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Semicircular   /sˌɛmisˈərkjələr/  /sˌɛmaɪsˈərkjələr/  /sˌɛməsˈərkjələr/   Listen
Semicircular

adjective
1.
Curved into a half circle.



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"Semicircular" Quotes from Famous Books



... Rangers were proceeding through a dense thicket, with Putnam's Provincials in front, they ran into an ambush which the wary Marin, the French partizan fighter, had prepared, by posting his men in a semicircular position across the trail. Suddenly the air was rent with yells and reports of firearms, and several Provincials fell in their tracks. Putnam, taken unawares, yet as always cool and collected, gave orders to return the fire, ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober

... then he circled back again toward the clearing, evidently to the great delight of the Wieroos, who now followed more leisurely, awaiting the moment when they should be beyond the trees and able to use their wings. They had opened into semicircular formation now with the evident intention of cutting the two off from returning into the wood. Each Wieroo advanced with his curved blade ready in his hand, each ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... body. On a small tree immediately south we marked "MK, 21st Oct., 61." Immediately this was over we questioned the native further on the subject of his death. He says he was killed by a stroke from what the natives call a sword (an instrument of semicircular form, five to eight feet long, and very formidable). He showed us where the whites had been attacked when encamped. We saw lots of fish-bones, but no evidence there on the trees to suppose whites had been there. They had certainly ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills

... were copies of the Roman basilica,—a civil building oblong in shape, sometimes with and sometimes without rows of columns dividing the nave from the aisles: at one end, there was usually a semicircular apse. Most of the churches of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were built after this style. Then changes were introduced, which in some measure paved the way for the Gothic, the peculiar type of mediaeval architecture. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... louder as he pushed his way through the trees, and a moment later he narrowly escaped plunging into the waters of the shimmering little bay. The coast was semicircular in shape, rising high and black to his left, running low and green to his right. Not one hundred feet to the left were the first signs of the rocky promontory, small, jagged boulders standing like ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon

... was of a classic ideal, realized in the trained vines and clipped trees which formed the coulisses. There was a grassy space for the chorus and the commoner audience, and then a few semicircular gradines cut in the turf, one alcove another, where the more honored spectators sat. Behind the seats were plinths bearing the busts of Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and Herder. It was all very pretty, and if ever the weather in Weimar was dry enough to permit ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... of the rococo style which Rastrelli so persistently served up at the close of the eighteenth century, is that of the Counts Stroganoff, at the lower quay of the Moika. The Moika (literally, Washing) River is the last of the semicircular, concentric canals which intersect the Nevsky and its two radiating companion Prospekts, and impart to that portion of the city which is situated on the (comparative) mainland a resemblance to an outspread fan, whose palm-piece is formed by the ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... small plain Perp. building with square W. tower surmounted by a short pyramidal spire. It is somewhat quaint, but contains nothing of interest except an altar made out of an ancient settle. Over the doorway is a semicircular stone bearing a curious Latin inscription, said to be not later than 1200 A.D. It is supposed to have belonged either to an earlier building or to some dismantled church in the neighbourhood. Below the church is Farleigh ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade

... his immediate direction, was fitted up in handsome style as a court, and laid out into apartments for the senators, the House of Representatives, the managers, the accused and counsel, the members of the executive departments, besides a semicircular gallery constructed within the area of the chamber, which formed from its front an amphitheatre contiguous with the fixed gallery of ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... lofty arch supported by two colossal columns. The apsis is eighty feet in breadth. All parts of the church—one of the largest of Rome—are decorated with mosaics. It has two small transepts at the extremity of the nave, on each side of the apsis. The four rows of magnificent columns, supporting semicircular arches, are Corinthian. In this church the Greek and Roman architecture predominates. The essential form of the church is like a Pagan basilica. We see convenience, but neither splendor nor poetry. Moreover it is cheerful. It has an altar and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... iron fence. Within, an old woman is trimming the ivy overspreading a grave, and there are eight or ten other mounds, all ivy or flower covered, and with low headstones. At the west end of the enclosure is a semicircular stone platform, with a stone seat skirting the circumference. From the centre rises a lofty shaft of polished granite, bearing on its summit a statue of Hope, by Thorwaldsen. On the pedestal are the names of William ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton

... head-rests, has led me to design one which I think may serve others as well as myself; and I therefore will describe it as well as I can without diagrams, for the benefit of the readers of "N. & Q." It is fixed to the ordinary shifting upright piece of wood which in the ordinary rest carries the semicircular brass against which the head rests. It is simply a large oval ring of brass, about an inch and a half broad, and sloping inwards, which of the following size I find fits the back of the head of all persons from young children upwards:—five ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. • Various

... are planted round Leipzig. I took a walk into the Rosenthal (Valley of Roses), which also consists of splendid avenues and lawns. A pretty coffee-house, with a very handsome alcove, built in a semicircular form, invites the weary traveller to rest and refreshment, while a band of agreeable music diffuses mirth and good ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... playfulness came into her face and she sprang backward, giving the sword a semicircular turn with her wrist. The blade sent forth a keen hiss as it cut the air close, very close to Rene's nose. He jerked his head and ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... hill was the highest of several semicircular ridges whose forms may perhaps be better understood by the accompanying plan.* There was a remarkable analogy in the form and position of all these hills; the form being usually that of a curve, concentric with the lake, and the ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... clear a dark shape gripped his arm. "This way," said this shape, urging him along, and pointed Graham across the flat roof in the direction of a dim semicircular haze of light. ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... before. Now take a smooth oval rubbing-board about twelve inches long, five round, and about an inch thick in the middle, and scrub the skin heartily with this instrument. On its lower surface it should be cuts in grooves, semicircular in shape, half an inch wide, and one inch apart. During scrubbing use plenty of pure water to remove filth. In about half an hour the pinkish-white colour will disappear, and the skin will appear white, with a blackish tinge underneath. This is the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... uniform all over the body, with spinules on the projecting edges, making the skin rough; lateral line with a semicircular curve above ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... had been felled, and no branches cut since the night before, and the axes remained where they had been hung. The demon had not wanted them, it seemed, and there was no fear of intruding upon him now. So the two young men set to work to raise a semicircular range of turf seats in the pleasantest part of the shady grove. The central seat, which was raised above the rest, and had a footstool, was well cushioned with dry and soft moss, and the rough bark was cut from the trunk of ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau

