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Sponge   /spəndʒ/   Listen
Sponge

noun
(Formerly written also spunge)
1.
A porous mass of interlacing fibers that forms the internal skeleton of various marine animals and usable to absorb water or any porous rubber or cellulose product similarly used.
2.
Someone able to acquire new knowledge and skills rapidly and easily.  Synonym: quick study.
3.
A follower who hangs around a host (without benefit to the host) in hope of gain or advantage.  Synonyms: leech, parasite, sponger.
4.
Primitive multicellular marine animal whose porous body is supported by a fibrous skeletal framework; usually occurs in sessile colonies.  Synonyms: parazoan, poriferan.



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"Sponge" Quotes from Famous Books



... that Sandro Botticelli spoke slightingly of landscape-painting, and called it "but a vain study, since by throwing a sponge impregnated with various colours against a wall, it leaves some spots upon it, which may appear like a landscape." Leonardo da Vinci continues: "It is true that a variety of compositions may be seen in such spots according to the disposition of mind with which they are considered; such as heads ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... branch of uneatable bitter oranges which decks my tent-pole, I have to-day hung up a long bough of finger-sponge, which floated to the river-bank. As winter advances, butterflies gradually disappear: one species (a Vanessa) lingers; three others have vanished since I came. Mocking-birds are abundant, but rarely sing; once or twice they have ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... himself had seen it. He must, however, have ascended higher peaks, since he is familiar with facts which only occur at a height of ten thousand feet or more above the sea—mountain-sickness and its accompaniments—of which his imaginary comrade Solinus tries to cure him with a sponge dipped in essence. The ascents of Parnassus and Olympus, of which he speaks, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... the perfect love should be minted. Whatever faults of mind or disposition or character were his— or hers—there were no sins against the pledges they had made, nor the bond into which they had entered. Life would need no sponge. Memory might still live on without a wound or ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... be ingenuousness—or silliness—after all! For was Mary Ann as innocent as she looked? The guilelessness of the dove might very well cover the wisdom of the serpent. The instinct—the repugnance that made him sponge off her first kiss from his lips—was probably a true instinct. How was it possible a girl of that class should escape the sordid attentions of street swains? Even when she was in the country she was well-nigh of woo-able age, the likely cynosure of neighbouring ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill

... who gave us our double power," said the Pope to Don Juan, "and he deserves this monument. But sometimes at night I fancy that a deluge will pass a sponge over all this, and it will need to ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... immediately remove it from the fire. Keep on the cover a few minutes longer; then turn out the mixture into a deep dish or a glass bowl, and set it away to get cold, before it goes to table. Eat it with sponge-cake. It will probably ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie

... out in the direct sunlight too long on a hot summer day. Wear a large hat which shades the head and face well, if obliged to be in the hot sun for any length of time. Do not wear too heavy clothing in the hot weather. Leaves or a wet sponge in the top of the hat will help to prevent sunstroke. Drink plenty of cool ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... and sail — which are of no service on such a miniature vessel, and were soon discarded — weighed six pounds. When I took on board at Philadelphia the canvas deck-cover and the rubber strap which secured it in position, and the outfit, — the cushion, sponge, provision-basket, and a fifteen-pound case of charts, — I found that, with my own weight included (one hundred and thirty pounds), the boat and her cargo, all told, provisioned for a long cruise, fell considerably short of the weight of three ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... Canal any moment; he has heard nothing from K.; the fact that K. has ignored my direct appeal to him shows he would not approve, etc., etc., etc. All this is just the line I myself would probably take—I admit it—if asked by another General to part with my troops. The arrangement whereby I have to sponge on Maxwell for men if I want them is a detestable arrangement. At the last he consented to cable K. direct on the point himself and then he is to let me know. Two things are quite certain; the Brigade are not wanted in Egypt. Old campaigners versed ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... out of the way, I suppose?" said William confidentially, as he helped himself to a sponge-cake from a plate on ...
— Kate's Ordeal • Emma Leslie

