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Spin   /spɪn/   Listen
Spin

verb
(past span; past part. spun; pres. part. spinning)
1.
Revolve quickly and repeatedly around one's own axis.  Synonyms: gyrate, reel, spin around, whirl.
2.
Stream in jets, of liquids.
3.
Cause to spin.  Synonyms: birl, twirl, whirl.
4.
Make up a story.
5.
Form a web by making a thread.
6.
Work natural fibers into a thread.
7.
Twist and turn so as to give an intended interpretation.
8.
Prolong or extend.  Synonym: spin out.



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"Spin" Quotes from Famous Books



... tops with which the Chinese amuse themselves are as large as barrels. It takes three men to spin one, and it gives off a sound that may be heard ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles

... King the justice to say that it was I, and not he, who closed the dialogue. At this juncture, I became the subject of a remarkable optical delusion; the legs of my stool appeared to me to double up; the car to spin round and round with great violence; and a mist to arise between myself and His Majesty. In addition to these sensations, I felt extremely unwell. I refer these unpleasant effects, either to the paste with which the posters were affixed to the van: which may have contained some small ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... exposure to the sun, and his shoes had the flattened and battered condition which is the natural consequence of a long and weary tramp. He walked as if he had no particular objective point, and looked like one of those peripatetic gentry who toil not neither do they spin, the genus "tramp." He complacently puffed a short clay nose-warmer, with his hands in his pockets, and taking first one side and then the other of the road, as his fancy dictated, found himself near the old distillery at the ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton

... Rationalists are like the spiders, they spin all out of their own bowels. But give me a philosopher who, like the bee, hath a middle faculty, gathering from abroad, but digesting that which is gathered by ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... that the charges must be proved to the satisfaction of the jury, and called upon Captain Right's advocate to substantiate them. It would spin out our description to a fatiguing length, were we to go through all the cases of oppression, fraud, and cruelty, that were brought home to the unfortunate proctor; against whom, if we are to take him as the exponent of his heartless ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... get to spin my peg-top so as it will never tumble down, and will turn an engine for drawing water,' was ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... after a while they disengage, and begin circling round the fire singly—men and women alternately. The tamasha ended by again setting to partners; each couple, holding a stick between them, their feet firmly planted on the ground and close together, spin round at a great pace, first from right to left and then from left to right. None objected to my taking part in this performance, but, for the indulgence, I had to pay as forfeit several strings of beads and shells, a few looking-glasses, and some needles, ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard

... of yellow brimstone boil for you in Hell, Such lies that you spin. Tell the truth now, John, ere the falsehood swell, ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves

... not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven; shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England

... affairs, and many of them get lost; for they have no iron fastenings, and are only stitched together with twine made from the husk of the Indian nut. They beat this husk until it becomes like horse-hair, and from that they spin twine, and with this stitch the planks of the ships together. It keeps well, and is not corroded by the sea-water, but it will not stand well in a storm. The ships are not pitched, but are rubbed with fish-oil. They have one mast, one sail, and one ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... brave—to blush like girls, And say,'Our fathers were afraid to die!' Ye will not dare to raise heroic eyes Unto the eyes of aliens. In the streets Will women and young children point at you Scornfully, and the sun will find you shamed, And night refuse to shield you. What a life Is this ye spin and fashion for yourselves! And what new tortures of suspense and doubt Will death invent for such as are afraid! Acastus, thou my brother, in the field Foremost, who greeted me with sanguine hands From ruddy battle with a conqueror's face,— ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... While there is hope, do not distrust the gods; But wait, at least, till Caesar's near approach Force us to yield. 'Twill never be too late To sue for chains, and own a conqueror. Why should Rome fall a moment ere her time? No, let us draw her term of freedom out In its full length, and spin it to the last, So shall we gain still one day's liberty; And let me perish, but in Cato's judgment, A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty, Is worth a ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison

... in the Balmacaan coat standing by the wheel-guard of the car before the town post-office, a hand on the front seat. "Maybe ye're not knowing it, but it's a rare good day for us both. If you'll only take me for a spin in your car I'll tell you what brings me—and who I am—if you haven't that ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer

