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Scan   /skæn/   Listen
Scan

verb
(past & past part. scanned; pres. part. scanning)
1.
Examine minutely or intensely.
2.
Examine hastily.  Synonyms: glance over, rake, run down, skim.
3.
Make a wide, sweeping search of.
4.
Conform to a metrical pattern.
5.
Move a light beam over; in electronics, to reproduce an image.
6.
Read metrically.
7.
Obtain data from magnetic tapes.  Synonym: read.



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"Scan" Quotes from Famous Books



... beasts of burden, after measuring with their eyes the space necessary to let their load pass between the trunks of the trees, leap from one rock to another. Afraid of missing their mark, we saw them stop a few minutes to scan the ground, and bring together their four feet like wild goats. If the animal does not reach the nearest block of stone, he sinks half his depth into the soft ochreous clay, that fills up the interstices of the rock. When the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... balls, And her proud ephemerals, Fast to surface and outside, Scan the profile of the sphere; Knew they what that signified, ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... of life will perhaps never be understood in its casual aspect by the finite mind of man. The 'why' and 'wherefore' and the 'how' of it is only to be understood by that All-wise intelligence which can scan the future as well as the present, and see the far far-reaching ramifications of those schemes of final development to which the manifestation of ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... in this same room. This was the great event of the season to many families throughout this State. Parents came from all quarters; the elite of Troy and Albany assembled here. Principals from other schools, distinguished legislators, and clergymen all came to hear girls scan Latin verse, solve problems in Euclid, and read their own compositions in a promiscuous assemblage. A long line of teachers anxiously waited the calling of their classes, and over all, our queenly Madame Willard presided with royal grace and dignity. Two hundred girls in gala ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... ceased to affray The dust of Kyoto, Ah yet, what phantom blooms a-sway Murmur, a-loft, a-low, In dells no scythe of death can mow, No power of reason scan, O, what Samurai singers know ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... greetings were going on between Bracebridge and his relatives, I had time to scan the apartment. I have called it a hall, for so it had certainly been in old times, and the Squire had evidently endeavoured to restore it to something of its primitive state. Over the heavy projecting fireplace was suspended a picture ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving

... thou scan aright Dreams and visions of the night? Wouldst thou future secrets learn And the fate of dreams discern? Wouldst thou ope the Curtain dark And thy future fortune mark? Try the mystic page, and read What the ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland

... in his pocket, found a folded paper, and pushed it out through the camel's mouth. Holding it upside down Jumbo pretended to scan it earnestly. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... likened to an astronomical telescope, which is able to scan the heavens, but is useless for things close at hand. To some extent this is true of Wagner, but less so than with most, and not in the sense in which it has been often asserted. The attacks which have been made ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight

... slowly as far as Union Square and then sat down on one of the park benches to rest. Nearly all the benches were filled with people and in idle curiosity Dick began to scan the various types of men present, from bright, brisk clerks to fat and unshaved ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer

... great First Cause," Creator, King, and Lord, The worm that breathed at Thy commanding word, And dies whene'er Thou wilt, presumptuous man, Has dared the mazes of Thy path to scan; Guided by reason's powerless rays alone, Would pierce the veil ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney

... glimpse of them, however, was to be seen, so she climbed to a higher spot, whence she could get a fuller view of the mountain as it sloped beneath her to the valley, while, with ever-increasing anxiety on her face and in her movements, she continued to scan the surrounding slopes. Meanwhile the children were climbing up by a far and roundabout way, for Peter knew many spots where all kinds of good food, in the shape of shrubs and plants, grew for his goats, and he was in the habit of leading ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... minutes they gracefully deprecate themselves in the eyes of the Lord, then, taking their seats, coquettishly arrange the immense bows of their bonnet-strings, scan the assembly through a gold eyeglass, with the little finger turning up; finally, while smoothing down the satin folds of a dress difficult to keep in place, they scatter, right and left, charming little recognitions and delightful ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... mechanical counting of syllables; the variation in the number of accented and unaccented syllables is the secret of the verse." And he quotes from Herder on the Volkslieder: "songs of the people ... songs which often do not scan ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... the manifest exaggeration of these charges we must part company, for though you may have been culpable only of indiscretion, we cannot afford to be identified with doubtful transactions;" and the Opposition, eager not to lose its vantage, would scan with equal keenness the acts of its own members. With party government the electorate would not have appeared to condone those scandals. But as it was, when a deputy involved in them went down before his constituents, whose local interest he had well served, with no ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth

... eyes searching the shadows, as though half frightened at finding herself in such dismal surroundings. The girl's face appeared white and drawn in that twilight. Sam advanced cautiously from off the log to the shore, and began to anxiously scan the ground, beating back and forth through the underbrush. After watching him a moment my gaze settled on the strange boat, and I crept along the log curious to examine it more closely. It had the appearance ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... reply. He could not endure the idea of receiving it where Margaret's eyes could scan the emotion he could now only conceal by a visible rigidity of demeanour, and he daily went himself to the post-office, but in vain. He received nothing but business letters, and among them one from Markham, with as much defiance and dislike ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... this generation; to note the impetus thereby given to Christianity; to con the facts surrounding the cradle of this grand verity—that the sick are healed and sinners saved, not by matter, but by Mind; and to scan further the features of the vast problem of eternal life, as expressed in the absolute power of Truth and the actual bliss of man's existence ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy

... parson confuses them with spirituality. There are two powerful societies in England employing this deadly combination—the "Anti-Socialist Union" and the "Liberty and Property Defense League." If you scan the lists of the organizers, directors and subsidizers of these satanic institutions, you find Tory politicians and landlords, prominent members of the higher clergy, and large-scale dealers in drunkenness. I attended in London a meeting called ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... while the slight figure of the inventor puttered about the interior of the sphere, brightly lit by a detachable searchlight, inspecting all mechanisms in preparation for their descent. Sue stood by the door watching him, now and then turning to scan the desert for ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... Rivington said nothing. There was not much expression in his eyes. Without seeming to scan very closely, they rested on ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... periscope Commander McClure was noting the death struggle of the German cruiser, when Executive Officer Cleary, swinging the reserve periscope around to scan the horizon aft the Dewey, ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll

... were approved, others entirely rejected, still others partly admitted to be right and partly repudiated; and whereas the Confutation was a somewhat lengthy document: therefore the Electors, princes, and cities deemed it necessary to scan these articles more closely, the more so, because many writings were adduced in them that made it necessary to show to what intent, and if at all they were rightly quoted, and accordingly requested the Emperor, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... quite as much astonished as the rest; and he hurried out to scan the offing. However, he could not see anything, and thought the man must have been asleep at his post and dreaming. "Do you know what you are saying?" he called out to the look-out. "Where away is this sail, ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... mote, Which vexed the eastern azure of his eye, Out of his vision; and stared down again. Yet stood the youth there, ruddy in the flare Of his vast shield, nor spake, nor quailed, gazed up, As one might scan a mountain to be scaled. Then, as it were, a voice unearthly still Cried in the cavern of his bristling ear, "His name is Death!" ... And, like the flush That dyes Sahara to its lifeless verge, His brows' bright brass flamed into sudden crimson; And his great spear leapt upward, lightning-like, ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare

... somewhat to narrow, a hill rising from the continuous expanse of marshes from its mouth, easily defended on the east and west by those fortified posts which, in subsequent times, became the Tower of London and Barnard's Castle, and if we scan a map of France, we shall see that the group of islands on and around which Paris now stands, lies in the fruitful basin of the Seine, known as the Isle de France, near the convergence of three rivers; for on the east the Marne, ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... a word, every sort of fur and skin which men adopted for their covering. One of the department officials saw the dead man with his own eyes, and immediately recognised in him Akaky Akakiyevich. This, however, inspired him with such terror, that he ran off with all his might, and therefore did not scan the dead man closely, but only saw how the latter threatened him from afar with his finger. Constant complaints poured in from all quarters, that the backs and shoulders, not only of titular but even of court councillors, were exposed to the danger of a cold, on ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... just the time at which we drink our afternoon coffee in Germany," said he, looking at me with his impenetrably bright eyes, just as if he had never heard me. "When the ladies all meet together to talk scan—O, behuete! What am I saying?—to consult seriously upon important topics, you know. There are some low-minded persons who call the whole ceremony a Klatsch—Kaffeeklatsch. I am sure you and I shall talk seriously upon important subjects, so suppose we call this our Kaffeeklatsch, although ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill

... certainly not more, than Tennysonian. Homer, in the Laureate's few fragments of experiment, is still a poet, but he is not Homer. Mr. Morris, and Avia, make him Icelandic, and archaistic, and hard to scan, though vigorous in his fetters for all that. Bohn makes him a crib; and of other translators in prose it has been said, with a humour which one of them appreciates, that they render Homer into a likeness of the Book ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... seemed to scan the prospect before him now far more eagerly than before; but the wreck, which was, as O'Shea said, deserted, seemed to be the only external object in all that gleaming waste. They passed on, drawing up for a minute near her at the boy's instigation, ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... here liberty links, nee frankfurters, and some liberty cabbage which before the Kaiser went nutty was knowed as sauerkraut. They ain't no use callin' off all the other little trinkets I got to help make the table look tasty, especially as Mister Hoover is liable to scan this and I don't wanna get myself in wrong, but when I got through shoppin' I didn't have enough change left out of a five-case note to stake myself to a ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer

... communicator, however much they broke down afterwards. But it must be admitted that it is very discomposing and makes one sceptical of messages until they are tested. Of a kin with these false influences are all the Miltons who cannot scan, and Shelleys who cannot rhyme, and Shakespeares who cannot think, and all the other absurd impersonations which make our cause ridiculous. They are, I think, deliberate frauds, either from this side or from the other, but to say ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle

... you take one side of the room, and Corporal Terry the other. Scan the floor for any ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... the Andromeda was pacing the bridge with the slow alertness of responsibility. He would walk from port to starboard, glance forrard and aft, peer at the wide crescent of the starlit sea, stroll back to port, and again scan ship and horizon. Sometimes he halted in front of the binnacle lamp to make certain that the man at the wheel was keeping the course, South 15 West, set by Captain Coke shortly before midnight. His ears listened mechanically to the ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... taught still to mistrust mine eyes, Still to approach each object of surprise, Lest fancy's formful vision should deceive In moonlight paths, or glooms of falling eve, 'Tis then's the moment when my mind should try To scan the motionless deformity; But oh, the fearful task!—yet well I know An aged ash, with many a spreading bough, (Beneath whose leaves I've found a summer's bow'r, Beneath whose trunk I've weather'd many a show'r) Stands singly down this solitary way, But ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor

... myriad's sun; But were I not Diogenes, I'd wander Rather a worm than such an Alexander! Be slaves who will, the cynic shall be free; 480 His tub hath tougher walls than Sinope:[en] Still will he hold his lantern up to scan The face of monarchs ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... reputation now. Most of them are pervaded by a brooding spirit of melancholy of the 'moping' rather than the 'musical' sort, and consequently rather ineffective as an artistic motive. Students of Shelley occasionally scan those pages with a view to pick some obscure 'hints and indirections', some veiled reminiscences, in the stories of the adventures and misfortunes of The Last Man or Lodore. And the books may be good biography at ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley

... her window. Even Carry had slipped away unnoticed; and her abrupt entrance with the damp evening paper in her hand roused Mrs. Tretherick, and brought her back to an active realization of the present. For Mrs. Tretherick was wont to scan the advertisements in the faint hope of finding some avenue of employment—she knew not what—open to her needs; and Carry had ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... he was not tense, even during the countdown. The only change was that at the word "Two" his right forefinger came to rest upon a red button and his eyes doubled their rate of scan. If anything in his department had gone wrong, the Procyon's departure ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith

... Tug at the kite, 'twill only soar the higher: Give it but line, my lord, 'twill drop like slate. Use but that eagle's glance, whose daring foresight In chapter, camp, and council, wins the wonder Of timid trucklers—Scan results and outcomes— The scale is heavy in your ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley

... thin, too bright, for those to hear Who listen with an eager ear, Or course about and seek to spy, Within an hour, eternity. First must the spirit cast aside This world's and next his own poor pride And learn the universe to scan More as a flower, less as a man. Then shall he hear the lonely dead Sing and the stars sing overhead, And every spray upon the heath, And larks above and ants beneath; The stream shall take him in her arms; Blue skies shall rest him in their ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various

... "her eyes have just that cast:" Is he a dwarf like Sisyphus? his sire Calls him "sweet pet," and would not have him higher, Gives Varus' name to knock-kneed boys, and dubs His club-foot youngster Scaurus, king of clubs. E'en so let us our neighbours' frailties scan: A friend is close; call him a careful man: Another's vain and fond of boasting; say, He talks in an engaging, friendly way: A third is a barbarian, rude and free; Straightforward and courageous let him be: A fourth is apt to break into a flame; An ardent spirit—make ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... once against an Amazon, who by trickery managed to escape from him. However, Sorab kept hoping the time would come when he and his father would meet face to face, and, whenever a fray was about to take place, he always bade his companions scan the ranks of the foe to make sure that ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... lord, I would I might entreat your honour To scan this thing no further; leave it to time: Though it be fit that Cassio have his place,— For sure he fills it up with great ability,— Yet, if you please to hold him off awhile, You shall by that perceive him and his means: Note if your lady strain his ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare

... upsetting it as they did so. Alan seized an oar, and he and Sandy together got the boat out of sight behind a bend in the shore. Here they hid among the bushes on the bank until they saw the man appear at the landing-place, scan the lake carefully, and then go back into the woods, calling the dog to go with him. Even then they were afraid to stir for they did not know whether he had gone back to camp or was stalking about among the trees searching ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... the world to come time is not measured out by months and years. Neither is it here. The soul's life has seasons of its own; periods not found in any calendar, times that years and months will not scan, but which are as deftly and sharply cut off from one another as the smoothly-arranged years which the earth's motion ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner

... Professor and apologized to him shufflingly and rapidly, incoherently, and with a red face; which induced Mrs. Mountstuart to scan Laetitia's. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... watchful, alert. He saw the other's eyes scan the letterpress. Then he saw them revert again ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... studied the pirate, who was loafing along in an aimless fashion, stopping every few steps to scan ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore

... a bugaboo, FLEISCHHAUER demonstrated several images derived from a scan of a preservation microfilm that AM had made. He awarded a grade of C at best, perhaps a C minus or a C plus, for how well it worked out. Indeed, the matter of learning if other people had better ideas about scanning in general, ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly

... Law, who, at the last great day, would demand of her an account of every neglect of duty, every idle word and thought, and especially of the manner in which she had taught her children to obey his commandments. She seemed to scan her life continually to find some sin in the past, for which she had not specifically repented, and, at times, as I knew by the confidences of my later years, when she would appeal to me for my opinion, the problem of the unpardonable sin ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... Visitors all are physicians of fame; And success we may, therefore, dead certainty name. To the delicate nervous, who'd wish a snug spot, A romantic temple, or moss-cover'd grot, Let them haste to John Ebers, and look at the plan; Where the grave-book lies open, its merits to scan. Gloves, hatbands, and essence of onions for crying, White 'kerchiefs and snuff, and a cordial worth trying, The attendants have ready; and more—as time presses, No objection to bury you in fancy dresses. Our last proposition may frighten ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... concern the general welfare. While performing his constitutional duty in this respect, the President does not speak merely to express personal convictions, but as the executive minister of the Government, enabled by his position and called upon by his official obligations to scan with an impartial eye the interests of the whole and of every part ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce

... himself, often leads him precociously into the realm of song. Emerson has said, "Every word was once a poem," and Andrew Lang, in his facetious Ballade of Primitive Man, credits our Aryan ancestors with speaking not in prose, but "in a strain that would scan." In the statement of the philosopher there is a good nugget of truth, and just a few grains of it in the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... around. The air was sad; but sadder still It fell on Marmion's ear, And plained as if disgrace and ill, And shameful death, were near. He drew his mantle past his face, Between it and the band, And rested with his head a space Reclining on his hand. His thoughts I scan not; but I ween, That, could their import have been seen, The meanest groom in all the hall, That e'er tied courser to a stall, Would scarce have wished to be their prey, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... upon my shivering baby, scan the little pallid face, Mark the forehead, eyes of azure—Ha! you do the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... lines to be scanned?" Ans.—On internal evidence, we question whether the lines are MILTON's. In the absence of our Poet, who is out for a holiday, we can only reply, that if shortsighted, you can scan them by the aid of a powerful glass—of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various