... on our western rivers. The town site is beautifully situated on the first and second banks of the river—the former of which is above ordinary high water, and the latter gently rises sixty or seventy feet higher, and spreads out into a semicircular plain, surrounded ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... a Flamboyant ossuary or mortuary chapel, dated 1581, richly gabled, in perfect preservation, and of two storeys. The first consists of semicircular arches supported by small pillars with Corinthian capitals. A short staircase within leads to a crypt converted into a small chapel, in which is an entombment formed of life-size figures carved in wood, gilded and painted, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various

... a long curtain of luminous mist around the whole northern horizon. Another similar light then appeared in the south-east, and although it was not yet connected with the first, it also seemed to be extending itself laterally, and in a moment the two luminous curtains united, forming a great semicircular band of pale, bluish-white radiance around the heavens, like a celestial equator belting a vast universe of stars. I could form, as yet, no conjecture as to the cause or nature of this strange phenomenon which looked and behaved like an aurora, but which seemed to rise out of ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... bearing on with my eyes; I went over the soil inch by inch with my eyes, but to no purpose. There was no mark on the gray and brown earth at my feet that suggested a trap-door, or any other device. I stooped low, but without avail. Then my guide stooped, and with a long needle pried up a semicircular or almost circular bit of the gray soil nearly the size of a silver quarter of a dollar, which hinged on the straight side of it, and behold—the entrance to the spider's castle! I was not prepared for anything so novel and artistic—a ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... and at length halted and peered with his little blue eyes at a small house (one of twins) on the other side from where he stood. That house, at any rate, was unchanged. It was a two-storeyed house, with a semicircular fanlight over a warped door of grained panelling. The blind of the window to the left of the door was irradiated ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... the room a low wall was raised three or four feet from the floor. It was capped with rude carvings. The whole mass gleamed dully golden in the bright light. Beyond the wall in semicircular formation, resembling a grouping of bronze statues, were men like the one with whom Rawson had fought. Priests, tenders of the fires. He knew in an instant that here were more of the red one's holy men. They stood erect, unmoving. At their ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin

... of Burgundy, either by Hans Hemling, or a painter not inferior to him. Here the Virgin is crowned by the Trinity. She kneels, with an air of majestic humility, and hands meekly folded on her bosom, attired in simple blue drapery, before a semicircular throne, on which are seated the Father and the Son, between them, with outspread wings, touching their mouths, the Holy Dove. The Father a venerable figure, wears the triple tiara, and holds the sceptre; Christ, with an expression ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson

... The great semicircular range of mountains which has hitherto resisted all attempts to penetrate into the interior country behind Port Jackson, appears to terminate at Point Bass in latitude about 34.43; and the land behind Jervis Bay is represented to be low and flat. It is, therefore, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... sia qualche cosa. He sat on the right hand with the gonfalonier in two purple fauteuils. Opposite was a throne of crimson damask, with the device of the Academy, the Gelati; and trimmings of gold. Here sat at a table, in black, the head of' the academy, between the orator and the first poet At two semicircular tables on either hand sat three poets and three; silent among many candles. The chief made a little introduction, the orator a long Italian vile harangue. Then the chief, the poet, and the poets,-who were a Franciscan, an Olivetan, an old ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... been fitted up with a few simple gymnastic contrivances, and formed a capital place where the boys might amuse themselves in fine weather. Down they sat, and for a few moments were so busy trying who could take the biggest semicircular bite out of a slice of bread and butter that nobody spoke a word. At last Freddy ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks, Part First - Being the First Book • Sarah L Barrow

... they have a public garden; even more immature than that of Lucera, but testifying to greater taste. Its situation, covering a forlorn semicircular tract of ground about the old Anjou castle, is a priori a good one. But when the trees are fully grown, it will be impossible to see this fine ruin save at quite close quarters—just ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... unusual articles commanded from Moscow: one, more expensive than all the others, brought in a coffin-like box from France; the transferrence of all his paraphernalia of work into the outer room; and behold the fane of Ivan's new goddess!—a semicircular chamber hung in deep violet; in the centre of the jut a low, circular pedestal, draped in black, and flanked on either side by two high church candlesticks of wrought silver, containing painted candles kept always alight, the windowless room containing, beside these, only one, silver lamp ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... is a semicircular bay, about four miles in diameter, on the gulf coast of Baja California at 28 deg. 55' N. and 113 deg. 30' W. (map 1). On the northwest it is open to the waters of he Gulf of California and to the Canal de las Ballenas, ...
— A Burial Cave in Baja California - The Palmer Collection, 1887 • William C. Massey

... glided into his arm-chair, which stood behind a semicircular table, immediately under the portrait of Charles V., and his five ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... the Acropolis, on the S.E. is a small temple of the late imperial age, consisting of a semicircular cella with a peristyle of eight Corinthian columns, supporting a projecting entablature. The cella is decorated without with a frieze, and within with pillars and arcading. This temple owes its preservation to its use as a church of St Barbara, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... Meredith's irreproachable Duvidney ladies. In one of these well-ordered houses must they have lived and sighed over Victor's tangled life—surrounded by laurels and laburnum; the lawn either cut yesterday or to be cut to-day; the semicircular drive a miracle of gravel unalloyed; a pan of water for Tasso beside the dazzling step. Receding a hundred years, the same author peoples Tunbridge Wells again, for it was here, in its ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... one, ornament goes no farther, and all the architectural effects are the fruit of bold design. Such, for instance, is the great west window—not mullioned, but divided by long massive stone shafts into seven arched compartments; such, too, is the low-browed doorway beneath, with its heavy semicircular arch. The upper tier of windows—here called storm windows, perhaps as a corruption of dormer—are the plain, unmoulded arch, such as one sometimes sees it in unadorned buildings of the earlier Norman period. Indeed, ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various

... shape, and about nine hundred yards across, at its greatest diameter. It was defended by a broad rampart, strengthened by thirty semicircular bastions and five outworks. The two gates, one at each end, were also protected by outworks. In the fort stood the splendid palace built by Tippoo. Here also were immense foundries of cannon, factories for muskets, the arsenal, ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... supplied by a broad sheet of limp leather with wide margins far overlapping the edges; many of the pages were quite gone, and others torn by careless handling. The abridgment of Roman history had been scorched by a forest fire, and the charred edges of the leaves had dropped away in semicircular holes. Yet, by pondering over these, Felix had, as it were, reconstructed much of the knowledge which was the common (and therefore unvalued) possession of all when ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies

... force in charge of Mr. Flint, Christy and Amblen walked towards the battery, crouching behind such objects as they could find that would conceal them in whole or in part. The earthwork was semicircular in form, and was hardly more than a rifle pit. No sentinel could be discovered, and getting down upon the sand, the two officers crept cautiously towards the heaps of ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic

... occupies the semicircular sweep over the whole door. The extended picture here is the "first landing of the Spaniards at ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... lofty mountain-ranges. Every terminal moraine, such as I described in the last article, is the retreating footprint of some glacier, as it slowly yielded its possession of the plain, and betook itself to the mountains; wherever we find one of these ancient semicircular walls of unusual size, there we may be sure the glacier resolutely set its icy foot, disputing the ground inch by inch, while heat and cold strove for the mastery. There may have been a succession of cold summers, or, if now and then a warmer summer intervened, a colder one followed, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... 'Calamity.' As Calamity grew to maturity, he was found to be as sluggish in disposition as his master was impetuous; so my father was driven to invent his patent Tantalus, which consisted of a small sieve of corn, suspended on a semicircular bar of iron, from the ends of the shafts, just beyond the horse's nose. The corn, rattling as the vehicle proceeded, stimulated Calamity to unwonted exertions; and under the hope of overtaking this imaginary feed, he did more work than all the previous provender which ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... largely from the fact that the gaunt west front is the only view one really has of the building except from a distance. Inside, services seem to go on at most times of the day, and when you are quietly looking at the mighty nave with its plain, semicircular arches and massive piers, you are suddenly startled by the entry from somewhere of a procession of priests loudly singing some awe-inspiring chant, the guttural tones of the singers echoing through the aisles. Following the clerical party will come a rabble of nuns, children ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home

... square of Yonville. The town-hall, constructed "from the designs of a Paris architect," is a sort of Greek temple that forms the corner next to the chemist's shop. On the ground floor are three Ionic columns, and on the first floor is a semicircular gallery, while the dome that crowns it is occupied by a Gallic cock, resting one foot upon the "Charte" and holding in the other the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... built, is the passage from the Baltic to the Maeler Lake, and in the middle of it is the Island of Helgeandsholm, or Holy Ghost's Island, with two bridges connecting it with either side. On it are the king's stables, and a semicircular garden, improved as a cafe, with a handsome face wall on the ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... where it is broken, is of the same shape and is also larger outside than inside; therefore, if this separate portion were to fall inwards the larger would have to pass through the smaller—which is impossible. Hence it is evident that the portion of the semicircular wall when disunited from the main wall will be thrust outwards, and not inwards as ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... set to work to collect the snow, which did not lay more than three inches thick on the ice. We first made it into cakes, about four times the size of an ordinary brick, and then piled them up in a semicircular form, the convex side being turned to the wind. Over the top we spread a boat's sail, which was kept down by lumps of snow being placed on the top of it. The canvas was also allowed to hang over a couple of lances lashed together in front, so that we had a very tolerable shelter. The snow ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... of sea which we were traversing—named after the aboriginal Caribs who ruled over its domain lang syne, and hedged in from the Atlantic Ocean by the semicircular group of the Lesser Antilles, or "Windward Islands" of the West Indies—presents great difficulties to the navigators of sailing ships; as, while the wind throughout its extent blows almost constantly in one direction, a series of cross currents set ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Sibyl is indubitably very beautiful, but the beauty-in-itself in my dream was simply a semicircular ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... Bernelinus continues, the board is divided into thirty vertical columns, three of which are reserved for fractions. Beginning with the units columns, each set of {122} three columns (lineae is the word which Bernelinus uses) is grouped together by a semicircular arc placed above them, while a smaller arc is placed over the units column and another joins the tens and hundreds columns. Thus arose the designation arcus pictagore[482] or sometimes simply arcus.[483] The operations ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith

... Sisters of the Holy Cross in Paris. Magnificent trees. On the left the house: broad steps on to which open several doors. An enormous plane tree in the middle of the stage, standing alone. On the right, among big boxwood trees, a semicircular ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand

... like man and wife, Coupled together for the sake of strife. His action's always strong, but sometimes such, That candour must declare he acts too much. Why must impatience fall three paces back? Why paces three return to the attack? 1010 Why is the right leg, too, forbid to stir, Unless in motion semicircular? Why must the hero with the Nailor[79] vie, And hurl the close-clench'd fist at nose or eye? In Royal John, with Philip angry grown, I thought he would have knock'd poor Davies down. Inhuman tyrant! was it not a shame To fright a king so harmless ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... hilly country near Rochepot, the road to Chalons passes along a dead flat, cheerful from its richness, but rather monotonous. To the right, we looked back upon a semicircular range of well wooded hills, in front of which, on an eminence, stands a stately old chateau belonging to the Count de Rouilly. It answers very much to the beau ideal of what a French chateau ought to be, but seldom is. I say "ought to be," premising that ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes

... and archeresses were now drawn up on the flags under the semicircular piazza just before Mrs. Yearsley's library. A little band of children, who had been mustered by Lady Diana Sweepstakes' spirited exertions, closed the procession. They were now all in readiness. The drummer only waited for ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... into which they were introduced. Some of them seem to have been employed as a kind of decoration in relief upon the brick walls; others, and those the most numerous, appear to have been used in the principal entrances to buildings. Upon one face a semicircular hollow or socket may be noticed, in which the foot of the bronze pivots, or rather the pivot shod and faced with bronze, upon which the heavy timber doors and their casings of metal were hung, had to turn. The marks of the consequent friction are still ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... wonderful rock, but a little west of the narrowest part of the strait. It had a temple of the Tyrian Hercules, said to have been older than that at Gades;[5154] and its coins have Phoenician legends.[5155] The town was situated on a promontory running out to the north-east at the extremity of a semicircular bay about four miles in width, and thus possessed a harbour not to be despised, especially on such a coast. The country around was at once beautiful and fertile, dotted over with palms, and well calculated for the growth of fruit and vegetables. The Atlas mountains ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... prevent the sobs from escaping. Mr. Carey sat down in his arm-chair and began to turn over the pages of a book. Philip stood at the window. The vicarage was set back from the highroad to Tercanbury, and from the dining-room one saw a semicircular strip of lawn and then as far as the horizon green fields. Sheep were grazing in them. The sky was forlorn and gray. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... near by, the hinds are reaping a crop of wheat which was late in ripening.[*] The workers are bending with semicircular sickles over their hot task; yet they form a merry, noisy crowd, full of homely "harvest songs," nominally in honor of Demeter, the Earth Mother, but ranging upon every conceivable rustic topic. Some laborers are cutting the grain, others, walking behind, are binding into sheaves and piling ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... altar. The Emperor and Empress were to occupy them during the first part of the ceremony. The grand throne was at the other end of the church, with its back against the great door, which was thus closed. This great throne stood on a large semicircular platform, and was reached by twenty-four steps. It stood under a canopy in the shape of a triumphal arch, upheld by eight columns, and it overlooked the whole church. The Emperor and the Empress were not to ascend this throne till ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... these forbidding cliffs I steered to fetch a compass about the island, and so presently opened a bay of white sand with tree-clad cliffs beyond, and before a sheet of placid water or lagoon shut off from the sea by a semicircular barrier-reef, such as Adam had described in ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... making a semicircular barricade round me of my four quartern-loaves, my two pounds of fresh butter, and eleven of my bottles of porter, for I was just about to knock the head off the twelfth (who, under such circumstances, could have waited for ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... police courts, noted the efforts that had been made to create resemblance to those models of administration. The justices of the peace, hastily convoked and four in number, sat on the platform, with a semicircular backing of high gray screens and a green baize barrier in front of them, so that their legs and feet were quite invisible. In this way had been preserved the really essential feature of all human justice—at whose feet it is well known one must not look! Their ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... The boys thronging into the great school-room, took their places according to their respective forms. The masters in their caps and gowns were all seated on a small semicircular bench at the upper end of the room, and in the centre of them, before a small table, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... leave his own house. Realities began for him at the bottom of the cliff. The road to the village crossed the glade in the pine woods—the snow was packed and icy with much travel, with the sliding of runners and the semicircular marks of horses' hoofs. As the Poor Boy sped along on his skis, he met people in sleighs and was overtaken and passed by others. They were his people—his alone. He had cheerful words for all of them, and they for him. They were hazy—a little—to the eye, but here and there he caught a face clearly ...
— If You Touch Them They Vanish • Gouverneur Morris

... wonderfully developed network of railroads, running practically parallel to this entire line. The Russians, on the other hand, had nothing but roads running from east to west or from north to south, which could be used as feeders only from a central point to a number of points along their semicircular line. Troops having once been concentrated could be thrown to another point if it was at any distance at all only by sending them back to the central point and then sending them out again on another feeder, or else by long and ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... affected in the evening died over-night. The intensity of the frost wind often cut them off when in that state quite instantaneously. About the ninth and tenth days, the shepherds began to build up huge semicircular walls of their dead, in order to afford some shelter for the remainder of the living; but they availed but little, for about the same time they were frequently seen tearing at one another's wool with their teeth. When the ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... was in a half-recumbent posture, with her elbow resting on a couch covered with green silk. The back of this piece of furniture, which was pretty high towards the fireplace, sloped down insensibly towards the foot. A sort of light, semicircular trellis-work, in gilded bronze, raised about five feet from the ground, covered with flowering plants (the admirable passiflores quadrangulatoe, planted in a deep ebony box, from the centre of which rose the trellis-work), ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... called the "White Tower." The Inner Ward is defended by a wall, flanked by thirteen towers, the entrance to it being on the south side under the Bloody Tower. The Outer Ward is defended by a second wall, flanked by six towers on the river face (see Pl. IX, X and XI), and by three semicircular bastions on the north face. A Ditch or "Moat," now dry, encircles the whole, crossed at the south-western angle by a stone bridge, leading to the "Byward Tower" from the "Middle Tower," a gateway which had formerly an outwork, called ...
— Authorised Guide to the Tower of London • W. J. Loftie

... (a space left by the semicircular benches, with wings stretching to the right and left before the scene), a small square platform served as the altar, to which moved the choral dances, still retaining the attributes of their ancient sanctity. The coryphaeus, or leader of the chorus, took part in the dialogue as ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... monastery, informing herself most minutely of its internal position, and reflecting on the means of introducing herself to the cell of her beloved Carthusian. The stream of water which served to irrigate the gardens of the monastery, entered a wall by a large semicircular arch or opening near the garden itself. The lady, prodigal in the expenditure of money, and in the employment of faithful and trustworthy agents, procured a raft to be constructed, by means of which, ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... lavatory and toilet-table, and an ornamental fountain. A lobby separates this apartment from the bath rooms, and off it are a w.c. and a towel closet, which latter could be supplied with hot air. The combined lavatorium and tepidarium—14 ft. square—is a domed chamber, with semicircular recesses containing the plunge bath and lavatrina. A shampooing bench is shown. A marble dado surrounds the walls, and marble corbels are provided to pendentives of dome—which could be of brick or terracotta and concrete—and marble springers to horse-shoe ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop

... conditions. "The effect might so easily have been monotonous and cold, and it might have been flat and dreary. It was a fine idea to lift the central portion of each of those main palaces above the surfaces of the roofs to introduce the semicircular windows in the domes. It helped to infuse the scene with a kind of tenderness and spirituality. And see how the two groups on top of the triumphal arches, the Orientals and the Pioneers, contribute to the soaring effect and to the finish at the same time. The ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry

... placid manner for maybe an hour, we suddenly came to a stupendous cliff—that is, for those parts—rising almost sheer from the water for about a thousand feet. Of itself it would not have arrested our attention, but at its base was a semicircular opening, like the mouth of a small tunnel. This looked alluring, so I headed the boat for it, passing through a deep channel between two reefs which led straight to the opening. There was ample room for us to enter, ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... there being a competition among the architects of London to be employed in the building of Blackfriars-bridge, a question was very warmly agitated whether semicircular or elliptical arches were preferable. In the design offered by Mr. Mylne the elliptical form was adopted, and therefore it was the great object of his rivals to attack it. Johnson's regard for his friend Mr. Gwyn induced him to engage in this controversy against Mr. Mylne[1050]; and after ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... with Venus's looking-glass, yellow oxalis, and beds of blackberry vines. The woods of which my informant had spoken lay a little beyond the railway, on the right hand of the road, just as it began another ascent. I entered them at once, and after a semicircular turn through the pleasant paths, amid live-oaks, water-oaks, red oaks, chestnut oaks, magnolias, beeches, hickories, hornbeams, sweet gums, sweet bays, and long-leaved and short-leaved pines, came out into the road again a quarter ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... charm-doctors to superintend the raising of a need-fire. It was done by friction, thus; upon any small island, where the stream of a river or burn ran on each side, a circular booth was erected, of stone and turf, as it could be had, in which a semicircular or highland couple of birch, or other hard wood, was set; and, in short, a roof closed on it. A straight pole was set up in the centre of this building, the upper end fixed by a wooden pin to the top of the couple, ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... like this should be turned on to a piece of ornamental paper placed at the bottom of a silver or some other kind of dish. The base of the mould should be ornamented with thin slices of lemon cut in half, the diameter touching the base of the mould and the semicircular piece of peel outside. If a round basin has been used for a mould, place a corner of a lemon on the top in the middle, surrounded with a few imitation green leaves cut out of angelica. This improves the dish in appearance ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne

... has been left somewhat high and dry by the tide of years. Concerned as we are for its honour, we must reluctantly admit that the time when this pretty little semicircular sweep of houses, tapering off at the end of the wooden pier into a point in the sea, was a gay place, and when the lighthouse overlooking it shone at daybreak on company dispersing from public balls, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... ham; take off the fat entirely; fry them gently in a little butter. Have a good brown rich sauce of gravy; and serve up hot, with pieces of fried bread, cut of a semicircular shape, of the same size as the pieces of ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury

... was a roomy and rambling place lying back a considerable distance from the road. A semicircular drive gave access to the door, and so densely wooded was the ground, that for the most part the drive was practically a tunnel—a verdant tunnel. A high brick wall concealed the building from the point of view of any one on the roadway, but either horn of the crescent drive terminated ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... air no doubt play upon the drum of the ear, and the waves thus produced are conducted through a complex chain of small bones to the fenestra ovalis and so to the inner ear or labyrinth. But beyond this all is uncertainty. The labyrinth consists mainly of two parts (1) the cochlea, and (2) the semicircular canals, which are three in number, standing at right angles to one another. It has been supposed that they enable us to maintain the equilibrium of the body, but no satisfactory explanation of their function has yet been given. In the cochlea, Corti discovered a remarkable ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... Meril, with its miniature icebergs, they reached the glacier of the Aletsch and its snow-fields, where the real difficulties and dangers of the ascent were to begin. In this great semicircular space, inclosed by the Jungfrau, the Monch, and the lesser peaks of this mountain group, lies the Aletsch reservoir of snow or neve. As this spot presented a natural pause between the laborious ascent already accomplished and the immense declivities ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... Freyberg formed a semicircular trench around the far side of the new possession, and then they took time to see what had happened to the gallant little band. Freyberg had received his fourth wound, and his brave 500 had dwindled to a number a good deal ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall

... of Genoa, meantime, had been holding out gallantly. Massena for some time kept possession of the semicircular chain of heights on the land side, and was thus enabled to obtain provisions, despite the 40,000 Austrians under General Ott who lay watching him, and the English fleet under Lord Keith which completely blockaded the shore. A great effort made to dislodge him from the heights on the 3rd ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... Indeed the citizens' daughters were in general not permitted to see a theatrical performance at all, unless on very special and exceptional occasions. She looked up with a smile at the empty topmost rows of the cheapest seats of the semicircular auditorium, as one looks at an old playfellow one had outgrown by a head, for it was there—when she had occasionally been permitted to dip into their scanty common purse—that she had almost fainted many a time, with pleasure, fear, or sympathy, though the draught ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the organ is the internal ear, which is called the labyrinth; it is divided into the vestibule, three semicircular canals, and the cochlea: the whole are incased within the petrous portion of the temporal bone. The internal ear may be considered as the actual seat of the organ; it consists of a nervous expansion of high sensibility, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various

... and diffused a genial warmth far and wide, together with the fragrance of some old English roast-beef, which, I think must at that moment have been nearly to a turn. The kitchen is a lofty, spacious, and noble room, partitioned off round the fireplace by a sort of semicircular oaken screen, or, rather, an arrangement of heavy and high-backed settles, with an ever open entrance between them, on either side of which is the omnipresent image of the Bear and Ragged Staff, three feet high, and excellently carved in oak, now black with time and unctuous kitchen-smoke. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... crosses, which Martin mentions as pyramids for deceased ladies, stood in a semicircular line, which contained within it the chapel. They marked out the boundaries of the sacred territory within which an asylum was to be had. One of them, which we observed upon our landing, made the first point ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... moment; the next beheld Mrs. Myles and her visiter tete-a-tete in the widow's small parlour. It was a cheerful, pleasant room, such as is often met with in the clean villages of England. There were two or three pieces of embroidery, in frames of faded gilding; an old-fashioned semicircular card-table stood opposite the window, and upon it rested a filagree tea-caddy, based by a mark-a-tree work-box, flanked on one side by the Bible, on the other by a prayer-book; while on the space in front was placed "The Whole Art of Cookery," ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... chariots, drawn sometimes by one, sometimes by two horses, dashed along. These chariots were small, the wheels not exceeding three feet in height. Between them was placed the body of the vehicle, which was but just large enough for two men to stand on. It consisted only of a small platform, with a semicircular rail running round the front some eighteen inches above it. A close observer would have perceived at once that not only were the males of the city upon the point of marching out on a military expedition, but that it was no mere foray against a neighboring people, but a war on which the ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty

... the terrace built for the Princess Elizabeth of England is one of the round towers which was split in twain by the French. Half has fallen entirely away, and the other semicircular shell, which joins the terrace and part of the castle-buildings, clings firmly together, altho part of its foundation is gone, so that its outer ends actually hang in the air. Some idea of the strength of the castle may be obtained when I state that the walls ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various