... you, my dear, as a fair specimen of his manner.—"But the quincunx of heaven—(the Hyades or five stars about the horizon at midnight at that time)—runs low, and 'tis time we close the five ports of knowledge: we are unwilling to spin out our waking thoughts into the phantasmes of sleep, which often continueth precogitations,—making tables of cobwebbes, and wildernesses of handsome groves. To keep our eyes open longer were but to act our Antipodes. ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... witching a power on me, madame. I cannot spin or knit or sew when he is by; I must needs watch every motion of his if he once ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... Harding, having at his disposal neither carders, combers, polishers, stretchers, twisters, mule-jenny, nor self-acting machine to spin the wool, nor loom to weave it, was obliged to proceed in a simpler way, so as to do without spinning and weaving. And indeed he proposed to make use of the property which the filaments of wool possess ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... a key. Could you be there at eight tomorrow morning? If it's fine, take your bicycle, as if you were going for a spin before breakfast. Miss Bride never goes out before breakfast, and no one else is likely ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... as he sped homeward, he didn't spin the plate in air, but tried out a new plan of balancing it ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... theater; and in a spirit of justice they pulled off the horses' tails, for the proprietors of the show, two hard-fisted countrymen of mine, I grieve to say, unceremoniously hustled them off for a new set, almost at the first spin. I was not a little proud of my Tonga friends; the chief, finest of them all, carried a portentous club. As for the theater, through the greed of the proprietors it was becoming unpopular, and the representatives of the three great powers, in want of laws which they could enforce, adopted a ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... across the intervening space and stand beside his father. Coiloo's hand was at Sax's neck. He unfastened the string of the luringa and stood up, still hidden from sight. Slowly he whirled the thin slab of wood round his head, hitting it on the ground once or twice to make it spin. The thing gave out a droning sound. The crowd of yelling fiends around the corpse became suddenly quiet. The droning increased to a loud humming. Every eye ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman

... love with her, many and many years ago. The neighbors called her then a nice, capable girl; and certainly she did knit and darn with a zeal and success to which my feet and my legs have testified for nearly half a century. But she could spin a finer web than ever came from cotton, and in its subtle meshes my heart was entangled, and there has reposed softly and happily ever since. The neighbors declared she could make pudding and cake better ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis

... pick of the flock; he married a Wilkerson —Sarah Wilkerson—good cretur, she was—one of the likeliest heifers that was ever raised in old Stoddard, everybody said that knowed her. She could heft a bar'l of flour as easy as I can flirt a flapjack. And spin? Don't mention it! Independent? Humph! When Sile Hawkins come a browsing around her, she let him know that for all his tin he couldn't trot in harness alongside of her. You see, Sile Hawkins was—no, it warn't Sile Hawkins, after all—it was a galoot ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... subject ever since I read the article alluded to, and now I want you to write me every particular; then if you and I think best, in the spring I will come to you. We are none of us what may be called weakly. I am forty-six years old; able to do as much every day as to spin what is called a day's work—not that I expect you spin much there, only that is the amount of my strength ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... the girl up!" muttered the handsome young rascal. "Old Ram Lal must do a bit of spying for me!" Hawke could see on the raised plateau of marble steps all the evidences of the sumptuous luxury of the haughty Briton, "who toils not, neither does he spin." But, the dozen pointed arches on each face of the vast palace house of the budding baronet showed no sign of life. The clustered marble columns stretched out in a splendid lonely perspective, and the square inner castellated keep rose up in the glaring sun, but with closed and shaded ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... and reddish-brown bark, and sometimes the white ones are colored with red ocher. The white one is called "so'-put" and the red one "ti-nan'-ag." Some of the other breechcloths are woven of cotton thread by the women. Much of this cotton is claimed by the Igorot to be tree cotton which they gather, spin and weave, but much also comes in trade from the Ilokano at the coast. Some is purchased in the boll and some is purchased after it has been spun and colored. Many breechcloths are now bought ready made from ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... our policy by discussing the question of how much fraternizing will stimulate the awakening of the proletariat of Europe." In other words, Kamenev was in the position of a desperate gambler who stakes his life and his all upon one throw of the dice or one spin of ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... power that lighted and air-conditioned Rathole, power in the air all around them. If he could only use it! But to turn the platform on its side and let the wind spin the propellers was pointless. ...
— Wind • Charles Louis Fontenay