... blood ran into her cheeks, and she looked a suffering so acute that Raven got up and walked through the room to the window. It seemed an indecency to scan the anguished page ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... "Scan the opening glories of the West, Her boundless prairies and her thousand streams, The swarming millions who will crowd her breast, 'Mid scenes enchanting as a poet's dreams: And then bethink you of your own ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... afterwards fear them: their supernatural vitality has vanished. I fancy my pretty Alice to be in this state now. She leaves us to-morrow. In the autumn we shall have her with us again, and Louise will scan her compassionately. I desire that they should meet. It will be hardly fair to the English girl, but, if I stand in the gap between them, I shall summon up no small quantity of dormant compatriotic feeling. The contemplation of the contrast, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... even in the greatest crowds. Now hypochondriacal fancies began to torment me, as if I attracted the attention of the people, as if their eyes were turned on my demeanor, to fix it on their memories, to scan and to find fault. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band, By forms unfashion'd, fresh from Nature's hand; Fierce in their native hardiness of soul, 331 True to imagin'd right, above control, While e'en the peasant boasts these rights to scan, And learns to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... possibly be the culmination and consummation of our relations with the nature of things? Can they possibly form a result to which our godlike powers of insight shall be judged merely subservient? Such an idea, if we scan it closely, soon begins to seem rather absurd. Whence this piece of matter comes and whither that one goes, what difference ought that to make to the nature of things, except so far as with the comings and the goings our wonderful inward conscious ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... the shouts of the truculent envoy, by the blows at the door that cause the whole house to tremble. He, too, must go down and parley. But yet, as he listens, his eyes are not fixed on this bringer of evil tidings; his glance will at times be lifted over the messenger's shoulder, will scan the dust on the horizon in search of the mighty idea that perhaps may be near at hand. And indeed, when our thoughts rest on fate, at such times as happiness enfolds us, we feel that no great misfortune can be suddenly ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... [325-1] Then gently scan your brother man, Still gentler sister woman; Though they may gang a kennin' wrang, To step ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... the heavens' dew. Near to a little island's point they grew; Whence Calidore might have the goodliest view Of this sweet spot of earth. The bowery shore Went off in gentle windings to the hoar And light blue mountains: but no breathing man With a warm heart, and eye prepared to scan Nature's clear beauty, could pass lightly by Objects that look'd out so invitingly On either side. These, gentle Calidore Greeted, as he had known ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats

... We will but very lightly scan Times The customs known as 'Georgian'; The times of powdered Belles and Beaux; Patches, paint and furbelows; Of beauteous maids and gallants gay And merry routs at Ranelagh; Gaming parties, cards or pool And 'Fops' of ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison

... perorating on his platform mere benevolences, seems a pleasant object to many persons; a harmless or insignificant one to almost all. Look at him, however; scan him till you discern the nature of him, he is not pleasant, but ugly and perilous. That beautiful speech of his takes captive every long ear, and kindles into quasi-sacred enthusiasm the minds of not a few; but it is quite in the teeth of the everlasting facts of this Universe, and will come only ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... able to scan the habits and life of a man Who shall rue his iniquities soon! not long shall that little baboon, That Cleigenes shifty and small, the wickedest bathman of all Who are lords of the earth—which is brought from the isle of Cimolus, and wrought With nitre and lye into soap— Not long shall he vex ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes

... and at study That ankle white I span, Its sandal slim, its lacings trim,— A fay I seem to scan. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest. Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man. The same ambition can destroy or save, And makes a patriot as it makes a knave. Honor and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honor lies. Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... twisted back and forth, a very devil's cantrip, upon my way. Then a smirr of rain came at my back and chilled me to the marrow, though the sweat of travail a moment before had been on every part of me, and even dripping in beads from my chin. At length I lifted my eyes from the ground that I had to scan most carefully in my running, and behold! I was swathed in a dense mist that cut off every view of the world within ten yards of where I stood. This cruel experience dashed me more than any other misadventure in all my wanderings, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... along the bottom of the trench. The light stretched over and bridged him, leaving him in a stream of deep shadow, protected by the breastwork from sentinels above. He could therefore lift a cautious eye at the back of the trench, and scan the group now moving betwixt him and the river. There were seven persons, only one of whom strode the stones with reckless feet. This man's hands were tied behind his back, and a rope was noosed around his neck and held at the other end ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... Tippoo Sahib sleeps Heeds not the cry of man; The faith that Tippoo Sahib keeps No judge on earth may scan; He is the lord of whom ye hold Spirit and sense and limb, Fetter and chain are all ye gain Who dared to plead ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt

... O Goddess, wear, Thy milder influence impart, Thy philosophic train be there To soften, not to wound my heart. The generous spark extinct revive, Teach me to love and to forgive, Exact my own defects to scan, What others are to feel, and ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... to scan the sky. "Pretty dark for the Boches to be out," he remarked. "First night out we were chased by one of 'em in a machine, but we got in all right. That's why we run without lights now, and make the crew use flashlights instead of lanterns. Right over there"—pointing ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces

... disguises. I shall go to Marvillier's to-morrow—fortunate man, Marvillier—and ask him to supply me with a really good 'tec, who will stop in the house and keep an eye upon every living soul that comes near me. He shall scan each nose, each eye, each wig, each whisker. He shall be my watchful half, my unsleeping self; it shall be his business to suspect all living men, all breathing women. The Archbishop of Canterbury shall not escape for a moment his watchful regard; he will take care ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... me in another country; or perhaps some thought of my own had come and gone unnoticed, and yet done me good. For some thoughts, which sure would be the most beautiful, vanish before we can rightly scan their features; as though a god, travelling by our green highways, should but ope the door, give one smiling look into the house, and go again for ever. Was it Apollo, or Mercury, or Love with folded wings? Who shall say? But we go the lighter about our business, and feel peace and pleasure ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... scan his face for some sign of sincerity, and found herself for the first time wishing that she might find it and have reason to distrust her own dislike of him. But he was sitting sideways, with his head turned away from her, and she could ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... simmered, fat capons roasted; the smell brought the tears to my eyes. A concourse of people was about: gentles and burghers seated at table, or passing in and out; waiters running back and forth from the fires, drawers from the cabaret. I paused to scan the throng, jostled by one and another, before I descried my master and my knave. M. Etienne, the prompter at the rendezvous, had, like a philosopher, ordered dinner, but he had deserted it now and stood with Peyrot, their ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... console thyself:—past moments scan; When thou hast rested here a thousand years, Thou'lt then ascend amid the Heav'nly spheres; But first in holy purgatory learn, To cleanse thyself from sins that we discern; One day thy soul shall ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... thing native to that extensive country, and six feet three or four inches in height. It was amusing to notice the sensation he created as he strode through the different apartments. As he approached, the clatter of both tongues and stones ceased, and hundreds of eyes would be upraised to scan his towering proportions. They have pretty black eyes, those Tagalo girls, and exuberant crops of jet black hair too; but it is coarse, and freely anointed with that pungent unguent, cocoanut oil! "Mira! El Gigante!" would be ejaculated ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... over-matched in every line of human endeavor by Asia and Africa. Run the gamut, if you will, and let us have the Europeans who in sober truth over-match Nefertari, Mohammed, Rameses and Askia, Confucius, Buddha, and Jesus Christ. If we could scan the calendar of thousands of lesser men, in like comparison, the result would be the same; but we cannot do this because of the deliberately educated ignorance of white schools by which they remember Napoleon ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... screamed, this time less with a thought of calling for help than as a protest against the fate awaiting him. To his surprise he heard an answering shout and a second later saw Ted Turner dash through the pines, pause on the shore, and scan the stream. Another instant and the boy had thrown off his coat and shoes and was in the water, swimming toward the boat ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... well could scan, Which way his Fortune led him: I have got what he lost, I am gay while he's cross'd, So adieu to good ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]

