me to know in my heart of hearts that this man murdered Ludwell Cary, and that he dwells free at Roselands, blackening my niece—that he rides free to town—pleads his cases—does his work—ingratiates himself, and grows, grows in the esteem of his county and his state! That, I say, is enough, sir! If you have your clue, for God's sake don't impart it to me! ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... the phylactery of the forehead before that of the arm. [858] But they were especially careful never again to be tempted by the Midianite women. If they entered a house to take its treasures from it, they did so in pairs, one blackening the faces of the women, and the other seizing their ornaments. In vain would the Midianite women cry, "Are we not creatures of God, that ye treat us thus?" whereupon the Israelites would say, "Were not ye the ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... attractive woman who happened to be travelling in any of the cars he held up. On only one occasion did he abduct a lady, and in that case there were special circumstances with which the public have never been made acquainted. His deeds were quite black enough without further blackening with printer's ink, and it would be a pity if the real Motor Pirate were lost sight of in mythical haze such as has gathered about the name of his great ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster

... equal ranks appear, With all the united labours of the year; Some to unload the fertile branches run, Some dry the blackening clusters in the sun, Others to tread the liquid harvest join: The groaning presses foam with floods of wine Here are the vines in early flower descried, Here grapes discolour'd on the sunnyside, And there ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... wrathful surge, through blackening storm, Majestically calm, would go, Mid the deep darkness, white as snow! But gentler now the small waves glide, Like playful lambs o'er a mountain's side. So stately her bearing, so proud her array, The main she will traverse for ever and aye. Many ports will exult at the gleam of her mast. ...
— Practice Book • Leland Powers

... the song and ceremony of blackening the Leader's face, I had seen the Leader take the pipe belonging to the society, fill it, and reverently ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher

... you'd have preferred postage-stamps," she said, gazing out of the window at a kiln that was blackening all the sky. ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... brilliant illumination was produced by means of eleven lamps suspended from the ceiling; the woman drew herself into an erect position; the fakirs piled resinous branches round her; amidst invocations, mysterious chants, and yells, she permitted herself to be burned to death, her body slowly blackening, her face turning scarlet in the flames, her eyes starting from her head, and so she ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... rap on the floor with his stick, and a long, grim laugh. "Good, good!" he cried. "You go altogether too far—you overshoot the mark. There isn't a woman in the world as bad as you would make yourself out. I see your game; it's what I said. You are blackening yourself to whiten others. You don't want to give me up, at all; you like me—you like me. I know you do; you have shown it, and I have felt it. After that, you may be as cold as you please! They have bullied you, I say; they have tortured you. It's an outrage, and I insist upon saving ...
— The American • Henry James