... run about with great freedom. The mother is not over solicitous to preserve it from slight falls and other trifling accidents. A little practice soon enables the child to take care of itself, and experience acts the part of a nurse. As they advance in life, the girls are taught to spin cotton, and to beat corn, and are instructed in other domestic duties; and the boys are employed in the labours of the field. Both sexes, whether Bushreens or Kafirs, on attaining the age of puberty, are circumcised. This ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... flitting from flower to flower while the sunshine of your brief day may last; or simply as a prisoner toiling at the treadmill because you must: the well in the garden is a pleasanter conception than all these and wholesomer. Foster it while you may. Now that India has wakened up and begun to spin after the rest of the great world down the ringing grooves of change, these tints of dawn will soon fade away, and in the light of noon the instructed Aryan will learn to see and deplore the monstrous inequalities in the distribution of wealth. He will come to understand the essential equality ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... had to dip his paddle as far out to one side as possible, to draw the stern in that direction, while the bowman did the same on the opposite side, and drew the bow the other way—thus causing the light craft to spin round almost instantly. The two guiding men thus acted in unison, and it was only by thoroughly understanding each other, in all conceivable situations, that good and safe ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... So Sears began to spin the yarn. And from that she led him into another and then another. They drifted through the South Seas to the East Indies, and from there to Bombay, and then to Hong Kong, and to Mauritious, from the beaches of which ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... some sweet oblivious antidote which shall drug us against memory, and after time shall elapse for the reconstruction of a new home in place of the old, shall repossess us of ourselves as unchanged as the things with which we shall again array it? Here is a pretty idea for some dreamer to spin into the filmy fabric of a romance, and I handsomely make a present of it to the first comer. If the dreamer is of the right quality he will know how to make the reader feel that with the universal longing to return ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... fun to live in the glorious open air, fragrant with the smell of the woods and flowers; it is fun to swim and fish and hike it over the hills; it is fun to sit about the open fire and spin yarns, or watch in silence the glowing embers; but the greatest fun of all is to win the love and confidence of some boy who has been a trouble to himself and everybody else, and help him to become ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson

... was an Old Man of the West, Who never could get any rest; So they set him to spin, On his nose find his chin, Which cured that Old Man ...
— Book of Nonsense • Edward Lear

... do not undertake to describe furniture, so I say nothing of Prigg's dingy office, except this, that if Prigg had been a spider, it was just the sort of corner in which I should have expected him to spin his web. Being a man of enormous practice, and in all probability having some fifty to sixty representatives of county families to confer with, two hours elapsed before Mr. Bumpkin could be introduced. The place, small as it was, was filled ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... are," he exclaimed in accents of satisfaction, as he exhibited the balls to Dick. "These are the cocoons of a certain caterpillar, the name of which I forget, but they spin a kind of silk which is admirably adapted for the making of bowstrings, for it is incredibly strong, does not fray, and is not affected ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... Salt-Cellar out of my Vest and shake some Salt on the Flower and eat it. I done that with a Piece called 'A Boiled Dinner,' and it always went big. When she sees me eat the Flower, that makes her sore, understand? She comes at me with a right-hand Pass. I fall over a Chair and do a Head Spin. You fix up a strong Line for me just as I go over the Chair. Then—What's the matter, Cull? ...
— People You Know • George Ade

... you shall see what a Book of Cookery I shall make! I shall agree with Mr. Dilly for the copy-right.' Miss SEWARD. 'That would be Hercules with the distaff indeed.' JOHNSON. 'No, Madam. Women can spin very well; but they cannot make a good book ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... he watched, as weeks ago at Brighton, the lighted stage swing outside the windows. He noted a couple of white-frocked monks or friars, hooded in black, standing among the rest. Then he watched the stage drop out of sight, and the lights of Dublin spin eastwards and vanish. Then he turned listlessly to the book his friend had given him, and began ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

... this, we find in the conversation of most men that their thoughts are cut up as small as chaff, making it impossible for them to spin out the thread of their discourse to any length. If this world were peopled by really thinking beings, noise of every kind would not be so universally tolerated, as indeed the most horrible and aimless form of it is.[12] If Nature had intended man to think she would not have given him ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... fir-seeds know them, and rattle impatient in their cones. "Blow stronger, blow fiercer, slow air-mothers, and shake us from our prisons of dead wood, that we may fly and spin away north-eastward, each on his horny wing. Help us but to touch the moorland yonder, and we will take good care of ourselves henceforth; we will dive like arrows through the heather, and drive our sharp beaks into the soil, ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... worth it?' I went on. 'What does life mean that it should make you sweat? What justification do you find in sweat? Now look at me. I toil not, neither do I spin—' ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... it might be well, if you can spare the time, to take papa for a spin in the motor. He did not ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... to fiddle most melodiously, And sings, 'twould make your ears prick up, to hear him Gent. Shortly she'l make him spin: and 'tis thought He will prove an admirable maker of Bonelace, And what a rare gift will that ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... to charge blindly twice. He checked himself so abruptly that he knocked up a shower of sand, and he turned savagely out of that dust-cloud to end the struggle. Yet this small, mad creature stood his ground, showed no inclination to flee. With the rope he was doing strange things, making it spin in swift spirals, close to the ground. Let him do what he would, his days were ended. Alcatraz bared his teeth, laid back his ears, and lunged again. Another miracle! As his forefeet struck the ground in the midst of one of those ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... other yard. The fibers, however, are lying "every which way," and before they can be drawn out into thread, they must be made to lie parallel. This is brought about in part by carding. When people used to spin and weave in their own houses, they used "hand cards." These were somewhat like brushes for the hair, but instead of bristles they had wires shaped much as if wire hairpins had been bent twice and put through leather in such a way as to form hooks on one side of it. This leather was then ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan

... a lively time. The Kid was lighter and more supple than I; and got out of it some easier than I. I had picked out a rangey lank bronco; he would quit the earth and climb the sky like a flying machine; and drop down and strike the rocks with his legs stiff as a post. He would then spin like a top several hundred times play razor back and sun-fish, His head and tail would touch one instant between his legs; and the next instant over his back. I held my breath while he exercised all ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis

... her and Steve spin around the room was a sight to bring a smile to the lips of the crustiest bachelor or saddest spinster, for happy lovers are always a pleasing spectacle, and two such merry little grigs ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... all among the thundering drums When all is done and said When Britain first, at Heaven's command When cats run home, and light is come When daffodils begin to peer, When daisies pied and violets blue, When Hercules did use to spin When icicles hang by the wall When love with unconfined wings When o'er the hill the Eastern star When the British warrior queen When the sheep are in the fauld, when the kye 's come hame When this old cap was ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... trousers leg, and drew from his Wellington boot a two-edged, pointed thing almost long enough to merit the name of rapier. He tossed it in the air, let it spin six or seven times end over end, caught it deftly by the point, and returned it to ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... 1849. The result is that his later work lacks the inspiration of restlessness and discovery, and he tends to put more and more of his genius into the technique of his verse and less into the meaning. The versification is marvellous, but one gets tired of it, and he often has nothing to say and has to spin out commonplaces in rich language. One feels this even in the "Idylls of the King," which are the best of his later or middle long efforts: they are artificial, not impulsive; Virgil, not Homer; Meredith calls them 'dandiacal flutings,' which is an exaggeration. But I can quite see how irritating ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer

... for landing; so pull in, lads," said Jack, giving a stroke with his oar that made the boat spin. In a few seconds we ran the boat into a little creek, where we made her fast to a projecting piece of coral, and running up the beach, entered the ranks of the penguins armed with our cudgels and our spear. We were greatly surprised to find that, instead of attacking us or ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... King were brought up under their father's eye in liberal studios; that, to save them from the vice of idleness, Charlemagne required his sons to devote themselves to all bodily exercises, such as horsemanship, handling of arms, &c., and his daughters to do needlework and to spin. From what is recorded, however, of the frivolous habits and irregular morals of these princesses, it is evident that they but imperfectly realised the end ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... murderous intentions. A dull horror, that numbed her brain, seized upon Rhoda Gray; the low-type brutal faces under the rays of the lamp seemed to assume the aspect of two monstrous gargoyles, and to spin around and around before her vision; and then—it could only have been but the fraction of a second since she had begun to beckon to Pinkie and the Pug—she felt herself pulled unceremoniously away from the door, and the Pug leaned ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... for her. Besides, your modern 'higher education' is not the thing for a woman,—it is too heavy and commonplace. Thelma knows nothing about mathematics or algebra. She can sing and read and write,—and, what is more, she can spin and sew; but even these things were not the first consideration with me. I wanted her disposition trained, and her bodily health attended to. I said to those good women at Arles—'Look here,—here's a child for you! I don't care how much or how little she knows about accomplishments. ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... man knows that he's in his chair And that God's on His throne in the sky. So he sits by the fire in comfort And he lets the world spin by. ...
— Trees and Other Poems • Joyce Kilmer

... 'No,' I say, 'I will fetch him. You stay with Marie.' Then I go ver' quick for Gal, and I find him, his hands all shut like that! and he shake them at the sky, and he say not a word, but his face, it go wild, and his eyes spin round in his head. I put my hand on his arm and say: 'Come home, Gal. Come home, and speak ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Sylvia replied. "For you to leave around for other girls to see," answered Ayrault with a smile. "I don't know what your other girls do," she returned, "but with me you are safe." Ayrault fairly made his phaeton spin, going up the grades like a shot and down like a bird. On reaching New York, he left Sylvia at her house, then ran his machine to a florist's, where he ordered some lilies and roses, and then steered his way to his club, where he dressed for dinner. Shortly before the time he ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... We toil, we spin, we delve the mine, Sustaining each his neighbor; And who can hold a right divine To rob us of our labor? We rush to battle—bear our lot In every ill and danger— And who shall make the peaceful cot To ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark

... thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin.—MATTHEW 6:28. ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... a foot behind his leg, gave him a sort of twirl, and laid him flat on his back. The fall caused the knife to spin into the air, and the poor Eskimo found himself at the ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... to appraise the effect of this startling proposition on me. At any other moment I should inevitably have broken loose again, but the fascination of his personality was upon me and I let him spin his webs. Any man, and there are scores adrift, who falls under the spell of Henry H. Rogers, invariably, as did the suitors of Circe, pays the penalty of his indiscretion. Some he uses and contemptuously casts aside useless; others he works, plays, and pensions; still others ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... Hennessey talked. "After the sugar has been crystallized in the pans it passes into a mixer, where it is stirred and kept from caking until it is put into the centrifugal machines, which actually spin off the crystals. These machines are lined with gauze, and as they whirl at tremendous velocity they force out through this gauze the liquid part of the sugar and leave the sugar crystals inside the machine. When these are quite dry the bottom of the receptacle ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... a great deal of "skylarking" done in the cabin, as well as on deck, during the next hour, but one by one the boys below dropped asleep, and those on deck were soon tired of play, and called upon Captain Gordon to "spin a yarn." He was good-natured enough ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams

... mean to wilfully deceive them. Very probably he had his excuse ready. Malcolm could almost hear his words. "I said nothing about the Jacobis because I knew your prejudice, and I did not want to fluster you. I thought Mrs. Godfrey would spin her yarn, and I left it to her. It was not my fault if the Wallaces took to them, and that they were often up at Fettercairn." Some such words Cedric would say when ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... in all their dealings with their men; but my experience compels me to say that a great number of them were heartless skinflints. The economical measures adopted by some captains in order that their supplies might spin out were not only comic, but idiotic. For instance, the master and his chief officer had their meals together, and if they were not on very lovable terms the few minutes allowed the mate was a very monotonous affair owing to the forced and dignified silence ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman

... done tole me all 'bout it. Mother and daddy bofe come from Vaginny; mother's mama did too. She was a weaver and made all our clothes and de white folks clothes. Dat's all she ever did; just weave and spin. Gran'mama and her chilluns was sold to the Lett fambly, two brothers from Monroe County, Alabama. Sole jist like cows, honey, right off the block, jist like cows. But they was good to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... day. I gave you half rations while ye were buildin' the boat, because we had to get her finished and launched as fast as we could, but now we can't afford to eat so much. I made a careful inspection of our provisions last night, and I find that by allowing every man four ounces a day, we can spin it out. We may fall in with islands, perhaps, but I know of none in these seas—there are none put down on the charts—and we may get hold of a fish now and then, but we must not count on these chances. Now it must be plain to ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne

... Hamish, will be another o' your freens," said he. "There's many a lilting laugh hidden in the ears o' this old tree, for here it was the cailleachs cam' tae spin in the long summer forenights, when everybody left their hames and took their beasts tae the hill for the summer. There were no dykes or hedges in those days, and the beasts had to be herded on the hill if the crops were to come to anything. Aweel, the men ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars

... way home he recovered his cheerfulness with an almost boyish resiliency. The flight of the car up the long hill which used to be such a terror to his sweating team, gave a satisfaction which broke out in speech. "It beats all how a motor can spin right along up a grade like this—and the flies can't sting it either," he added in remembering the tortured cattle of the past. When I told him of an invitation to attend a "Home Coming of Iowa Authors" which I was considering, ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... vos jeux," the croupiers were crying in their strident, monotonous voices, inviting players to stake their counters of cent-sous, their louis, or their hundred or five hundred franc notes upon the spin of the red and black wheel. It was the month of March, the height of the Riviera season, the fetes of Mi-Careme were in full swing. That afternoon the rooms were overcrowded, and the tense atmosphere of gambling was laden with the combined odours of ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux

... She provides the earth which we furrow; she grows and ripens the seeds that we sow and gather. She furnishes, with the help of human labour, the wool that we spin and the food that we eat. And it ought never to be forgotten, that however rich or poor we may be, all that we eat, all that we are clothed with, all that shelters us, from the palace to the cottage, is the ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... men say that a man, by the mere audacity of his request, must have some good in him. A weak man doesn't say: "Give me this and that." He whines: "Why haven't I been given this and that?" If you were in the Army, I should say learn to spin plates or play a tambourine with your toes. As it is ask! You belong to a Service that ought to be able to command the Channel Fleet, or set a leg at twenty minutes' notice, and yet you hesitate ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling

... German bullets spin overhead or crack like whips against our sandbags, sending little clods of earth down into the trench; all down the line we stand on our firing platforms, and answer back to the little spurts of flame which mark the enemy trench; sudden flashes and explosions ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett

... grows skilful in the art, although, if he has no companion, it does not admit of much variety. His chief exploit is to scoop up the top while it is still spinning, on to the palm or back of his hand, or on to his arm. But there are exciting contests, when one boy endeavours to spin his top with all his force on to the revolving top of an opponent, because if successfully accomplished the defeated top splits. A scarred veteran sometimes becomes quite an honoured hero from the ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... a piece of counsel. You sit too close to your books. You read and read,—you spin yourself into your own views like a cocoon. Travel—hear what others say—above all, go into retreat! No one need know. It would do you ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... opposite direction. In any electric field these atoms are so associated with each other, that when one atom revolves, it makes the other to revolve in the opposite direction, with the result, that the spin or rotation is transmitted through the medium at a speed dependent upon ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... spin a yarn Twice laid with words of silken stuff. A fact's a fact; and ye may larn The rights o' this, though wild and rough My words may loom. 'Tis your consarn, Not mine, ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... about take you," said Teague, with a chuckle, "an' set up a calico-factory. I'll heat you up an' make you spin silk ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... The spin and "whizz" of his reel, the rush of a brown mountain stream with its fringe of silver birch and stunted alder, the white side of a leaping salmon, and the gasp of that noble fish towed deftly into the shallows at last, afforded him a natural and unmixed pleasure. ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... remained at the old homestead, keeping house for the only brother, and so well did she do the work, that he gave her a dollar a week for her services. This she used in buying books and clothes for school. Besides, she found opportunities to spin and weave for some of the neighbors, and thus added a little more to ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... party. Assist me, my muse. Come down from heaven, O, Calliope my queen! and aid me to spin with my pen a long discourse. Hark! do you hear? or does some fond delusion mock me? I seem to hear, and to be already wandering through those sacred recesses—the drawing-rooms, namely, at Littlebath—which are pervious only to the streams ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... of all this turmoil, about which I am to spin my narrative, lay in her education. I hold that a German princess should never be educated save as a German. By this I mean to convey that her education should not go beyond German literature, German history, German veneration of laws, German manners and German ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath

... letter of the times mentions that "the priests had also made her dabble in the dirt in a foul morning from Somerset-house to St. James's, her Luciferian confessor riding along by her in his coach! They have made her to go barefoot, to spin, to eat her meat out of dishes, to wait at the table of servants, with many other ridiculous and absurd penances. And if they dare thus insult (adds the writer) over the daughter, sister, and wife of so great kings, what slavery would they not ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... swiftness, as though there were thirty balls instead of three. But the feat which pleased them most, and which may be called the crowning effort of the display, was when Bruin balanced a short stick on his forehead with a pewter plate on the top of it, which, by some mysterious agency, was made to spin round and round, and dazzle the optics of the crowd as it glittered in the sun. At this marvellous sight there was a burst of admiration! Tom blew at his pipes and hammered at his drum with the utmost energy. Two well-dressed young dogs, who ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes

... yet," he said quietly. "Half-an-hour more or less won't make much difference to you on the road. You were talking of travellers' tales, and I reckon you were thinking of fairy yarns that some folks think it smart to spin. Well, maybe those same stories have some foundation in fact, and ain't all works of imagination. Anyhow, my experience has taught me never to disbelieve until I've some good sound grounds ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... the wind came up. In the distance appeared as it were dark clouds which in their eyes grew higher and higher and approached the caravan. The nearest waves of air all around became agitated and sudden gusts of wind began to spin the sand. Here and there funnels were formed as if someone had drilled the surface of the desert with a cane. At places rose swift whirlpools resembling pillars, thin at the bottom and outspread on top like plumes of feathers. All this lasted but the twinkling of an eye. The cloud which the camel-guide ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... the Doctor, "if you must go on dreaming about your race. Dream that you are of the blood of this being; for, mean as his station looks, he comes of an ancient and noble race, and was the noblest of them all! Let me alone, Ned, and I shall spin out the web that shall link you to that man. The ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of the newspaper men, good-humoredly. "You're all right. Go ahead and spin your yarn in your ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham

... first thump of the sharp hoofs as they cut their way into the earth, and then his head seemed to spin, as though he had been whirled around with inconceivable velocity; innumerable stars danced before his eyes, he felt as if shooting through space, ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis

... he had said good-bye to her after a luncheon or tea together, he would turn his car southward and find himself driving down the avenue to Washington square and the old house on the south side, to invite Marcia Terroll for a spin beside him. And sometimes he would call her on the telephone and they would ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... here, Eumolpus returning to his old humour: "Young men," began he, "this poetry deceives many; for not only every one that is able to give a verse its numbers, and spin out his feble sence in a long train of words, has the vanity to think himself inspir'd; but pleaders at the bar, when they wou'd give themselves a loose from business, apply themselves to poetry, as an entertainment without trouble; believing it easier to compile a poem than maintain a ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... are engaged in their several trades: shoemakers ply the awl, glassmakers blow through their tubes, metal founders watch over their smelting-pots, carpenters hew down trees and build a ship; groups of women weave or spin under the eye of a frowning taskmaster, who seems impatient of their chatter. Did the double in his hunger desire meat? He might choose from the pictures on the wall the animal that pleased him best, whether kid, ox, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... that second-story man was indicted that stole Alderman Big Bill Perkins's clothes. Remember it, don't you? Big Bill's clothes had so much diameter that the poor, hard-working thief couldn't sell the fruits of his industry. Pathos there also. Guess I can spin the two out for ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... yellow cotton cord, the heavy belt with its brass buckle, the cumbrous boots, plaited and bound with iron like churns were in rather a ludicrous contrast to the equipment of our light and jockey-like boys in nankeen jackets and neat tops, that spin ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... but what was going to happen if the two of us were bundled off to Baghdad with instructions to wash away the British? Our time was getting pretty short, and I doubted if we could spin out more than three days more in Constantinople. I felt just as I had felt with Stumm that last night when I was about to be packed off to Cairo and saw no way of avoiding it. Even Blenkiron was getting anxious. He played Patience incessantly, ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... Jim Bridger, in spite of advancing years, remained true to their long training. At the rifle crack the tin cup on the head of the statue-like figure opposite him was flung behind as though by the blow of an invisible hand. The spin of the bullet acting on the liquid contents, ripped apart the seams of the cup and flung the fluid wide. Then and not till ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... the matter deeply, but I am as yet far from a solution. Why is a mouse that spins? And if so, what does it spin? Patently the query is incomplete. And what possible bearing can comparative altitude as contrasted with the comparative infrequency of a species have upon the peculiarities of a mouse ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... followed with the balance sheet, giving detailed accounts of receipts, expenditures, assets and liabilities; he answered all questions asked. Then came a resolution, expressing the thanks of the shareholders to the President—and this moment was chosen by the leader of the revolt to spin his pin-wheels. ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... cup, its wiry stem, Its fringed border nicely spin, And cut the gold-embossed gem, That, set in ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... and idle, like other great folks; so much so, that for several years they used to go over to Wales in the fishing season, and live in the cottage by the sea, and Sir Brian would go out fishing every day, and Lady Fanny would spin and sew and take care of the baby, just in the old way. Living thus, they were happiest—but they were always happy and good—they lived to be very old, and died on the same day and were buried ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood

... is inconceivable that it could become altogether silent, but it was as near to a rational stillness of tongues as it was able. Then there was a loud knocking by a single fist and a new voice began to spin Greek, a voice that was somewhat like the rattle of pebbles in a tin box. Then a startling voice called out in English. " Are you ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... I'm tired; the bannock's cooked; it's time we both turned in. The morning mist is coral-kissed, the morning sky is gold. The camp-fire's a confessional — what funny yarns we spin! It sort of made me think a bit, that story that you told. The fig-leaf belt and Rory Bory are such odd extremes, Yet after all how very small this old world seems to be . . . Yes, that was quite a yarn, old pal, ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... Kipling's trick. He assumed the realistic manner as Jacob assumed the hairy hands of Esau. He compelled us to believe him by describing with elaborate detail the setting of his story. And, having once got us in the mood of belief, he proceeded to spin a yarn that as often as not was as unlike life as A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. His characters are inventions, not portraits. Even the dialects they speak—dialects which used to be enthusiastically ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... did; and the next moment the world seemed to spin upside down, and when it was right way up again and they were ungiddy enough to look about them, they were ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit

... nook under the slanting roof but found nothing more exciting than a spider. "Huh, it's no fun hunting for robbers. Guess I'll spin a while." ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers

... measures; to be content with losing nothing by the war, without being at the expense of gaining any advantage from the enemy; to suffer his character to be very severely handled, provided he could amass much wealth, and to spin out the minority ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... on board the ship, and then began the low pulsating stroke, like the beating of a heart, that would not cease until the vessel had sighted land on the other side. George Morris's eyes were fixed on the water, yet apparently he was not looking at it, for when it began to spin away from the sides of the ship he took no notice, but still gazed at the mass of seething foam that the steamer threw off from her as she moved through the bay. It was evident that the sights of New York harbour were very familiar to the young man, for he paid no attention to ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr

... the propeller spin 'er up once for the fun of it," suggested Bob. "It won't do any harm, will it? Dad and I will ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser

... from beneath her mattress and showed it to him, asking whether that might be enough to pay to open the way for Andres to the joys of Heaven? And when the chaplain said that it would be, she turned away her face and fell asleep. So do you spin your yarn, child, and let the flax on your distaff be glad assurance; and, if ever your heart sinks within you, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... be data at command to supply the considerations required in dealing with the specific difficulty which has presented itself. Teachers following a "developing" method sometimes tell children to think things out for themselves as if they could spin them out of their own heads. The material of thinking is not thoughts, but actions, facts, events, and the relations of things. In other words, to think effectively one must have had, or now have, experiences which will furnish him resources ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... morning he had a spin in the ice-boat with his hostess and a few of the hardier guests; in the afternoon he "went over the farm" with Reggie, and listened, in the elaborately appointed stables, to long and impressive disquisitions on ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... valley have bitter and comparatively recent experience of war, and are alarmed at anything which they fancy may indicate its recurrence. Talking further with him, he said, "Here we have no signori; we need not take off our hats to any one except the priest. We grow all we eat, we spin and weave all we wear; if all the world except our own valley were blotted out, it would make no difference, so long as we remain as we are and unmolested." He was a wild, weird, St. John the Baptist looking person, with shaggy hair, and an Andrea Mantegnesque ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... hour half a dozen two-pound bass, not counting other fish and small bass which I tossed back. I used one of Chubb's ordinary silk trolling lines and one of Abbey's spoons, which, by the way, to my fancy spin more freely and better than any others I have used. This I worked sometimes from a small bark canoe and sometimes from a wooden one, which I keep at the farm, and use to paddle up and down the stream between the willows and the bridge, ...
— Black Bass - Where to catch them in quantity within an hour's ride from New York • Charles Barker Bradford

... better treated at Athens than elsewhere, but even at Athens they were tortured when their testimony was required. They were let out, sometimes by thousands, to work in pestiferous mines. (5) Women and Children. In Athens, the wife had seldom learned any thing but to spin and to cook. She lived in seclusion in her dwelling, and was not present with her husband at social entertainments, either at home or elsewhere. She had few if any legal rights, although at Athens she might bring a suit against her husband for ill-treatment. Concubinage was not condemned by public ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... answered Ned, sending the wheel hard over with a spin, and leaving it to rush forward. "Now, Price, aft with the starboard jib- sheets, and belay them—not too flat, man; let them flow a bit—so, that's well! Now tail on here to the halliards with me and let us set the sail. Up with it! that's your sort! Now take it under the ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... direction whence it is coming. Lack of dew in summer is a rain sign. Sharp white frosts in autumn and winter precede damp weather, and we will stake our reputation as a prophet that three successive white frosts are an infallible sign of rain. Spiders do not spin their webs out of doors before rain. Previous to rain flies sting sharper, bees remain in their hives or fly but short distances, and almost all animals ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... fertile brain," said the centurion, "spin nothing out of his present situation, tending towards ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... sinking spirits rose with a bound, for, in the nick of time, Johannes shouted, "All clear ahead!" the gong sent forth its notes to order full speed, and the water was churned into a foam as the propeller began to spin round. ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn



Words linked to "Spin" :   represent, ride, create from raw material, aerobatics, stream, rendition, sugarcoat, gyration, birling, rotary motion, whirligig, rotation, squeeze out, side, distort, invent, lay out, present, interpretation, well out, prolong, go around, draw out, create from raw stuff, revolve, circumvolve, drive, rendering, manufacture, acrobatics, stunting, extrude, extend, pirouette, make up, English, twine, protract, centrifuge, stunt flying, fabricate, logrolling, cook up, birl, revolution, centrifugate, rotate



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