... "Then gently scan thy brother man, Still gentler sister woman, Though they may gang a keenin' wrang, To step ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... man of war's men, might be seen making towards the town, with one or more officers astern, whose glittering epaulettes announced them as either diners out, or amateurs of the opera. The scene to Delme was entirely novel; although it had previously been his lot to scan ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... fondly linger On thy soft and pearly skin; Scan each round and rosy finger, Drinking draughts of ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... so, as her presence never brought comfort with it. The little boy continued to grow apace, and it seemed to the fond mother that he became dearer to her every day. He was the sole light and joy of her life, and in him were bound up all her hopes for the future. Of late she had ceased to scan his features in the hope of tracing there some resemblance of his absent father. Since her visit to Amity street, that fond illusion had wholly departed, never to return. She had ceased even to speak to ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... ship, and his crew. There was but little time for words, so the compliments passed were brief. The ample plates in the sides of the Finance, inspiring confidence in American thoroughness and build, we had hardly time to scan, when her shrill whistle said "good-bye," and moving proudly on, the great ship was soon out of sight, while the little boat, filling away on the starboard tack, sailed on toward home, perfumed with the interchange ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... one of the Bay of Naples," observed Blair, pausing to scan the rocky coastline against which, far beneath them, the foaming breakers threw themselves. He shaded his eyes with his hand and looked far out to sea. "What a wonderful place for a watch tower it would ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr

... silent half-breed stepped forward and without another word the two began to scan the walls, the floors, the heaps of rotted rock, the loose and tumbled boulders, not yet decomposed, that lined the cut ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... hotter, my enthusiasm waned. A painful void developed in my chest. My breakfast had been ample, but no mere stomachful of food could carry a growing boy through five hours of desperate toil. Along about a quarter to ten, I began to scan the field with anxious eye, longing to see Harriet and the promised ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... in life are different; and were I to scan your motives and career with the scrutinizing eyes of friendship, it might only serve to separate us yet more. I am sick of the great juggle of ambition, and I have no sympathy left for those who creep into the pint-bottle, or ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... garden level. The great decorated surface had remained consistently impenetrable and inscrutable. At present, however, to her considering mind, it was as if she had ceased merely to circle and to scan the elevation, ceased so vaguely, so quite helplessly to stare and wonder: she had caught herself distinctly in the act of pausing, then in that of lingering, and finally in that of stepping unprecedentedly near. The thing ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... hardly dared scan the faces of those directors in the flesh, but they were all scanning him. He stood at the end of the table and fastened his eyes on a railway map that bedecked the opposite wall, one of those mendacious ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... hue Beheld our image painted: stedfastly I therefore pored upon the view. As one, Who versed in geometric lore, would fain Measure the circle; and, though pondering long And deeply, that beginning, which he needs, Finds not: e'en such was I, intent to scan The novel wonder, and trace out the form, How to the circle fitted, and therein How placed: but the flight was not for my wing: Had not a flash darted athwart my mind, And, in the spleen, unfolded what is sought. ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock

... characteristic of themselves, these streets, when, as often to be seen, there is no soul along them but a sad drab that is an itinerant singer that drifts along wailing, at every few paces shuffling her body in complete turns to scan the windows she has passed and the immediate windows on either hand. She has no home and these are not homes to which she wails. There is no flicker of life at any window. She's a sad drab, repulsive within; ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson

... before he can take possession of the inheritance, but who finds the handwriting of the deeds so fading and evanescent that it threatens to disappear entirely before he can read the document to the end. With what keen attention, what eager haste, would he not scan the fast-vanishing characters? With the like attention and the like haste civilised men are now applying themselves to the investigation ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... no reason for any such fear. Burke had vowed he would stick to Shirley, and he also stuck to the wheel all night, with Burdette or the sailing-master by his side. And there was not an hour when somebody, either a mariner or a clergyman, did not scan the deck of the Dunkery ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... did not see half the display, for the immense series of gorgeous halls, lighted by seventy thousand candles, with fountains and flowers at every turn, made one giddy to see even for a moment. We had a good opportunity to scan the features of the emperors, the King of Prussia and the renowned Bismarck, with those of the beautiful empress and the princesses and princes and other distinguished persons ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... most receptive spirit should begin his study by betaking himself on a clear, moonless evening, when he has no earthly concern to disturb the serenity of his thoughts, to some point where he can lie on his back on bench or roof, and scan the whole vault of heaven at one view. He can do this with the greatest pleasure and profit in late summer or autumn—winter would do equally well were it possible for the mind to rise so far above bodily conditions that the question of temperature should not ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb

... face. By the touch of my hand an eye was slightly opened; it seemed to scan me with that pale stare, with that cold, that terrible look which corpses have, a look which seems to come from the beyond. I plaited up, as well as I could, her disheveled hair, and I adjusted on her forehead a novel and singularly ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... upon this I played. Presently, as his eye fell, "Is your business with me, Monsieur de Bardelys?" he asked, and at that utterance of my name there was a commotion on the steps, whilst the Vicomte started, and his eyes frowned upon me, and the Vicomtesse looked up suddenly to scan me with a fresh interest. She beheld at last in the flesh the gentleman who had played so notorious a part, ten years ago, in that scandal connected with the Duchesse de Bourgogne, of which she never tired of reciting the details. And think that she had sat ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... "Thank God!" was the murmured answer no man heard. "Now, lads, be ready!" was the ringing word that roused the little troop, like bugle call "To Arms." And even as eager faces lifted over the low parapets to scan the distant foe, fresh signals came flashing down from the northward ridge, fresh bands of warriors came darting to join the martial throng about the still wrangling chieftains, and then, all on a sudden, with mighty yelling and shrill commotion, ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... inhabitants drove a brisk trade in shirts and blankets, guns and powder, hard bread and bacon, wagons and live stock. Petty commerce busies itself with the art of gain rather than with the labor of reform. Indian and emigrant traders did not too closely scan their sources of profit. The precepts of the divine and the penalties of the human law sat lightly upon them. As yet many of these frontier towns were small hamlets, without even a pretext of police regulations. ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... always in trouble's hour Be guided by the men in power; For God and country I must live, 15 My best for God and country give; No act of mine that men may scan Must ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... "Forgive the guilty wretch, whose impious hand "From thy pure altar flings the flaming brand, 110 "In human blood that hallow'd altar steeps, "Libation dire! while groaning nature weeps— "The limits of thy mercy dares to scan, "The object of thy love, his victim,—Man; "While yet I linger, lo, the suff'rer dies— 115 "I see his frame convuls'd—I hear his sighs— "Whoe'er controuls the purpose of my heart "First in this breast shall ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams

... the velocity forty miles an hour. The banks on each side of the stream were red-hot, jagged and overhanging. As we viewed it rushing out from under its ebon counterpane, and in the twinkling of an eye diving again into its fiery den, it seemed to say, 'Stand off! Scan me not! I am God's messenger. A work to ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... but who could expect a mark of any kind on the ground after nearly forty years? No. Unless Mr. Marmaduke Cromarty had marked his hiding-place with a stone or iron plate, it would probably never be found by his heirs. Search in the house was equally unsatisfactory. What availed it to scan a wall or a bedstead that had been scrutinised for years by eager, anxious eyes? And then Patty set her wits to work. She tried to think where an erratic old gentleman would secrete his wealth. And she was forced to admit that the most natural place was in the ground on his estate, ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells

... I remember this scanning was a liberal art that we learn'd at Grammar School, and to scan verses as he does the Author's prose before we did or were obliged to ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... to each touch of hand upon steering-gear, the aeromotor swung smoothly around, sailing on even keel right into the teeth of the gentle wind, by this time near enough to that body of water for the air-voyagers to scan its surface: a considerable expanse, all told, yet by no means of such magnitude ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... while waiting at the upper mill for a grist, or of nights at the shop by the light of the forge fire. The paradigms were committed to memory with an anvil accompaniment; and long after, he never could scan a line of Homer, especially ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various



Words linked to "Scan" :   image, construe, see, examine, poetry, poesy, A-scan ultrasonography, scrutiny, recite, misread, displace, move, glass, B-scan ultrasonography, interpret, rake, icon, examination, verse, picture, conform, ikon, search, declaim



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