... is it to be achieved? Merely by blackening the rest of the world, we cannot hope to make ourselves white. Modern writers tell us that we cannot make ourselves white even by blackening ourselves. They denounce the sense of sin as a sin, and tell us that there is nothing of which we should repent except repentance. ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... gradual change from intended and successful rascality and crime into the incurring or the supposed incurring of the most hideous guilt without any actual consciousness of guilty action may seem an almost hopeless thing to treat probably. Yet it is so treated here. And the final gathering and blackening of the clouds of despair (though here again there is a very slight touch of Hogg's undue prolongation of things) exhibits literary power of the ghastly kind infinitely different from and far above the usual raw-head-and-bloody-bones story ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... course, the title contains the words 'Cupid' and 'Chauffeur'—an article on naval strategy, illustrated with cuts of the Spanish Armada, and the new Staten Island ferry-boats; another story of a political boss who won the love of a Fifth Avenue belle by blackening her eye and refusing to vote for an iniquitous ordinance (it doesn't say whether it was in the Street-Cleaning Department or Congress), and nineteen pages by the editors bragging about the circulation. The whole thing, Sammy, is ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... playing with his wine, gave some sign of acquiescence—perhaps, indeed, may have had his own indifferences to any blackening of the character of Don Luiz de Guardiola, now nourishing at ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... 'Twas when the power of Spain Began to light the gloom, with that great glare Of martyrdom which, while the stars endure, Bears witness how men overcame the world, Trod the red flames beneath their feet like flowers, And cast aside the blackening robe of flesh, While with a crown of joy upon their heads, Even as into a palace, they passed through The portals of the tomb to prove their love Stronger at least than death: and, in those days A Puritan, with iron in his soul, Having in earlier manhood occupied His business ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... would at least take right good care to secure my crown, and to have my full glory round my head, and set on becomingly. But seriously, my dear Helen," continued Lady Cecilia, "I am unhappy about papa and mamma, I assure you. I have seen little clouds of discontent long gathering, lowering, and blackening, and I know they will burst over their heads in some ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... was thy face!" While he yet spoke, the elder Sommerville drew near to meet his nephew. His eyes and the stranger's met. "Sommerville!" exclaimed the stranger, starting. "The same," replied the other, his brow blackening like thunder, while a trembling passed over his body. He rudely grasped the arm of his nephew, and dragged him away. The interesting stranger accompanied Elizabeth to the house of Mrs. Douglas. Painful were his inquiries; ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... Paine himself. In this country, where his opposition to the corruptions of government has raised him so many adversaries, and such a swarm of unprincipled hirelings have exerted themselves in blackening his character and in misrepresenting all the transactions and incidents of his life, will it not be a most difficult, nay an impossible task, for posterity, after a lapse of 1700 years, if such a wreck of modern literature as that of the ancient, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... grew dark, lights twinkled out ashore—lights rocked here and there on passing ships and barges: tubes of light projected themselves out from the portholes on to the blackening water, that swished and washed past the sides with a sound of desolation; to the landward an uncoiled serpent glittered out into the water and then seemed to cover itself in a grey veil of darkness as the Oriana passed the pier of some little watering-place. ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... induction coils are generally bothered by the vibrator contacts blackening, thus giving a high resistance contact, whenever there is any connection made at all. This trouble may be done away with by departing from the old single-contact vibrator and using one with self-cleaning contacts as shown. An old bell magnet is rewound full of No. 26 double cotton-covered ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... plastered, but not quite. In plastered walls the process was carried a step farther, and the surface was finished by the application of a final coat of mud made quite liquid. The interior plastering of kivas was always much more carefully done than that of any other walls. Owing to blackening by smoke and recoating, the thickness of the plastering in kivas can be easily made out. Often it is ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff

... itself was now nothing more than a tangled heap of twisted metal. In its shattered crystal compartment was a torn blob of swiftly blackening gelatin—all that remained of Layroh, the Shining One. Other shredded figures of dead flesh marked where the ten half-awakened slugs had died in the wreckage of the ...
— The Cavern of the Shining Ones • Hal K. Wells

... looked at the blackening lips and the little form convulsed in its death struggle, and could ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... clay, while the waters covered the earth, it was impossible to obtain. We had therefore to light our fire, as before, on the thick branch, on which it had as yet made no impression, beyond burning off the bark and blackening it. As soon as our platform was finished we moved on to it, though Kallolo and Sambo preferred sleeping among the boughs. I was very glad to get so comparatively comfortable a place for poor Marian; whose health, however, notwithstanding ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston

... over fields still ghostly and foot-worn, under a sky where ragged clouds unfurl themselves upon the blackening expanse—which seems to have befouled itself by prolonged contact with so many ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... for impure acetylene gas is made by placing a drop of ten per cent solution of silver nitrate on a white blotter and holding the paper in a stream of gas coming from the torch tip. Blackening of the paper in a short length ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly

... faced Stonewall Jackson. He had come upon them silently, out from the screen of blackening cedars. Now he blocked their path, his lips iron, his eyes a mere gleaming line. "Two squabblers rolling in the snow—two staff officers brawling before a disheartened army! What have you ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... swept he, and the blackening host behind. As when from sea a storm-cloud sweeps to shore, The weather breaking, and the trembling hind Foresees afar the ruin and the roar, The shattered orchards, and the crops no more, While, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... firearms may be due to accident, homicide, or suicide. Blackening of the wound, singeing of the hair, scorching of the skin and clothing, show that the weapon was fired at close quarters, whilst blackening of the hand points to suicide. Even when the weapon is fired ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson

... in a voice which sounded like mine, but was not mine, told her—told her the truth, which sounded so like a lie. Some one, myself, yet not myself, went on, cruelly, blackening all the sweet blue sky for her. Some one—I suppose it was myself, late free—felt the damp of an iron yoke upon ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... second Place, a Man should consult his own Heart, whether he be not apt to believe such little blackening Accounts, and more enclined to be credulous on the uncharitable, than on ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... Blackening of the teeth is a semi-magical procedure. A mixture of tan-bark and iron salts is twice applied to the teeth, and is allowed to remain several hours; but, in order to obtain the desired result, it is necessary ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole

... extras in?" he would presently inquire. "She's a tough one, from here on to the next stop. You got a hind tire here that ain't goin' to last yuh five miles up the road." He would kick the tire whose character he was blackening. "Better lay in a supply of blow-out patches, unless you're a mind to invest in a new casing." Very often he would sell a tire or two, complete with new tubes, ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... trained just for this. It called to him and him alone. The greatest struggle of history; a death-struggle of sore-pressed Freedom against hideous Oppression was shaking the earth, and the smoke of the conflict was blackening the heavens—and through it all Gavin Grant remained at peace in his home! Every old Belgian woman of whom he read, driven from her ruined home, was Auntie Elspie. Every Belgian girl, suffering unspeakable wrong, was Christina. And they ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith

... not from its poisonous qualities, but because it was used at one time for blackening the eyes ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... Ripton looking about, as if to aid himself whenever he was able to speak the truth, beheld Richard's face blackening at him, and swallowed back ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... same kind are required, it is advisable to make these patterns of iron, which will not be liable to warp or twist while the loam is being dried. Before the iron is cast into the mould, the interior of the mould must be covered with finely powdered charcoal—or blackening, as it is technically termed; and the secret of making finely skinned castings lies in using plenty of blackening. In loam and dry sand castings the charcoal should be mixed with thick clay water, and applied ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... Grace's assistance, he examined the articles in the women's suitcases, testing the backs of hairbrushes, the contents of powder boxes, the interior of a cake of soap, a bottle of shoe blackening, but the search was as unproductive of results as before. Duvall was forced, against his will, to the conclusion that the woman had made away with the seal, rather than run the risk of its being ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks

... in various places, but declined going down the Cento Camerelle to have a second face-blackening. All the ruins, said to be of Caesar's and Marius's Villas, Agrippina's Tomb, Caligula's Bridge, &c., may be anything; they are nothing but shapeless fragments, only on a rock I saw a bit of marble or stucco in what they call Caesar's Villa. The Stygian Lake presented ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... the canoes, was one boy to whom we had taught a little English. He and the Doctor between them managed to make themselves understood to the Bag-jagderags. This people, with the terrible parrots still blackening the hills about their stone town, waiting for the word to descend and attack, were, we found, in ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... twentieth of August, everywhere in woods and swamps, we are reminded of the fall, both by the richly spotted Sarsaparilla-leaves and Brakes, and the withering and blackened Skunk-Cabbage and Hellebore, and, by the river-side, the already blackening Pontederia. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... was truly dreadful, even to the oldest fighter present, to see the strong rush of red blood that curvated about his neck, until it gurgled, gurgled, gurgled, and lappered, and bubbled out, ending in small red spouts, blackening and blackening, as they became fainter and more faint. At this criticality, every eye was turned from the corpse to the murderer; but he had been instantly struck down, and a female, with a large stone in her apron, stood over him, her arms ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... drunken slumbers, would be more like to assail you with their hatchets than to weep for your sorrows? Know, fair Edith, that you are now in their hands;—that there is not one of them, who would not rather see those golden tresses hung blackening in the smoke from the rafters of his wigwam, than floating over the brows they adorn—Look aloft: there are ringlets of young and fair, the innocent and tender, swinging above you!—Learn, moreover, that from these dangerous friends there is none who can ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... in the sunshine, All her lovely vines, sweets-laden, bowed; Yet some weeks to harvest and to vintage: When, as one man's hand, a cloud Rose and spread, and, blackening, burst asunder In rain ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... school companions, had an upsetting effect upon her. The long, gloomy neck of hallway depressed her and she voiced bitterly a secret aversion of Lilly's for the single bathroom with the ugly wooden floor and shallow bathtub. "Dump" she called the little flat, her brilliant blue gaze blackening up. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... the wide ocean of life anew. There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart Listeth, will sail; Nor does he know how there prevail, Despotic on life's sea, Trade winds that cross it from eternity. Awhile he holds some false way, undebarred By thwarting signs, and braves The freshening wind and blackening waves. And then the tempest strikes him, and between The lightning bursts is seen Only a driving wreck, And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck With anguished face and flying hair, Grasping the rudder hard, Still bent to make some port he ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... later years by Kobad, and the sect of the Mazdakites, which, despite that persecution, was still strong and vigorous, were the first to experience the oppressive weight of his resentment; and the corpses of a hundred thousand martyrs blackening upon gibbets proved the determination of the new monarch to make his will law, whatever the consequences. In a similar spirit the hesitation of Mebodes to obey instantaneously an order sent him by ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... prisoner, where'er his heart Listeth, will sail; Nor doth he know how these prevail, Despotic on that sea, 55 Trade-winds which cross it from eternity. Awhile he holds some false way, undebarr'd By thwarting signs, and braves The freshening wind and blackening waves And then the tempest strikes him; and between 60 The lightning-bursts is seen Only a driving wreck. And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck With anguished face and flying hair, Grasping the rudder hard, 65 Still bent to make some port he knows not where, Still standing for some false, ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... door opened softly and his executive clerk reappeared with a soft tread, unheard by Westerling engaged in mechanically blackening the tens. The clerk, pausing as he waited for a signal of recognition, observed the process wonderingly. To be absently making figures on a pad was not characteristic of the vice-chief of staff. When he was absorbed ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... coast the well skilled pilot drew, But ere the orphan's eyes had lost the sail Portending danger, screeching sea gulls wail, In wild confusion left the angry wave For distant Staffa's high basaltic cave, Big heaved the flood, and loud the billows roar In blackening heaps screened Morvem's distant shore; High blew the winds, and quick the lightning's flash And gilded hailstones fell with many a crash. The story ran from sire to sire. That Heaven itself was filled with living fire; Of them no more is told, no more is known, That ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various