... the fat dripped down from the poor creature alive, and was fried in a pan as it fell, just as the girls eat it on their bread for supper. And the goose, having no means of escape, still went on drinking the water as the fat dripped down, whilst they kept cooling its head and heart with a sponge dipped in cold water, fastened to a stick, until at last the goose fell down when quite roasted, though it still screamed, and then Sidonia and her companions cut it up for their amusement, living as it was, and ate it for their supper, in proof of which, the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... experience in the surgical operations attendant upon an active football career, was to be the assistant in chief, being expected to take charge of the instruments, and to take part, if necessary, in the actual operation. Ike was instructed to be in readiness with a basin, sponge, and anything else that ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... attention to it at the proper time, a slight circumstance might have revealed the truth to me. Whilst I was bargaining with the Jew, before he opened the chest, he swallowed a large dram of brandy, and stuffed his nostrils with sponge dipped in vinegar: this he told me he did to prevent his perceiving the smell of musk, which always threw ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... ceased to skulk, and where the rattlesnakes and alligators, who shared the wilderness with them, still lurk in undisturbed possession of the soil, if soil that may be called which is only either muddy water or watery mud, a hardly consolidated sponge of alluvial matter, receiving hourly additions from the turbid current ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... 96: With a dish-clout)—Ver. 776. "Peniculo." This word meant a sponge fastened to a stick, or the tail of a fox or an ox, which was used as dusters or dish-clouts are at the present day for cleaning tables, dishes, or even shoes. See the Menaechmi of Plautus, ver. ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... marble stain Its wonted lustre let the floor regain; The seats with purple clothe in order due; And let the abstersive sponge the board renew; Let some refresh the vase's sullied mould; Some bid the goblets boast their native gold; Some to the spring, with each a jar, repair, And copious waters pure for bathing bear; Dispatch! for soon the suitors ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... sorry. Why did you get in the way? Here, wash it up, and I'll get a rag to tie on it,' he said quickly filling a sponge with water and pulling out a very demoralized handkerchief. Rob usually made light of his own mishaps and was over ready to forgive if others were to blame; but now he sat quite still, looking at the ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... and herself, he was a civilian; he was advertising the fact with a white shirt and a sleeveless blue sweater. And Major Lindemann, the engineer officer, and one of his assistants, arguing over some plans on a drafting board. She hoped, drawing a pint of hot water to wash her hands and sponge off her face, that they were ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper

... snobbishness, "the mean admiration of mean things," the devotion to the slimmest appearances of rank. All this is credible enough, but, if there existed a society as dull and base as that which we meet in the pages of "Mr. Soapy Sponge," and Surtees's other novels, assuredly it was no theme for the great and generous spirit of Sir Walter. The worst kind of manners always prevail among people whom moderns call "the second-rate smart," and these are drawn in "St. Ronan's Well." But we may believe that, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... crowd was so dense that the people were forced off the causeway, one of these six-feet gentlemen, on a black horse, rode straight at the place, making his horse rear very high, and fall on the thickest spot. You would suppose men were made of sponge to ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... some distance the other side of Norwich," he said. "I don't want to sponge on you too much," he went on, "but if you're really going to stick it out and try and get there, I'd like to go on, too. I am afraid I can't offer to share the expense, but I'd work my passage if there ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... serves another purpose: that of a toilet-sponge and brush. At a moment of rest, after a meal, the Glow-worm passes and repasses the said brush over his head, back, sides and hinder parts, a performance made possible by the flexibility of his spine. This is done point ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... the sixth sense, or intuition of man. This is the ether—supposed to be "matter in a very rarefied form, which permeates all space." So rare and fine is this matter that it interpenetrates carbon or steel as water interpenetrates a sponge, or ink a blotting pad. In fact, each atom of "physical" matter—by which is meant matter in the first condition—floats in an atmosphere of ether as the solid earth floats in its ...
— Ancient and Modern Physics • Thomas E. Willson

... nitrate of copper in spirits of wine. Light the solution, and it will burn with a beautiful emerald green flame. Pieces of sponge soaked in this spirit, lighted and suspended by fine wires over the stage, produces the lambent green flames now so common in incantation scenes; strips of flannel saturated with it, and applied round copper swords, tridents, ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head

... some purse-proud coxcomb for a scandalous bottle, where we must not pretend to our share of the discourse, because we can't pay our club o' th' reckoning.—Damn it, I had rather sponge upon Morris, and sup upon a dish of bones scored behind ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar

... a little over blood-heat to commence; be very careful that the liquid does not get in the fowl's throat. If there are no directions with the cans, put enough in to make the water quite milky and strong smelling. It is best to make the hen sit down and with a sponge wet the back and head thoroughly, then under the wings and breast; if there are nits, don't be in a hurry to take the hen out, but let the dip get to the nits and skin on the abdomen. If the water is too warm it will be dangerous, as some fowls have ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... because he had no wife of his own, and the heart requires love. It was very wrong of him to love somebody else's wife, and to sponge thus on affections which belonged to another; but then he had nothing puritanical or pharisaical in his nature; he was too highly cultivated to be moral, and arguing the point in the mood of sweet Barbara, he had ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... of France and Germany too—and Goodness knows he will never be missed in Fifeshire. Or them behind may sort what flesh and blood cannot manage; so I will keep a close mouth anent the matter. One may think what one dare not say; for words, once spoken, cannot be wiped out with a sponge—and more's ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr

... Knows he how great a pest he is himself? (Aloud.) But, my Euripides! my sweet! one thing more: Give me a cracked pipkin stopped with sponge. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... cook? Let me help," said Amy eagerly. "I know how to make lovely rolls—only you have to set the sponge the night before. And Judge Peters's pudding is just luscious! Only you have to have currants and citron and chopped nuts to ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long

... the billows crack and plunge, We saw nor waves nor ships. Earth sucked the vapors like a sponge, The salt ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... night it rained heavily, which was good for my plants, but, as our kitchen is some six or eight yards from the house, cooking became a series of adventures. I had set a sponge for bread last night, and was most anxious to bake the dough early in the day. A black boy was sent to the carpenter for a moulding board, and, placing it on a chair on the back veranda, I knelt on the floor with a shawl over my head to keep the rain off and made up the loaves. In making the ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... Gudabirsi tribes as far as Efat and Gurague. It is visited by Cafilas from Abyssinia, and the different races of Bedouins, extending from the hills to the seaboard. The exports are valuable—slaves, ivory, hides, honey, antelope horns, clarified butter, and gums: the coast abounds in sponge, coral, and small pearls, which Arab divers collect in the fair season. In the harbour I found about twenty native craft, large and small: of these, ten belonged to the governor. They trade with Berberah, Arabia, and Western India, and are navigated ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... eight gates. But his attention was more particularly attracted by relics, those objects which all Jerusalem flocked to handle and to kiss with the greatest reverence. He saw the cup used at the last supper,—the sponge on which the vinegar was poured,—the lance which pierced the side of our Lord,—the cloth in which he was wrapped,—also another cloth woven by the Virgin Mary, whereon were represented the figures of the Saviour and of ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... resounding, and noticeable. It was repeated after an interval, and again repeated. There was a certain note of insistence about it—like a signal. And if the cat had been a wild creature she would have thrown up the sponge, or gone away, and returned secretly later, or, anyway, not persisted in crouching there; for those thuds were a signal, and they meant that the game was up. In other words, some wily old mother circling the approach, or some wandering back-eddy of wind, had given the cat away; she had ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... what brightness wasted upon gloom! (Aloud) Oh fling thy sponge across this wretched face, A patch uncouth amid a ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore

... formed to quiet and order under the ever-present care and touch of her mother; nor had she ever participated in these cares more than to do a little dusting of the parlor-ornaments, or wash the best china, or make sponge-cake or chocolate-caramels. Certain conditions of life had always appeared so certain that she had never conceived of a house without them. It never occurred to her that such bread and biscuit as she saw at the home-table would not always and of course appear ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... daintier food," said the Court Cook, so he served broiled peacock on toast, and pomegranates and cream, and wild honey, and cheese-cakes as light as feathers, and a sponge cake made with the eggs of a bantam hen. But the King would eat none ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

... Sponge baths with chilled vinegar-water (1 part cider vinegar diluted with 2 parts water) are helpful when the temperature rises to 102 deg.. If the temperature reaches 105 deg. or over, baths must be promptly administered. ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... a cold sponge, every remedy inexperience could suggest, but the hysterical weeping ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... operation of blowing for several minutes before a sign of life appeared; at length he gasped, and after a time recovered so far as to be able to speak. The swellings in his neck, body, and legs gradually subsided, as they continued washing the wounds with clear cold water and a sponge, and applying the black liquor occasionally; a clean haik was wrapped about him, but his strength seemed so far exhausted that he could not support himself standing, so his comrade laid him on the ground by a wall, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... them on the desk. He also placed in the desk a supply of paper, in quarter sheets. After Marco had come back, and had put in his books and papers, Forester gave him a ruler and a lead pencil; also a slate and half a dozen slate pencils; also a piece of sponge and a piece of India-rubber. He gave him besides a little square phial, and sent him to fill it with water, so that he might have water always at hand to wet his ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott

... loaves and water, that he might eat if he found it necessary. At the expiration of the forty days he came to visit him, and found the loaves and water untouched, but Simeon stretched out on the ground, almost without any signs of life. Taking a sponge, he moistened his lips with water, then gave him the blessed Eucharist. Simeon, having recovered a little, rose up, and chewed and swallowed by degrees a few lettuce-leaves, and other herbs. This was his method of keeping Lent during the remainder of his life; and he had actually ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... Gryphon must needs pursue the Arimaspian — what a chance, that Arimaspian, for the imaginative pencil! And so it has come about that, while Milton periods are mostly effaced from memory by the sponge of Time, I can still see that vengeful Gryphon, cousin-german to the gentle beast that danced the Lobster ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame

... assaulted him on three sides, but was repulsed. The Banyamwezi were, moreover, much too sharp as traders for the Imboshwa, cheating them unmercifully, and lying like Greeks. Kombokombo's stockade was on the Chiberase River, which flows briskly, eight yards broad and deep, through a mile of sponge. We came in the midst of a general jollification, and were most bountifully supplied with pombe and food. The Banyamwezi acknowledge allegiance to the Sultan of Zanzibar, and all connected with him are respected. Kombokombo pressed ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... of quantitative analysis implies a necessity for all possible care in guarding against loss of material or the introduction of foreign matter. The laboratory desk, and all apparatus, should be scrupulously neat and clean at all times. A sponge should always be ready at hand, and desk and filter-stands should be kept dry and in good order. Funnels should never be allowed to drip upon the base of the stand. Glassware should always be wiped with a clean, lintless towel just ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot

... your morning bath. In summer you can bathe all over easily; but in winter, unless your room is warm, it is enough to splash the upper half of your body. Once or twice a week you should take a good hot bath with soap and then sponge down in cool water. See how the birds enjoy their bath; and you will, too, if you once get into the habit of ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson

... sponge, cold water, and a bit o' scented soap— those are Mr Lacey's—to comfort you up. Of course, it depends on the oppyrator. I've seen women soaping little kids and making 'em squirm and yell, when I've felt as I could ha' washed the poor little things and made 'em laugh all the time.—This ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... & drank in night. Cooler breeze, Bud some better & slept. Sway has badly swollen neck. May be rattler bite or perhaps bee. Bud wanted cigarettes but smoked last the day before he took sick. Gave him more liver pills & sponge off with water every hour. Best can do under circumstances. Have not prospected account ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... water a foot-path descended a green dell. Here it was rocky and stony, and lay on the steep scarps of the ravine; here it was choked with brambles; and there, in fairy haughs, it lay for a few paces evenly on the green turf. Like a sponge, the hillside oozed with well-water. The burn kept growing both in force and volume; at every leap it fell with heavier plunges and span more widely in the pool. Great had been the labours of that stream, and great and agreeable the changes it had wrought. It had cut through ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... I had some water,' sighed Marjorie. 'I am sure a little cold water would make her wake, and refresh her. I know it always woke me when Alan put the cold sponge on my face, on those horrid winter mornings when he would go out early ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... at the dripping line of rather dingy clothes, then down at his red and soapy knees, and said, as he turned to go aft, "Well, when we get back to New York, I am going to have a suit of whites made of celluloid that can be washed with a sponge." ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... Euryclea called the maids and said, "Come, wake up; set about sweeping the cloisters and sprinkling them with water to lay the dust; put the covers on the seats; wipe down the tables, some of you, with a wet sponge; clean out the mixing-jugs and the cups, and go for water from the fountain at once; the suitors will be here directly; they will be here early, for it is ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... good many of us, possessors of patience, self-control, and a sponge in a bottle, who rarely enjoy this royal prerogative. We shine our own shoes. Alone, and, if one may argue from the particular to the general, simply dressed in the intermediate costume, more or ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren

... damp, but the water had evaporated. But I would not give up. I jumped from rock to rock, and climbed over scaly ledges, and set tons of yellow shale into motion. And I found on a ragged promontory many little, round holes, some a foot deep, all full of clear water. Using my handkerchief as a sponge I ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... Her touch turned everything to gold. Behind her seat bags filled with coin were piled up to the ceiling. On her right and on her left the floor was hidden by pyramids of guineas. On a sudden the door flies open, the Pretender rushes in, a sponge in one hand, in the other a sword, which he shakes at the Act of Settlement. The beautiful Queen sinks down fainting; the spell by which she has turned all things around her into treasure is broken; the money-bags shrink like pricked bladders; the piles of gold pieces are turned into ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... ain't no good in them. All you want to carry you can put in your saddle-bag. Get a pair of the best blankets you can find. I will go with you and choose them for you. You want a thing that will keep you warm when you sleep, and shoot off the rain in bad weather. Common blankets are no better than a sponge. ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... We shall never sponge from the slate of our memory the utter astonishment expressed in the bland countenance of the startled old gentleman at this peculiar echo ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... of a bamboo pole. I have had this thirst of the Chinese coolie—I know it well. It is born of sheer heat and sheer perspiration. Every drop of liquid has been wrung out of my body; I have seemed to have swum in my clothes, and inside my muscles have seemed to shrink to dry sponge and my bones to dry pith. My substance, my strength, my self has drained out of me. I have been conscious of perpetual evaporation and liquefaction. And I have felt that I must stop and wet myself again. I really must wet myself and swell to life again. And here we sit at the tea-shop. People ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... on thousands of years before there was a man to till the ground, I the little pebble was a living sponge, in the milky depths of the great chalk ocean; and hundreds of living atomies, each more fantastic than a ghost-painter's dreams, swam round me, and grew on me, and multiplied, till I became a tiny ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley

... half-pound tin salt. One one and one-half tin Scotch oatmeal. One one-pound tin lentils. One tin mixed vegetables (dried). One two-pound tin German prunes. Six soup squares. One ounce W. pepper. Two sponge cloths. One-half quire kitchen paper. One two-pound tin chocolate ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon

... straight and behave yourself! How do you expect me to sponge your vest when you're ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne

... do this, as it shows how successful the powers have been in delegating a distasteful task to you, and pleases them accordingly) with razor, soap and shaving brush in my pocket, and a growling, sullen comrade with a towel and sponge in his, we two set out in search of the noble steed. However, once out of sight, we hied us down to some running water, where we shaved and washed, then, filling our pipes, we sat down for an hour and chatted. Finally, we returned disconsolate and horseless, ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... feverish now, and you must not be alarmed if by this evening he is delirious. You will give him this cooling draught every three hours; he can have anything in the way of cooling drinks he likes. If he begins to wander, put cloths dipped in cold water and wrung out on his head, and sponge his hands with water with a little eau de Cologne in it. If he seems very hot set one of the women to fan him, but don't let her go on if it seems to worry him. I will come round again at half past nine this evening and will make arrangements to pass the night here. ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... she had not had time to feel it herself, and it was a joy to her that the deficiency might be supplied by the sight of the way it was rushing through this magnificent young man. She exhorted him, I suppose, to let it rush; she wrung her own flaccid little sponge into the torrent. I knew not what passed between them in her hours of tuition, but I gathered that she mainly impressed on him that the great thing was to live, because that gave you material. He asked nothing better; he collected material, and the formula served as a universal pretext. ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James

... by pillows, young Talbot, with glazed, shocked eyes, stared at me. His shirt had been cut away; his chest lay bare. Against his left shoulder the doctor pressed a tiny sponge which quickly darkened. ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... of sand in summer storms which rivaled those of the Sahara. With transit on his back he had come face to face with the huge brown grizzly. He had slept in mud, he had made his bed on moss which ran water like a sponge; he had taken danger and hardship as they came—yet never had he punished ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... did shape itself on his face, but a startled thought wiped it away as swiftly and completely as a wet sponge obliterates writing on a slate. That thought left his expression as black as a ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... as the door closed behind the constable, and stuffed a piece of damp sponge into the keyhole; he then returned and took a ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... "Woman, behold thy son," he said to her, indicating John. Then turning to John, he added, "Behold thy mother." A moment of agony followed, when he cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" After this, he said, "I thirst," and a soldier held to his lips a sponge wet with vinegar. As the end drew near came the words, "It is finished," and at last, "Father, into thy hands I commend ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... broke out he had thrown up the sponge altogether and "gone yellow"; was living from hand to mouth among the Chinese. At the end of August a ship touched at that Far Eastern port, picking up volunteers for the Western Front. The port contributed a goodly number, but there remained one berth vacant. The long-suffering Consul ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various

... minerals are found, and the marble from Paros is famed as the finest for statue carving; there is a considerable mercantile marine, and a busy shipping trade of a small kind among the islands and along the deeply indented coast, and also valuable coral and sponge fisheries; the government is a limited and hereditary monarchy, and the legislative power is vested in an elected chamber of, at least, 150 paid representatives, called the Boul[e]; universal suffrage obtains, and the period of election ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... was a beast to say so!" cried the girl "She meant it awfully well. Only I thought she thought I had been trying to sponge on her; because I said something about having no dresses for the Commem. balls, even if I wanted to 'come out' then—which I don't!—and she straightaway offered to give me that dress in Brandon's. And I was cross, and behaved like a fiend. And afterwards Connie ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... ground a wide circle was traced by a small rod, tipped apparently with sponge saturated with some combustible naphtha-like fluid, so that a pale lambent flame followed the course of the rod as Margrave guided it, burning up the herbage over which it played, and leaving a distinct ring, like that which, in our lovely native fable-talk, we call the "Fairy's Ring," ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... as was M. Desplaines, with a huge, white pith helmet. Over one shoulder he carried a green butterfly net and under one arm he had tucked a tin box. Round his waist was a leather belt from which hung, in addition to a revolver and cartridges, a glass bottle with a wide stopper with a chloroformed sponge reposing in the bottom. It did not need the introduction of the newcomer by M. Desplaines as Professor Ajax Wiseman, to tell the boys that ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... by the sun, helped no doubt by his realizing that his little scheme had been defeated. We had him brought into camp, but I declined to see him and returned to Fort Sumner. Soon afterwards M—— threw up the sponge, so to speak, and agreed to turn the property over to us. These M—— cattle, numbering only 2000, did not justify the running of a mess wagon and full outfit, so I made arrangements with a very strong neighbouring ranch company to run the cattle for us, only ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... in their dreams to those who are left, that long night's march in the desert. It was like a dream itself, the silence of it as they were borne forward upon those soft, shuffling sponge feet, and the flitting, flickering figures which oscillated upon every side of them. The whole universe seemed to be hung as a monstrous time-dial in front of them. A star would glimmer like a lantern on the very level of their path. They looked again, ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle

... vanished from Elisabeth's face, as if it had been wiped out with a sponge. "Oh! I—I don't know," ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... the stick or stone on the under side of which they live, to place a vial over them, allowing them to leap into it; they may be incited to leap by pushing a needle under the vial. They may also be collected by a bottle with a sponge saturated with ether or chloroform. They may be kept alive for weeks by keeping moist slips of blotting paper in the vial. In this way I have kept specimens of Degeeria, Tomocerus and Orchesella, from the middle of December ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard

... to say something more, and then he went on. "The question is whether there's time to undo last night, abolish it, erase it from the calendar of recorded time—sponge it out, in short—and get back to yesterday afternoon." She made no reply to this. "Don't you think it was a very pleasant picnic, Miss Pasmer?" he asked, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Agricola, hoping to get clues to the difficult things in the book by seeing the region and mines which had been under his eyes while writing it, and finding traditions of the mining methods of his time. But it was as if a sponge had been passed over Agricola and his days. Fire had swept over the towns he had known and all the ancient records were gone. The towns, rebuilt, and the mines of which he had written were there, but of him and of the ancient methods he wrote about there was hardly ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg

... forgotten my sponge," he announced. "I shall not be a moment." He gazed directly at Draycott, who bowed, choking slightly. It was inconceivable to imagine that the resplendent one thought he might—to put it in the vulgar tongue—pinch his bath. By nature he was a timorous individual, ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... the rocks rimmed up by the ice above the gravelly beach. The blood would splash there, and there, and those other rocks would be spattered with tiny drops of it—his blood, the blood from his own heart which Alex Thumb would squeeze dry, as one would wring water from a sponge. He wondered that he felt no sense of fear. He believed that Alex Thumb would do that, yet it was a matter that seemed not of any importance. He raised his eyes and encountered the malevolent glare of the breed. The black eyes seemed to glow with an inner lustre, like the smoulder ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx

... anxious glances at Beth, had brought absorbent cotton, clean linen, a basin of water and a sponge, and Stryker and Brierly washed the wound, while McGuire rushed for his bottle and managed to force some whisky and water between Peter's teeth. The bullet they found had gone through the body and had come out at the back, shattering the shoulder-blade. ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... its contents exposed to the air and sunlight, once every year. Beds long saturated with the night exhalations of their occupants are not wholesome. A number of ancient writers have alleged—and it has been reasserted by modern authorities—that sleeping on sponge is of service to those who desire to increase their families. The mattresses of compressed sponge recently introduced, therefore, commend themselves to married people thus situated. Hemlock boughs make a bed which has a well-established reputation ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... opened before the feet of Elizabeth. School was filled with wonder and delight. She absorbed knowledge like a sponge in the water, and rushed eagerly from one study to another, showing marvellous aptitude, and bringing to every task the enthusiasm of ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill

... chloroform are administered by the modern surgeon. The method was modified by Hugo of Lucca (died in 1252 or 1268), who added certain other narcotics, such as hemlock, to the mixture, and boiled a new sponge in this decoction. After boiling for a certain time, this sponge was dried, and when wanted for use was dipped in hot water and applied ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... she herself, but his manner was the most impervious, the most impossible that she had ever seen. "I'm grim and I'm resolute," she said over to herself; but the splendid defiance of the motto failed to quicken her blood. Not even the recollection of the month's sponge for board and the house-rent due next week spurred her to action. Then she thought of Fifi, whom Mr. Queed had packed off sobbing for his good ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... East and Martin tear through the quadrangle carrying a sponge, and arrive at the scene of action just as the combatants ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... human reflection is perturbed and halting, yet every forward step in scientific and practical knowledge is a step toward its clearer definition. At first much parasitic matter clings to that dynamic skeleton. Nature is drawn like a sponge heavy and dripping from the waters of sentience. It is soaked with inefficacious passions and overlaid with idle accretions. Nature, in a word, is at first conceived mythically, dramatically, and retains much of the unintelligible, sporadic ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... his beauty, and even his being able to drink a great quantity of liquor. Demosthenes, who could not bear to hear him praised, turned these things off as trifles. "The first," he said, "was the property of a sophist, the second of a woman, and the third of a sponge; and not one of them could do any ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... interrupt the harmony of public bodies. But why is perfection to be expected, where every thing must necessarily be imperfect? It is the duty of man to make the nearest approaches to public and private happiness. And if, as with a sponge, he wipe away such establishments, genius has little incentive to exertion, and merit has still less hope of reward. Now cast your eyes ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... fair, years ago, so I know they're all right—and some summer apple sauce; 'tain't much, with summer apples, but I put in lemon peel and a taste o' last year's cider—it makes a relish, anyhow; and I've got some fine sweet-pickled watermelon rind. I could have had sponge cakes, if I'd only known! Would you care to try a cut pie? The sewing-machine man said he hadn't tasted anything like my squash pie in ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... ordered a sponge to be dipped in vinegar, and reached up to Him on a stick so that the dying man might sip ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger

... a sponge And wiping the tears from his eyes, He sank in a chair With a technical air That he struggled in vain to disguise,— For a sigh that he breathed, as I over him leant, Was haunted and ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... signified to us, that he had seen the Signate Star of Philosophers, touching which he had read in Basilius, as he thought. I, and many other honest Men, did behold this Star supernatant on the Spirit of Salt, the lead in the mean while remaining in the bottom of an ash colour, and swollen like a Sponge. But in the space of seven or nine dayes, that humidity of the Spirit of Salt, being absumed by the exceeding heat of the Aire, in July, did vanish; but the Star settled down, and still stood above that Earthly Spongeous Lead. That was a thing worthy of admiration, and beheld by not a few Spectators. ...
— The Golden Calf, Which the World Adores, and Desires • John Frederick Helvetius

... foreign-body or other cases with abundant secretions, a drainage-bronchoscope is useful The drainage canal may be on top, or on the under surface next to the light-carrier canal. For ordinary work, however, secretion in the bronchus is best removed by sponge-pumping (Q.V.) which at the same time cleans the lamp. The drainage bronchoscope may be used in any case in which the very slightly-greater area of cross section is no disadvantage; but in children the added bulk is usually objectionable, ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson

... cooked for us; or to eat from a dish we have eaten from; or to drink from a goatskin which we have polluted with our Christian lips, except by filtering the water through a rag which they put over the mouth of it or through a sponge! I never disliked a Chinaman as I do these degraded Turks and Arabs, and when Russia is ready to war with them again, I hope England and France will not find it good breeding or ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... body is expanded, its specific heat is increased; and the additional quantity of heat requisite is, as it were, sucked in from surrounding bodies—so producing cold. This action may be compared to that of a wet sponge from which, when compressed, a portion of the water is forced out, and when the sponge is allowed to expand, the water is drawn back. This effect is manifested by the increase of temperature in air-compressing machines, and the cold ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various

... we find afterwards, to our surprise, that we have missed nothing. The best observer in the end is not he who works at the microscope or telescope most unceasingly, but he whose whole nature becomes sensitive and receptive, drinking in everything, like a sponge that saturates itself with all floating vapors and odors, though it seems inert and unsuspicious until you press it and ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... that kindles a mild phosphorescence, a dim luminousness as of a bedside match-tray in the dark, in their eyes is when they hear of somebody's what they call conspicuous moderation. I suppose every deacon carries a bishop's apron in his sponge-bag or an archbishop's crosier among his golf-clubs. But in this lot I simply cannot perceive even an embryonic archdeacon. I rather expected when I came here that I should be up against men of brains and culture. I was looking forward to being trampled on by ruthless logicians. ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... Bulgaria upon Turkish Thrace, the sole land bastion protecting Constantinople. Turkey's military situation is thus hopeless, and it is not impossible that before these lines appear in print Turkey will have followed Bulgaria's example and will have thrown up the sponge. ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... tole me w'at for's dat t'ing, An' it seem Englishman he don't feel correc' Until he's go plonge on some bat' morning An' sponge it hees ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond

... you could teach me, Whatever memories of him you had, All that, in spite of you, was splendid in you. I cast you off: a useless sponge! ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand

... raft that had rocked beneath so many hopes and fears still occupied the ocean-floor. To the dull eye, that merely tarries upon the outsides of things, it might have appeared unromantic and even unraftlike, consisting only as it did of a round sponge-bath on a bald deal towel-horse placed flat on the floor. Even to myself much of the recent raft-glamour seemed to have departed as I half-mechanically stepped inside and curled myself up in it for a solitary voyage. Once I was in, however, the old magic and mystery returned in full ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... transfer paper. These impressions are placed, face downward, on the stone and the paper is moistened. On being passed through a press the ink adheres to the stone and the paper is easily removed. A wet sponge is passed over the stone, the water adhering to the exposed surface but not to the greasy ink. While it is moist a roller, covered with transfer ink, is rolled over the designs to which it adheres. The wetting and rolling are alternated until the designs have sufficient body. Lastly, ...
— What Philately Teaches • John N. Luff