... ardent little male. Now he approaches nearer and nearer, and when almost within reach whirls madly around and around her, she joining and whirling with him in a giddy maze. Again he falls back and resumes his semicircular motions, with his body tilted over; she, all excitement, lowers her head and raises her body so that it is almost vertical; both draw nearer; she moves slowly under him, he crawling over her head, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... folding doors or windows equally large. On the left hand of this hall lies a large drawing-room, and beyond that a second of a smaller size, which has one window to the rising and another to the setting sun. Adjoining this is another room of a semicircular shape, the windows of which are so arranged as to get the sun all through the day: in the walls are bookcases containing a collection of authors who cannot be read too often. Out of this is a bedroom which can be warmed with hot air. ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... at brief intervals during the next two months, down to the middle of April, and marked the climax of the War. The losses on both sides were enormous and extraordinary, and taken as a whole the struggle on the semicircular front north and east of the great French stronghold fully justified its description as "the most terrible battle in ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... on mountain-tops and the balmy air would carry a suggestion of a chill at sunset, there were cunningly wrought charcoal braziers set near the gilded couches, grouped around a semicircular low table so as to give each guest an unobstructed view from the pavilion. Pertinax—neither guest nor host, but a god, as it were, who had arrived and permitted the city of Antioch to ennoble itself by paying ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... to the chapel, the two sides of the arch are of different curvatures, so that the point of the arch is nearer to the right-hand side. The edge of the wall is chamfered round the doorways. The east window has a semicircular head, and plain wooden tracery dividing it into two lancet-headed lights with an opening above them. There is a window in both the south and north walls, near the east end, each of two lights; the south window is widely splayed inside; the head of each light has one cusp on each side. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins

... the entrance to the strait until they were knocked out by our guns. Although the guns and emplacements were shattered the bombproofs and ammunition chambers remained intact, and, running back, formed a perfect network of trenches and entanglements right around the semicircular valley. The Turks had mounted pompoms on the Cape Helles side and had the usual snipers concealed everywhere. The foreshore and valley also were protected by trenches and wire, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... waited they watched the slow devouring of the moon. Already Numa had eaten out a great semicircular piece. At that rate Goro would be entirely gone before Kudu came again. The apes trembled at the thought of perpetual darkness by night. They could not sleep. Restlessly they moved here and there among the branches of trees, watching Numa of the skies at his deadly ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... looked sharply at him, and Smith looked at his cigar. Others were playing around the semicircular table—it might mean nothing. Du Sang waited. Smith lifted his right hand from the table and felt in his waistcoat for a match. Du Sang, however, made no effort to take up the dice. He watched Whispering Smith scratch ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman

... left on the face, which sent me reeling backwards. This was a complete mystery, but it raised my bile, and I returned it with interest. I was very strong in my arms, as may be supposed; and I threw them about like sails of a windmill, never hitting straight out, but with semicircular blows, which descended on or about his ears. On the contrary, his blows were all received straightforward, and my nose and face were soon covered with blood. As I warmed with pain and rage I flung out my arms at random, and Barnaby gave me a knock-down ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... bows, billet head, and elliptic stern. The cabin accommodation was perhaps somewhat scanty, but this, in so small a vessel, built altogether for speed, not comfort, was scarcely to be avoided. The semicircular stern-cabin was, of course, appropriated to the captain, with a small state-room opening out from it in the starboard side. Forward of this came the companion ladder, and forward of this again the wardroom, or senior officers' mess, with small cabins ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... suite of apartments consists of an antechamber, A, (vestibule,) an arched chamber, B, (semicircular canals,) and a spiral chamber, S, (cochlea,) with a partition, P, dividing it across, except for a small opening at one end. The antechamber opens freely into the arched chamber, and into one side of the partitioned spiral chamber. The other side of this spiral chamber looks on the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... who subsisted by fishing on the banks of the River Teyss or Tibiscus, to retire into the hilly country, and to abandon to the victorious Sarmatians the fertile plains of the Upper Hungary, which are bounded by the course of the Danube and the semicircular enclosure of the Carpathian Mountains. [41] In this advantageous position, they watched or suspended the moment of attack, as they were provoked by injuries or appeased by presents; they gradually acquired the skill of using more ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... Sacrifice in company with the Twelve Apostles, the two Maries, and the fainting mother of Jesus,—thus expressing the unity of the Church Universal in that great victory of sorrow and glory. The painting was inclosed above by a semicircular bordering composed of medallion heads of the Prophets, and below was a similar medallion border of the principal saints and worthies of the Dominican order. In our day such pictures are visited by tourists with red guide-books in their hands, who survey them in the intervals ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... but poised tentatively, fluctuating athwart the scene, presently thickening, quickening, obscuring it all, isolating the woods with an added sense of solitude since the sight of the world and the sound of it were so speedily annulled. Even the creak of the wagon-wheels was muffled. Through the semicircular aperture in the front of the wagon-cover the horns of the oxen were dimly seen amidst the serried flakes; the snow whitened the backs of the beasts and added its burden to their yoke. Once as they jogged on she fancied again that she heard hoof-beats—this time a long way ahead, thundering ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... me very cruel, since, in my simplicity, I believed that the perpendicular rod in the center passed, like a spit, directly through the bird's neck. Then, how inexhaustible were the resources of the flower garden, on the southern side of the house, into which a door opened from the parlor, the broad semicircular stone doorsteps affording ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their hands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship's starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... the towns wear their long hair arranged like a woman's, and around their heads a large, semicircular comb of shell, as has been said. The comb has nothing to do with religion or caste—contrary to what a visitor is usually told; it merely announces the wearer to be not of the coolie class, who carry sacks of rice and cases of merchandise on their heads. Half the people of ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... little fishing-place; intensely quiet; built on a cliff whereon—in the centre of a tiny semicircular bay—our house stands; the sea rolling and dashing under the windows. Seven miles out are the Goodwin Sands, (you've heard of the Goodwin Sands?) whence floating lights perpetually wink after dark, as if they were carrying on intrigues with the ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... The dog was attached by the electric clip, and chained to a doorpost of one of the buildings. Lambelle then carefully uncorked his bottle, holding it at arm's length from his person. The Minister looked on with strange interest as Lambelle allowed the fluid to drip in a semicircular line around the chained dog. The inventor carefully re-corked the bottle, wiped it thoroughly with a cloth he had with him, and threw the cloth into ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr

... consid'able pleasure." The sombrero completed a semicircular sweep and arrived in the neighborhood of Mr. Hank's heart in significance of his vassalage to the fair sex. ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... found in every city. These were large, lofty buildings for the use of judges and merchants. The chief feature of a basilica was the spacious central hall flanked by a single or double row of columns, forming aisles and supporting the flat roof. At one end of the hall was a semicircular recess—the apse—where the judges held court. This arrangement of the interior bears a close resemblance to the plan of the early Christian church with its nave, choir (or chancel) and columned aisles. The Christians, in fact, seem to have taken the familiar ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... days the nave was used as the parish church, and had its own high altar, while the choir was reserved for the use of the canons. The nave is made up of seven noble bays; the lower arcade consists of semicircular arches enriched with the chevron ornament, while the spandrels are filled with hatchet-work carving. The triforium of each bay on both sides consists of two arches supported by a central pillar and enclosed by a semicircular containing arch, with ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath

... on this same Friday evening. The "opera-house" was spacious and admirably ventilated. As I was listening to the merriment of the sooty buffoons, I happened to cast my eyes up to the ceiling, and through an open semicircular window a bright solitary star looked me calmly in the eyes. It was a strange intrusion of the vast eternities beckoning from the infinite spaces. I called the attention of one of my neighbors to it, but "Bones" was irresistibly droll, and Arcturus, or Aldebaran, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... the library looked out. Evelyn himself had planned it. Along its upper side ran one of the most beautiful of old walls, broken by niches and statues, tapestried with roses and honeysuckle, and opening in the centre to reveal Evelyn's darling conceit of all—a semicircular space, holding a fountain, and leading to a grotto. The grotto had been scooped out of the hill; it was peopled with dim figures of fauns and nymphs who showed white amid its moist greenery; and in front a marble Silence drooped over the fountain, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the design of Robert Stephenson, consists of a series of 28 semicircular arches, each 61 feet 6 inches in span, the greatest height above the bed of the river being 126 feet. The whole is built of ashlar, with a hearting of rubble; excepting the river parts of the arches, which are constructed with bricks laid in cement. The total length of the work is 2160 ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... the building is Graeco-Italian. It consists of an entrance or ground story, with semicircular headed windows and rusticated piers. A continued pedestal above the arches of these windows runs through the composition, divided between the columns into balustrades, in front of the windows of the principal story, to which they form handsome balconies. The elegant windows of this and the principal ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various

... semicircular, whence probably they took their names; afterwards they were built four square, with a spacious arched gate in the middle, and small ones on each side. Upon the vaulted part of the middle gate, hung little winged images representing ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway

... bush, which grew on the side it first appeared on, and suddenly the back became transparent amber, the legs and belly continuing green. From its breast under the chin, it every now and then shot out a semicircular film of a bright scarlet colour, like a leaf of a tulip stretched vertically, or the pectoral fin of ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... Malaspini, shrouded in immense thickets of sweet bay and ilex, forming a grove for the Nymphs or Pan. Here may you see just such clean stems and lucid foliage as Gian Bellini painted, inch by inch, in his Peter Martyr picture. The place is neglected now; the semicircular seats of white Carrara marble are stained with green mosses, the altars chipped, the fountains choked with bay leaves; and the rose trees, escaped from what were once trim garden alleys, have gone wandering a-riot into country hedges. There is no demarcation between ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... cliff is called the Giant's Organ—from its very striking resemblance to that instrument, and a single rock, worn by the waves into the shape of a rude seat, is his chair. A mile or two further along the coast, two cliffs project from the range, leaving a vast semicircular space between, which, from its resemblance to the old Roman theatres, was appropriated for that purpose by the Giant. Halfway down the crags are two or three pinnacles of rock, called the Chimneys, and the stumps of several others can be seen, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... adopted by Fergusson, the church of San Miniato at Florence is one of the oldest examples and a good type of this rather mixed style. It was built about the year 1013. It is rectangular in plan, nearly three times as long as wide, with a semicircular apse. Internally it is divided longitudinally into aisles, and transversely into three nearly square compartments by clustered piers, supporting two great arches which run up to the roof. The whole of the inner compartment ...
— The Brochure Series Of Architectural Illustration, Vol 1, No. 2. February 1895. - Byzantine-Romanesque Doorways in Southern Italy • Various

... of this one. There was no compromise with human desires in it, not a touch of color except the brown that time gives unpainted wood, not an effort anywhere to appeal to the imagination or suggest holy imagery. Only the semicircular altar rail about the narrow box pulpit suggested human frailty, prayer and repentance. On the men's side—for the law of sex was observed to the point of segregation in all our churches—there was a sprinkling of men with red, strong, craggy faces who appeared to have the Adam clod highly developed ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... specific charms for various purposes. The most extraordinary amulet, if it be one, of this kind was a row of foxes’ noses attached to the fore-part of a woman’s jacket like a tier of black buttons. I purchased from Iligliuk a semicircular ornament of brass, serrated at the upper edge and brightly polished, which she wore over her hair in front and which was very becoming. The handsomest thing of this kind, however, was understood to be worn on the head by men, though we did ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry

... the stern a post 1-1/2 inches thick, 3 inches wide and 13 inches high was secured to the keelson with brass screws. This was braced as indicated in Fig. 104. At the bow a stem piece was attached to the keelson. This stem was cut to a somewhat semicircular form, as shown in Fig. 105. The outer edge was tapered with a draw-knife to a thickness of 1/4 inch and a brace was nailed to the inner edge. Our next work was to cut out three forms, one of the shape shown in Fig. ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond

... both in ability and in uprightness. But of him I will speak elsewhere. I return to the Augur. While I recall many similar occasions, I remember in particular that at a certain time when I and a few of his more intimate associates were sitting with him in the semicircular apartment [Footnote: Latin, hemicyclio, perhaps, a semicircular seat.] in his house where he was wont to receive his friends, the conversation turned on a subject about which almost every one was then talking, and which you, Atticus, certainly recollect, as you were much in the society of Publius ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis

... and intelligently apprehensive, approached slowly, in a semicircular manner, deprecatingly, but with courtesy. He pawed the basket delicately; then, as if that were all his master had expected of him, uttered one bright bark, sat down, and looked up triumphantly. His hypocrisy was ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... twanging of a string proclaimed the arrival of a querulous-faced minstrel with a sort of embryonic one-stringed horse-headed fiddle, and after a brief parley singing began, a long high-pitched solo. The fiddle squealed pitifully under the persuasion of a semicircular bow. Two heads ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... a lookout is on watch. He seems quite alone, but at our approach a dozen of his comrades come out of their "home" dug in the hillside. Wherever you go about the frozen country of Lorraine it is a case of flushing soldiers from their shelters. A small, semicircular table is set up before the lookout, like his compass before a mariner. Here run blue pencil lines of direction pointing to Pont-a-Mousson, to Chateau- Salins, and other towns. Before us to the east rose the tree-clad crests of the ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... the narrow semicircular window of six-inch crystal glass running across the front of the conning-tower, which was almost as strong as steel, and saw three little dark, moving spots on the half-moonlit water, about two miles ahead, ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... out into the hot afternoon sunshine, down the mean semicircular street, where piccaninnies were kicking up clouds of dust. He hurried through the dusty area, and presently turned off a by-path that led over the hill, through a glade of cedars, to the ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... work (not highly ornamental, however) upon them, and tesserae or the cubes of tesselated pavement, such as may be found all over Palestine. The Bedaween call them muzzateem or muzzameet indifferently. There were some good Corinthian capitals, fragments of cornices, and portions of semicircular arches, and pieces of walls that had been repaired at different periods. I entered one rock-hewn sepulchre which contained seven small chambers; six of these had been evidently broken into by main force, the seventh was still closed. This was S.W. ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... other side she saw faces, rows and rows of them mounting up to the very roof. Faces laughing; faces convulsed, streaming with tears; faces with eyes fixed and wearing that same queer, strained look she had noticed before; hundreds of faces topping each other in semicircular rows, all different but all alike in ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... or cattle among the burnt Irishman thickets. The flat is some half-mile broad on each side the river, narrowing as the mountains draw in closer upon the stream. It is terminated by a steep terrace. Twenty or thirty feet above this terrace is another flat, we will say semicircular, for I am generalising, which again is surrounded by a steeply sloping terrace like an amphitheatre; above this another flat, receding still farther back, perhaps half a mile in places, perhaps almost close above the one below it; above this another flat, receding farther, ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... of this year the Battalion was engaged upon an inner line of works within easy walking distance of the Canal. A semicircular outpost line, which covered these works and the Brigade camp, was occupied nightly, but there was no real danger of attack. Beyond the outpost line a distant screen of posts, whose names recalled Lancashire, were in course ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst

... summons to join some relations in Italy. One afternoon I had started for an aimless and rambling climb among the olive-terraces on the lower slopes of the Tete du Chien. Finding an exquisite coign of vantage amid the roots of a gnarled old trunk springing from a built-up semicircular patch of level ground, I sat me down to rest, and read, and dream. Below me, a little to the right, Monaco jutted out into the purple sea. I could distinguish carriages and pedestrians coming and going on the chaussee between the promontory and Monte ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... very deliberately and carefully. It was fine washing, and he washed fine and finer, with a keen scrutiny and delicate and fastidious touch. At last the pan seemed empty of everything but water; but with a quick semicircular flirt that sent the water flying over the shallow rim into the stream, he disclosed a layer of black sand on the bottom of the pan. So thin was this layer that it was like a streak of paint. He examined it closely. In the midst of it was a tiny golden speck. He dribbled a little ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... switch made by the Oerlikon Works is illustrated in Fig. 7. Two thick semicircular bands of copper are screwed at one end to opposite sides of a square block which is turned round by the switch handle. The block has a projection at each corner, and two strong, flat, stationary springs are attached to the framework of the switch ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various

... of the Nile, we found only a small piece of water resembling a duck-pond buried in a sea of rushes. The old Nile swept through it with majestic grace, and carried us next to the Geraffe branch of the Sobat river, the second affluent, which we found flowing into the Nile with a graceful semicircular sweep and good stiff current, apparently deep, but not more than fifty ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... a horizontal bar, through a hole in which it turned easily: a half wheel eight or ten inches in diameter, cut from a large chip, was placed at the top, around which was bent a new section of birch bark, thus forming a rude semicircular reflector. Three candles placed within the circle completed the jack. With moss and boughs seats were arranged,—one in the bow for the marksman, and one in the stern for the oarsman. A meal of frogs and squirrels was a good preparation, and, when darkness ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... Bar is flanked by scrolls, but the fruit and flowers once sculptured on the pediment, and the supporters of the royal arms over the posterns, have crumbled away. In the centre of each facade is a semicircular-headed, ecclesiastical-looking window, that casts a dim horny light into a room above the gate, held of the City, at an annual rent of some L50, by Messrs. Childs, the bankers, as a sort of muniment-room for their old ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... foam against the other side, the same effect takes place there, by which a corresponding semicircle is formed exactly opposite the first. This goes on not only at the upper margin, but through the whole depth of the opening as far down as the water carries its higher temperature. In short, a semicircular groove is excavated on either side of the fissure for its whole depth along the line on which the rivulet holds its downward course. After a time, in consequence of the motion of the glacier, such ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... the ducal palace, thronged as usual with a variety of nations. I mixed a moment with the crowd; then directed my steps to the great mosque,—I ought to say the church of St. Mark; but really its cupolas, slender pinnacles, and semicircular arches, have so oriental an appearance, as to excuse this appellation. I looked a moment at the four stately coursers of bronze and gold that adorn the chief portal, and then took in, at one glance, the whole extent of the square, ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... A.M., we are passing Grand Bassam, seven or eight miles from land. Our track just touches the outer edge of the semicircular line of dirty foam, indicating the distance to which the influence of the river extends. Within the verge, the water is discolored by recent contact with the earth; beyond it, ripples the uncontaminated, pure, blue ocean. One is the emblem of human ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... white building that fronts the water, and stands back from it at the head of a noble sweep of land covered with velvet turf, and resembling greatly a gentleman's park at home, by the fine groups of stately forest trees scattered over it, and a semicircular belt of the original forest, that, sloping from the house on either side, extends its wings until it meets the blue waters of the bay, leaving between its green arms a broad ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... his head. Then with outspread hand he pointed before them and made a semicircular sweep to indicate that he was leading them for some ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole



Words linked to "Semicircular" :   semicircle, semicircular arch, semicircular canal, curving, curved



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