... leaves, fair Freedom's flower, Shall ever float on dome and tower, To all their heavenly colors true, In blackening frost or crimson dew,— And God love us as we love thee, Thrice holy Flower of Liberty! Then hail the banner of the free, The starry Flower ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... rays of the solar spectrum, it will be found that no effect is produced upon it by the least refrangible rays which occasion heat without light; that a slight discoloration only will be produced by the red rays; that the effect of blackening will be greater towards the violet end of the spectrum; and that in a space beyond the violet, where there is no sensible heat or light, the chemical effect will be very distinct. There seem to be rays, therefore, more refrangible than the rays ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... the streets; here and there one noticed them digging in it, after trophies which they had stumbled on. One wondered about this, as also about the swarms of flies which hung about the scene, literally blackening the air, and the strange, fetid odor which assailed one's nostrils, a ghastly odor, of all the dead things of the universe. It impelled the visitor to questions and then the residents would explain, quietly, that all this was "made" land, and that it had been "made" ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... 1792, what between milliners, dressmakers, flower girls, fancy toy sellers, perfumers, hawkers of jewellery, purse and gaiter makers, etc., I had myself assumed twenty different characters, besides that of a drummer boy, sometimes blackening my face to enter the palace unnoticed, and often holding conversations analogous to the sentiments of the wretches who were piercing my heart with the remarks circumstances compelled me to encourage. Indeed, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... new voice was borne From herb nor thicket. Many a werst, Panting as if his heart would burst. The weary brute still stagger'd on: And still we were—or seem'd—alone. At length, while reeling on our way. Methought I heard a courser neigh, From out yon tuft of blackening firs. Is it the wind those branches stirs? No, no! from out the forest prance A trampling troop; I see them come! In one vast squadron they advance! I strove to cry—my lips were dumb. The steeds rush on in plunging pride; But where are they ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... vital course." Richardson, a more modern man perhaps, reads "public Health." His emendation, however, improves Hill's metaphor concerning a blaze which is a pilot pointing out the source of public wealth, which is drunk to prevent gangrene from blackening to the bone. Further reflection led Richardson a year later ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson

... a fresh and bright morning of early autumn, the sheaves were on the acres, and the grapes were blackening to the vintage, and the beasts and birds at least were merry. But little merry were the husbandmen whom they met, either carles or queans, and they were scantily and foully clad, and ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... the men got a few hours of much-needed rest, such as it was, for they had slept but two hours in the past forty-eight. The fight was over; the enemy was gone. The sun that rose on the morning of the 11th, shone brightly over as beautiful a valley as the eye of man ever beheld, and the blackening corpses that lay strewn upon the field were the only remaining evidences of the bloody tragedy that had ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields

... having broken my top in an unlucky leap, was sitting in impatient bustle, lapping the fracture, and lamenting my ill fortune, as ever and anon I would raise my eyes and see the fresh curl running past my feet; when I perceived by the sudden blackening of the water, and by an ominous but indescribable sensation of the air, that something unusual was brewing overhead. I looked up: there it was, a cloud, low-hung and lurid, and stretching across the whole northern side of the horizon. I had scarce time to gather my clews and bobbins into a ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... On one occasion, the water rose in a splendid column above fifty feet high, the spray sparkling like diamonds in the sun; then the large fragments of the wreck came floating to the surface; soon after the mud from the bottom, blackening the circle of water, and spreading to a great distance around; and with it rose to the surface great numbers of fish, who, poor things, had found a hiding-place in the wreck, but were dislodged and killed by ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park

... crisping like a log, and as powerless to move. The dense, black smoke hangs over her like a pall, but prostrate as she is, it cannot sink low enough to suffocate and end her agony. How the bared bosom heaves! how the tortured limbs writhe, and the blackening cuticle emits a nauseous steam! The black blood oozing from her nostrils proclaims how terrible the inward struggle. The whole frame bends and shrinks, and warps like a fragment of leather thrown into ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... he added, his face blackening into the hue of his natural temper, "was always a poor, weak-minded woman. She was foolish, madam, and indiscreet, and has made you wicked—trained you up to hypocrisy, falsehood, and disobedience. Yes, madam, and in every instance where you go contrary to my will, you act upon her principles. ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... response, and Jean rushed off to the place where Private Lapoulle, egged on by his comrades, was industriously trying to fan the refractory fuel into a blaze; flat on his stomach before the pile of blackening, spluttering wood, his face resembling an underdone beefsteak, the warrior was now propelling dense clouds of smoke horizontally along ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... who was constantly coming here, who ate our bread, slept in our beds, and shot our game. Then it was, 'My dear Jacques,' and 'My dear Boiscoran' always, and no end of compliments and caresses; so that I often thought one of these days I should find him blackening my master's boots. Ah! he took his revenge yesterday; and you ought to have seen with what an air he said to master, 'We are friends no longer.' The rascal! No, we are friends no longer; and, if God was just, you ought to have all the shot in your body that has wounded ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... interest to procure for him the grant of a pension from the king; when Rousseau provisionally refused the pension rather than owe anything to Hume, the latter, still ignorant of the suspicion that was blackening in Rousseau's mind, supposed that the refusal came from the fact of the pension being kept private, and at once took measures with the minister to procure the removal of the condition of privacy. Besides undeniable acts ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... See if they are warm and faithful." Quick the young lads from the village Brought the fire upon the birch-bark, Brought it on the tips of pine-wood; And the fire and smoke commingled Roll and roar about the hero, Blackening the suitor's visage, And the hostess speaks as follows; "Bring the fire upon a taper, On the waxen tapers bring it!" Then the maidens did as bidden, Quickly brought the lighted tapers, Made the suitor's eyeballs ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... release, hasten to the House of Worship, Religion being invoked to sanction the rejoicing of the fathers. Plain was the village-church, a structure of darkened wood, Having doors on three sides, and flanked by sheds for the horses, Guiltless of blackening stove-pipe, or the smouldering fires of the furnace. Assaulted oft were its windows, by the sonorous North-Western, Making organ-pipes in the forest, for its shrill improvisations Patient of cold, sate the people, each household in its own square pew, Palisaded above the heads of the children, ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... pool on the top, which, when turned, falls into the fire and is lost; the action of the heat, if turned quickly, seals the pores and the gravy remains in the meat. If the fire is not very clear, put a cover over the meat on the gridiron, it will prevent its blackening or burning—if the article is thick I always do so—and it is an especially good plan with birds or chickens, which are apt to be raw at the joints unless this is done; indeed, with the latter, I think it a good way to put them in a hot oven ten minutes before ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen

... window, where the flicker of the flame was reflected through the smoke that was now pouring out and blackening the old woodwork, a glimpse of a child's face had been seen, and Raspall was already in the roadway wringing his hands and calling for ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer

... wavered; it might have been serious. But the rest clung doggedly to their position under cover; the officers brought the flurried men up to the bit again. The mountain guns turned vengeful towards the spot whence the fire came, and in a few minutes there was another spreading, blackening ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens

... The heron, high over houseless moors, seems at dusk fearful in her laborious flight, and weariedly gathers her long wings on the tree-top, as if thankful that day is done, and night again ready with its rest. "The blackening trains o' craws to their repose" is an image that affects the heart of "mortal man who liveth here by toil," through sympathy with creatures partaking with him a common lot. The swallow, for ever ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... words, she lifted the sleeve a little on her left arm, by a half-instinctive and half-voluntary movement. The glimmering gold of Judith Pride's bracelet flashed out the yellow gleam which has been the reddening of so many hands and the blackening of so, many souls since that innocent sin-breeder was first picked up in the land of Havilah. There came a sudden light into her eye, such as Bathsheba had never seen there before. It looked to her as if Myrtle were saying ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... destroyed with the mud, and it was the only pair she had to her name. So what does Mr Lepel do but let drive straight from the shoulder at the offender, and in a minute the shoes and the lady were out of the kennel and the bargeman lying there as snug as snug, and the oaths he let out of him blackening the air like a flight of crows. So Mr Lepel, smiling with set lips like a picture, ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... called the attention of the others to the prospects for rain. Indeed, as soon as the first curtain fell, some of Jack's crew took note of the significant fact, and they could be seen looking up at the blackening heavens. There had been very few times in the past when those boys had hoped it would rain. Perhaps, when they were kept home from a picnic—for reasons—some of them may have secretly wished the clouds would let down a little flood, so that ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... they had gathered all the nudu flowers they desired, and then little Tarita looking up saw that the sky was overcast and blackening, and presently some heavy drops ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... them were new ones built by the Boers since they degenerated into white savages: mere huts, with domed kitchens behind them. In the dwelling-house the whole family pigged together, with raw flesh drying on the rafters, stinking skins in a corner, parasitical vermin of all sorts blackening the floor, and particularly a small, biting, and odoriferous tortoise, compared with which the insect a London washerwoman brings into your house in her basket, is a stroke with a feather—and all this ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... clear that the law assists in blackening reputations even in the grave, I claim that other Miss Brownes who take advantage of life, and time by the forelock to put up monuments in the sufficiently hideous thoroughfares should be pronounced ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... devotional mood was interrupted by sudden thought and sensation of Owen's presence; she was forced to look up, and convinced that he was very near her, she sought him amid the crowd of people who sat and knelt in front of her, blackening the dusk, a vague darkness in which she could at first distinguish nothing but an occasional white plume and a bald head. But her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and above the uninteresting backs of middle-aged ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... with Europeans—almost a light bluish grey. The women seem to have wonderful control over the muscles of the eyelids and brows, which render the eyes dangerously expressive. The habit of artificially blackening the under lid with Surmah, too, adds, to no mean extent, to the luminosity and vivid power of the eyes in contrast to the alabaster-like, really beautiful skin of ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... lullabys to restless babies crooning in their cribs. Now and then a sudden gust of wind shook the yellow berries from the china trees, that bordered the pavements, and very soon the moonshine faded, then flashed fitfully, and finally vanished, as the blackening cloud swept over the face of earth and sky. The watchman dozed on his post of observation; a porter slept on a baggage truck under the awning, and as Beryl peeped into the telegraph office, she heard the snoring of the operator, whose head rested upon the table close to the silent ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... are blackening, the storms threatening, And ever the forest maketh a moan: Billows are breaking, the damsel's heart aching, Thus by herself she singeth alone, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... wanders slow, Like parting friends that linger as they go. The willows, as its waters meekly glide, Bend their dishevelled tresses to the tide, And seem to give it, with a moaning sigh, A farewell touch of tearful sympathy. Each dusky copse is clad in darkest green: A blackening mass, just edged with silver sheen From yon clear moon, who in her glassy face Seems to reflect the risings of the place. For on her still, pale orb, the eye may see Dim spots of shadowy brown, like distant ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake

... a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, Cramming all the blast before it, ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... the door, and tried to open it: Christophe made no reply. Anxiously Braun looked through the keyhole and was reassured when he saw Christophe lying half over the table surrounded with paper which he was blackening with ink. ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... falling, I asked them loudly, 'Where, ye celestials, are those wise ones amongst whom I am to fall?' They pointed out to me this sacred sacrificial region belonging to you. Beholding the curls of smoke blackening the atmosphere and smelling the perfume of clarified butter poured incessantly upon fire, and guided thereby, I am approaching this region of yours, glad at heart that I ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... privilege of shaving his head and chin; hairdressers who made, curled, and put on his black or blue wigs and adjusted the diadems to them; there were manicurists who pared and polished his nails, perfumers who prepared the scented oils and pomades for the anointing of his body, the kohl for blackening his eyelids, the rouge for spreading on his lips and cheeks. His wardrobe required a whole troop of shoemakers, belt-makers, and tailors, some of whom had the care of stuffs in the piece, others presided over the body-linen, while others took charge of his garments, comprising ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... April rains began to soften the March snow crusts and the spring flood sounded its first murmur under the blackening ice of Tomah, the Latisan logs were ready to be rolled ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... satisfaction the roofs of Montegnac in the distance. At the entrance of the village was one of those curious post-relays which are seen only in the remote parts of France. Its sign was an oak board on which some pretentious postilion had carved the words, Pauste o chevos, blackening the letters with ink, and then nailing the board by its four corners above the door of a wretched stable in which there were no horses. The door, which was nearly always open, had a plank laid on the soil for its threshold, to protect the stable floor, which was lower than the road, from ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... and load the air with their delicate fragrance. To-night—who knows?—grim winter may fling the first fleet-winged detachment of his advance across the land, by every roadside and into every garden-close; and to-morrow there will be but blackening ruins and burned bivouacs where the thousand camps of summer planted their green and ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell

... maidens they saw Mucius Scaevola, whose hand fastened over a fire to a tripod filled the amphitheatre with the odor of burnt flesh; but this man, like the real Scaevola, remained without a groan, his eyes raised and the murmur of prayer on his blackening lips. When he had expired and his body was dragged to the spoliarium, the usual midday interlude followed. Caesar with the vestals and the Augustians left the amphitheatre, and withdrew to an immense scarlet tent erected purposely; in this was prepared for him and the guests a magnificent prandium. ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... it was sometimes late autumn, so that the boys could have some use for the caves they dug at the top of the bank, with a hole coming through the turf, to let out the smoke of the fires they built inside. They had the joy of choking and blackening over these flues, and they intended to live on corn and potatoes borrowed from the household stores of the boy whose house was nearest. They never got so far as to parch the corn or to bake the potatoes in their caves, but there was the fire, and the ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells

... be to Allah! is a great merchant,' said the uncle ironically: 'his silks and velvets are now on their way to bring us lambskins from Bokhara; his shawls are travelling to us from Cashmere, and his ships are blackening the surface of the ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... you will be able to recognize it. That may be prevented by spraying, but it is, fortunately, not a serious disease. The northern nut grower will not have so much trouble with that, as it is a southern disease. Here is a physiological trouble that causes blackening of the young nuts on the inside. It appears to me to be due mainly to wet weather, but I don't know its exact nature. It came primarily on a pecan raised in the semi-arid section of Texas and brought into South Carolina, and by the way you can get as much ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various

... defend the absent, wronged child; My hopes and aims were high, albeit my choice Was fixed on one who felt not for my wild And wayward nature; one who never smiled On imperfection. From my home of light Unscathed, I see life's blackening billows piled, Ready to sweep the daring soul from sight, Sinking his name and ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... favourite resort of the people, but in winter it is desolate enough. From the top of it one has a view not only of the whole straggling, grimy town, but of the winding valley beneath, with its scattered mines and factories blackening the snow on each side of it, and of the wooded and white-capped ranges ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... said one thing, and another said another. The innkeeper's old mother maintained that it shone just as calmly and brightly as the stars of heaven. The magistrate, who had sad eyes, thought it excellent because it didn't smoke, and you could burn it right in the middle of the hall without blackening the walls in the least, to which father replied that it was, in fact, meant for the hall, but did capitally for the dwelling room as well, and one had no need now to dash hither and thither with parea, for all could now ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various