... sinking away among the ruined grass and the nettles, were the last perishing fragments of certain ricks: which had gradually mildewed and collapsed, until they looked like mounds of rotten honeycomb, or dirty sponge. Tom Tiddler's ground could even show its ruined water; for, there was a slimy pond into which a tree or two had fallen—one soppy trunk and branches lay across it then—which in its accumulation of stagnant weed, and in ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens

... going along, too, so she can ride herd on the Kid," Pink informed then. "I heard the Little Doctor tell her to pack up, and 'never mind if she did have sponge all set!' Countess seemed to think her bread was a darned sight more important than the Old Man. That's the way with ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... of sponge cake at the bottom of a glass dish. Cut up a tinned pine-apple (get the pine-apple chunks if possible) and fill dish, first pouring a little of the juice over the cake. Melt a very little agar-agar in the rest of the juice. (Allow ...
— The Healthy Life Cook Book, 2d ed. • Florence Daniel

... he said. "The small packet I placed on the chair contains sulphur. Close the window, then place the packet on the fire, and leave the room at once and go into the next room, which is all ready for you. There, I pray you, undress, and sponge yourself with vinegar, then make your clothes into a bundle and put them outside the door. There will be a bowl of hot broth in readiness for you there; drink that, and then go to bed at once, and keep the blankets over you and try ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... he said, "what reason you have to suppose that I should so readily throw up the sponge and leave Monsieur Henri Dubois the ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy

... angry look at her—"I suppose you thought I should want to sponge upon her? I am as much ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... as the haft being hollow, the blade thereof may slip thereinto: as soone as you holde the poynt downeward, and set the same to your forehead, and seeme to thrust it into your head: and so (with a little sponge in your hand) you may wringe out blood or wine, making the beholders thinke the blood or wine (whereof you may say you haue drunke very much) runneth out of your forehead: Then after countenance of paine and ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid

... had risen to fame, but who were repulsed by society on account of the triviality of their conduct; of others who were brought by dissipation to die in a hospital, blamed by all; and of still others who had fallen so low as to hold out their hands for alms, or to sponge on their comrades and to cozen them out of their money for unmerited subscriptions—all of which things moved me to horror and deep repugnance. It was with good reason that my father was called "Honest Beppo" by his fellows on the stage. The ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles

... digestive and nervous systems. Out chemists make a medicinal tincture of Feverfew, the dose of which is from ten to twenty drops, with a spoonful of water, three times a day. This tincture, if dabbed oil the parts with a small sponge, will immediately relieve the pain and swelling caused by bites of insects or vermin. In the official guide to Switzerland directions are given to take "a little powder of the plant called Pyrethrum ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... Bob went out of the garage and started slowly back toward the house. Heinrich, sorrowing over the loss of his alligator, with a sigh took up the sponge and hose again and fell to washing the car ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene

... destruction of houses and churches to make it hunting ground, that is utter nonsense which never could have been written by anybody that ever saw it: but as to hunting, except his horses wore something like mud-pattens or snow-shoes, it is difficult to conceive it. Almost the whole Forest is like a great sponge, water standing in every part. In the part nearer to Xchurch forest trees, especially beeches, seem to grow well. We stopped to bait at Lyndhurst, a small place high up in the Forest: a good view, such as it is, from the churchyard. The hills of the Isle of Wight occasionally in sight. ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... fancy some of you saying, 'These gloomy views of yours will lead to nothing but absolute despair. You have been telling us that success is impossible; that we are bound to fight, and are sure to be beaten. What are we to do? Throw up the sponge, and say, "Very well! then I may as well have my fling, and give up all attempts to be any better than my passions and my senses would lead me to be."' And if there is nothing more to be said about the fight than has been already said, that is the conclusion. 'Let ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... night we knelt and prayed, Mad mourners of a corse! The troubled plumes of midnight shook The plumes upon a hearse: And bitter wine upon a sponge ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols



Words linked to "Sponge" :   sponge bath, spongy, pass over, wipe up, freeload, obtain, absorbent, learner, efface, wipe off, erase, scholar, follower, score out, pull together, garner, wipe, assimilator, mop up, Porifera, invertebrate, rub out, mop, phylum Porifera, Madeira sponge, collect, absorbent material, gather



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