... and in a few days a negro was placed beside him, and here they swung, "blind and blackening," in the April air, in full view of the tranquil bay, a ghastly spectacle to the fishermen as they plied their vocation near by. For three weeks they dangled here in sunshine and storm, a terror to the passers-by. At length a rumor passed through the town ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley

... of ten thousand gongs: above him undulated the silken folds of the Black Dragon, while a vast fire rose bickering before him. Also Tchin-King saw that the tongues of that fire were licking human bones, and that skulls of men lay blackening among the ashes. Yet he was not afraid to look upon the fire, nor into the eyes of Hi-lie; but drawing from his bosom the roll of perfumed yellow silk upon which the words of the Emperor were written, and kissing it, he made ready to read, while the multitude ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn

... paint, and decorates his head with feathers, his neck with bear's claws, and his feat with gaudily-stained porcupine's quills? What of your black barbarian, whose daily life is a succession of unspeakable abominations, and who embellishes it by blackening his teeth, tattooing his skin, and wearing a huge ring in the gristle of his nose? Either of them will give up his daily food, and run the risk of starvation, for a glass bead or a brass button. This desire for ornament is plainly, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... family, at the time of the greater conflagration referred to by M'Leod, were all lying ill of fever, who had to carry two of his sick children on his back a distance of twenty-five miles. We have heard of the famished people blackening the shores, like the crew of some vessel wrecked on an inhospitable coast, that they might sustain life by the shell-fish and sea-weed laid bare by the ebb. Many of their allotments, especially on the western coast, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... could not have agreed with theirs. Madame d'Epinay knew the truth; she knew that Rousseau's conduct had been honourable and wise; and so she had described it in her book; until, falling completely under the influence of Grimm and Diderot, she had allowed herself to become the instrument for blackening the reputation of her old friend. Mrs. Macdonald paints a lurid picture of the conspirators at work—of Diderot penning his false and malignant instructions, of Madame d'Epinay's half-unwilling hand putting the last ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... bodies several factors are concerned. The first and simplest is the one illustrated at every fire-side by the rapid blackening of little cinders which fall into the ashes, in contrast with the long-continued redness of big lumps. This factor is the relation between increase of surface and increase of content: surfaces, in similar bodies, increasing ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... like a brave man, showing no fear of the loneliness and silence. As he grew older these periods of solitary fasting were increased in length, and now, at eighteen, several boys in the Wyandot village had reached the last blackening and fasting. The black paint was spread over the neophyte's face, and he was led by his father far from the village to a solitary cabin or tent, where he was left without weapons or food. It was known from his previous fasting about how ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler

... strength of Hawkhurst had enabled him to bear down the body of his opponent with his knee, and he was fast strangling him by twisting his handkerchief round his throat, while Clara shrieked, and attempted in vain to tear the pirate from him. As the prostrate Francisco was fast blackening into a corpse, and the maiden screamed for pity, and became frantic in her efforts for his rescue, the boat dashed high up on the sand; and, with the bound of a maddened tiger, Edward sprang upon Hawkhurst, tearing him down on his back, and severing his wrist ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... wot 'twill be, mates," he said solemnly and slowly. "You mark my wurrds ef it dawn't cum truthy too,—there'll be terble loss uv li-ife out there tu-night," and he waved his hand towards the blackening sea, "an' us'll hev tu dig a fuu more graves, I ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... steadied the yards and furled it. They would then have rigged preventer-stays and shrouds on their shaky spars, had there been time; but there was not. An uncanny appearance of the sea to leeward indicated too close proximity to the shoals, while a blackening of the sky to windward told of probable increase of wind and sea. And the steamer waited no longer. With a preliminary blast of her whistle, she hung the weight of the ship on the starboard bridle, gave power to ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... the world around had become very dusky and silent and the flash veined a rapidly blackening west. ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers



Words linked to "Blackening" :   darkening, obfuscation, change of color



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