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Switch   /swɪtʃ/   Listen
Switch

noun
1.
Control consisting of a mechanical or electrical or electronic device for making or breaking or changing the connections in a circuit.  Synonyms: electric switch, electrical switch.
2.
An event in which one thing is substituted for another.  Synonyms: permutation, replacement, substitution, transposition.
3.
Hairpiece consisting of a tress of false hair; used by women to give shape to a coiffure.
4.
Railroad track having two movable rails and necessary connections; used to turn a train from one track to another or to store rolling stock.
5.
A flexible implement used as an instrument of punishment.
6.
A basketball maneuver; two defensive players shift assignments so that each guards the player usually guarded by the other.
7.
The act of changing one thing or position for another.  Synonyms: shift, switching.



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"Switch" Quotes from Famous Books



... out, for it was nearly dark when the "Restless" had left Agua Dulce. Only the movement of a switch was ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock

... heard Kennedy mutter almost to himself, with a view to showing Pedersen that he knew something about it. "Break system relay—operator can overhear any interference while transmitting—transformation by a single throw of a six-point switch which tunes the oscillating and open circuits to resonance. Very clever—very efficient. By the way, Pedersen, are you the only person aboard who ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... any other clothes, I might wear a switch, too!" hissed the Amazonian queen. "I suppose you don't dye it on account of the salt water. But perhaps ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... prospect of again braving the elements. Across the street his unprotesting taxicab stood parked parallel to the curb; beyond it glowered the end of the station. To the right of the long, rambling structure he could see the occasional glare of switch engines and track-walkers' ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen

... Baggs has come through it all with his health about unimpaired, Baggs has! But no Baggs court of inquiry is going to switch me off the examination I'm now conducting; and I tell you, Mr. Amidon, you can't dodge me. What double life took you away from home, and ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... out with broken chiny and posies. I swan 't makes me feel curus when I think what children du contrive to get pleased, and likewise riled about! One day I rec'lect Hetty'd stepped onto my biggest clam-shell and broke it, and I up and hit her a switch right across her pretty lips. Now you'd 'a' thought she would cry and run, for she wasn't bigger than a baby, much; but she jest come up and put her little fat arms round my neck, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... near the stalls, for while the cows are eating their supper, they switch their tails to keep off the flies. Once "Black-eyed Susan" switched her tail across Marmaduke's face. It felt like a whip and he ran away crying. But "Susan" didn't mean it for she ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson

... hull was almost at the boiling point. Inside, it was a burning, suffocating hell. Perhaps it was the heat that aroused Hal Burnett once again. Somehow he managed to stumble to the Tele-screen. With the last vestige of a waning strength, he managed to switch it on and hold ...
— Rescue Squad • Thomas J. O'Hara

... have been paraded before my poor old Dinky-Dunk's eyes. It would be, later on, after disillusionment and boredom. Then, and then only, it would dare to show its ugly head. So instead of feeling sorry for myself, I began to feel sorry for my Diddums, even though he was trying to switch me off like an electric-light. And all of a sudden I came to ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... perseptable stigma.- late at night the centinel detected an old indian man in attempting to creep into camp in order to pilfer; he allarmed the indian very much by presenting his gun at him; he gave the fellow a few stripes with a switch and sent him off. this fellow is one of a party of six who layed incamped a few hundred yards below us, they departed soon after ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... on and get your money!" advised Sandy. "Just go straight down the gangway until you come to a face of rock and then switch off to the left, and you'll find yourself in a chamber used at present by robbers and hold-up men as a ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher

... Buildings in Ottawa were burning, the main switch which controlled the lighting was turned off by mistake and the whole place was plunged into darkness, and this added greatly to the horror and danger. The switch was down a long passage through which the smoke was rolling, and it seemed impossible ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung

... it, and it was not the mail clad Highland chief, with claymore in hand, as he had seen him the preceding night, but Conachar of Curfew Street, in his humble apprentice's garb, holding in his hand a switch of oak. An apparition would not more have surprised our Perth burgher. As he gazed with wonder, the youth turned upon him a piece of lighted bog wood which he carried in a lantern, and to his ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... features were coarse and masculine, yet at a little distance, by dint of very bright wild-looking black eyes, an aquiline nose, and a commanding profile, appeared rather handsome. She flourished the switch she held in her hand, dropped a courtesy as low as a lady at a birth-night introduction, recovered herself seemingly according to Touchstone's directions to Audrey, and opened the conversation without waiting till any questions ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... to touch that young lady—!" Philip spoke in a voice Jacqueline had never heard, shaken with rage. He had a stout switch in his hand. Suddenly, uncontrollably, he brought it down across the man's shoulders again ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... "we reserve all the surface for residence purposes; although, it is possible to live down here in comparative comfort, since we have plenty of electrical energy to spare." And she operated a switch, flooding the place with a brilliant glow. Thrown from concealed sources, this light was quite as strong as the subdued daylight which they had just left. "But unless we were free to fly about as much as we do, we should feel that life was a bore. Nobody stays ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint

... a left flank-guard. Major Becher at Headquarters sent forward reinforcements from the Reserve Company, and eventually the 7th Battalion from "Maple Copse" were despatched by Brigade and did splendid work in spite of heavy shelling, in digging a switch line connecting the trenches in the neighbourhood of "Zouave Wood" to our ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman

... shoot Hearne, so far, although she could have waited and gained the same end. The rye is free to marry her, or to marry you, ma'am, but never to marry the angel, unless—" Mother Cockleshell adjusted the bundle carefully on the donkey, and then cut a long switch from the tree. ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... mule and carried off the mail pouch. The station agent was busy inside at his telegraph instruments and paid no heed to the horsemen. Save for a few huts clustered on the hillside, there were no signs of human habitation in sight. The lights in a switch target showed ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... betrayed a window. Bud felt his way to the side of the car, groped to the robe rail, found a heavy, fringed robe, and curtained the window until he could see no thread of light anywhere; after which he ventured to use his flashlight until he had found the switch and turned ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... It's Mother's birthday to-day. We've had simply no time to work anything for her, so we got a wonderful electric lamp for her bed table, the switch is a bunch of grapes and the stand is made of brass. She was so pleased with it. Yesterday Frau v. R. was here. She's a friend of Mother's and of Hella's mother. I should like to have music lessons from Frau v. R., she gives lessons ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl

... of his boot had shattered the window leading to the front room. Reaching forward, he found it easy to displace sufficient glass to permit him to step safely into the room. Near the curtained doorway he found the electric switch which regulated the light. As the cluster of lamps flashed up, he looked for the documents. They ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin

... across noiselessly into the shadow by the switch. There he waited. Presently the manager's footsteps could be heard returning. He stopped in his old position, unconscious of the stoker crouching ten feet away from him. Then the big dynamo ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... He had the willow switch in his hand. The Maestro had given it to him, "to remember him by," he said. Tonio felt pretty sure he could remember him without it, but he switched the weeds beside the road with it as he walked along, and there ...
— The Mexican Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... cellular systems which are operational throughout Estonia international: international traffic is carried to the other former Soviet republics by landline or microwave radio relay and to other countries partly by leased connection to the Moscow international gateway switch and partly by a new Tallinn-Helsinki fiber-optic, submarine cable which gives Estonia access to international circuits everywhere; access to the international packet-switched ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... nothing to this. At last, throwing away the switch he held in his hand, he said, as if speaking to himself, "I don't know whether I have the power." . . . "You don't know! And you wanted me just now to give up my arms! That's good, too," cried Brown; "Suppose they say one thing to you, and do the other thing to me." He calmed down markedly. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... remains is the setting up of the instruments. They are arranged as in the drawing, a double-point, {215} double-throw switch being used to switch from sending ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... was all done by this useful current, and all that was necessary to make a cup of coffee or fry a beefsteak was to turn a small switch ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood

... the spot, and breaking off a hazel switch, dragged the paper out from where it lay and carefully smoothed it. Then she raised a piece of turf, hid the paper underneath and rolled a stone on the top. It was a hope that lay buried there, and also a proof—of what? That she had committed a crime? She felt that she had. She had done ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... selected of the same height as Marie; and this cloth veiling them from head to foot, it was impossible to distinguish one from another. The bridegroom was only allowed to touch them with the end of his switch, to point out which he guessed to be his bride. If wrong, he could not dance with the latter that evening, but only with the one ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various

... years there was a general appreciation of the difficulty some Virginians had experienced in breaking with England and swearing allegiance to a new nation. This switch was especially difficult for members of the governor's council and the Anglican clergy who had taken personal oaths of allegiance to the king, not a casual act in the 18th Century. Most of these men and women had ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education

... fans?" she demanded, and pulled down a switch which illuminated the interior of a large cabinet full of fans. She pointed out fans painted by Lami, Glaize, Jacquemart. "That one is supposed to be a Lancret," she said. "But I'm not sure about it, and ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... concentrically with D through part of a circle, carries a "wipe" block at the end of a spring, which presses it against D. The spring itself is attached to an insulated plate. When the revolution of D brings the wipe and contact together, current flows from the accumulator through switch S to the wipe; through the contact-piece to C; from C to M P and the induction coil; and back to the accumulator. This is the primary, or low-tension, circuit. A high-tension current is induced ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... switch lightly to the Brownie's heels, enough to annoy without hurting him. The Brownie showed signs of uneasiness, quitted his quiet pace, and took to little starts and springs and whiskey motions, most unpleasing to ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... inserting the key and opening the door upon darkness—a warm darkness that came flowing out scented. She found the switch, ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... replied Joe, who was busily engaged with a long switch, that he occasionally thrust in the fire, and when the end was burnt to a coal, slyly applied it to the heel ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... of discretion, when he will shew a kinde of rationall judgement with him, and if you set an expert rider on his backe, you shall see how sensiblie they will talke together, as master and scholler. When he shall be no sooner mounted and planted in the seat with the reins in one hand, a switch in the other, and speaking with his spurres in the horse's flankes, a language he wel understands, but he shall prance, curvet, and dance the canaries[DO] halfe an houre together in compasse of a bushell, and yet still, as he thinkes, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... changed the fuse to a new and tested one, and then placed a new, fused line around the fuse Herr Schweeringen had said would blow, and placed a workman beside it. When the fuse did blow as predicted, my workman instantly closed the extra-line switch, so that the lights of the State dinner barely flickered. But I shudder when I think of the result if Herr Schweeringen had not ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)

... engaged in spraying the last of the chemical on the expiring embers of the blaze, and in stamping and beating out the last of the fire. As the light died out, Bob fumbled for and found the switch in the hangar and ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge

... moment my brain worked with the incredible swiftness of light. In a flash I knew that if I added malic acid to the mercury—perchloride of mercury or corrosive sublimate—I would have calomel or subchloride of mercury, the only thing that would switch the poison out of my system and ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... visited Fall River, and have the following account from the intelligent operator in the railroad office at that place. The office at the station is about half a mile from the regular office in the village. The battery is kept at the latter place, but the operator at the station is provided with a switch by which he can throw the battery off the line and put the wire in connection with the earth at pleasure. The battery at the other terminus of the line is at Boston; but the operator at South Braintree is furnished with a similar switch, which enables ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... voice faltered, and my sight failed. How well understood was the potent magic of the grandeur and dignity which ought to surround sovereigns! Marie Antoinette, dressed in white, with a plain straw hat, and a little switch in her hand, walking on foot, followed by a single servant, through the walks leading to the Petit Trianon, would never have thus disconcerted me; and I believe this extreme simplicity was the first and only real mistake of all those ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... subscription-list, instead of juggling about the country, with an Australian larrikin; a "brumby," with as much breed as the boy; a brace of chumars in gold-laced caps; three or four ekka-ponies with hogged manes, and a switch- tailed demirep of a mare called Arab because she has a kink in her flag. Racing leads to the shroff quicker than anything else. But if you have no conscience and no sentiments, and good hands, and some knowledge ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... in the next moments that the eye could scarcely follow them. Those who have seen a panther in liberty know there is nothing so graceful, so quick, so lithe and noiseless in animal life. And Deulin was like a panther at that moment. He leaped across the pavement to give one man a stinging switch across the cheek with the flat of the blade, and was back on guard in front of Cartoner like a flash. He ran right round the two men, who stood bewildered together, and did not know where to look for him. Once he lifted his foot and planted a kick in the small of his adversary's back, sending ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... get up a storm some night after everybody's gone to bed. The people have seen the pond fine and full when the sun went down. All that night the wind howls and the windows rattle and the trees bend and switch around; and if those in the farmhouse, instead of being in bed, were over there on the beach," the speaker waved his hand toward the shining white sand, distant, but in plain sight, "they might see countless billows ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham

... sweetly delivered by my Lord Chancellor Phosphorus to the people, that I dare say there was never a one of them could forbear to do as I do-and, it please your fatherhoods, they be tears of joy. Aye, my Lord Archon shall walk the streets (if it be for his ease I mean) with a switch, while the people run after him and pray for him; he shall not wet his foot; they will strew flowers in his way; he shall sit higher in their hearts, and in the judgment of all good men, than the kings that go upstairs to their ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... the switch," she said. "All you have to do is to reach under quick and pull one loose—just a little tug like this—and you can stop the wildest man, and the wildest ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston

... muted bell interrupted Walters as he was about to reply. He opened the switch to the interoffice teleceiver behind his desk, then watched the image of his aide appear on the ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell

... stretching her arms so as to take us all in, she prayed with all her soul to God to help her bring up her children right. Don't think now that she let God do it all; she helped God, bless your life, by keeping a switch ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... my hands heavenwards and turned round to view the new arrival. It was just as I thought. Moira had blundered into my little surprise party, and she was doing her level best to annex all the honors for herself. She was standing with one hand on the light switch and the other held Bryce's automatic. Her face was very pale, and the hand that held the revolver wasn't quite as steady as I could have wished. She blinked a little at me—her eyes seemed blinded by the sudden radiance—and I don't think ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh

... away to get the article in question, while the boys stood beside Captain Hazzard, who was about to explode the heavy charges. Everybody was ordered to hold tight to something, and then the commander pushed the switch. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... didn't think of them. Light the oil ones as well as switch on the electrics. We may need both, and I am not sure of that storage battery. The last place I had it looked at the man said it would ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope

... would break my back in two let me go till I have grown strong. A time may perhaps come when I may reward thee for it." "Run off," said the tailor, "I see thou art still a giddy thing." He gave it a touch with a switch over its back, whereupon it kicked up its hind legs for joy, leapt over hedges and ditches, and galloped away into ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... made heavy to Maggie, and Tom's persistent coldness to her all through their walk spoiled the fresh air and sunshine for her. He called Lucy to look at the half-built bird's nest without caring to show it to Maggie, and peeled a willow switch for Lucy and himself, without offering one to Maggie. Lucy had said, "Maggie, shouldn't you like one?" but ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... the single rail; its four wheels revolved in a line, one behind another; and it traveled with the level, flexible equilibrium of a ship moving across a dock. It swung over the sharp curves without faltering, crossed the switch, and floated—floated is the only word for the serene and equable quality of its movement—round and round the quarter-mile circle. A workman boarded it as it passed him, and sat on the edge with his legs swinging, and its level ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... understood it, that Georgia troops were to be held to guard Georgia soil. This was one of the points in his discussion with Mr. Davis. General Taylor consulted with General Toombs, however, and they arranged to have the Georgia militia "shunted off at a switch near Savannah and transported quietly to Carolina." At Pocotaligo these troops had a lively brush with the Union forces and succeeded in holding the railroad. The Georgians were plucky whether at home or abroad, ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... devil ever said that money spoiled life! Upon my soul, it is no such thing; on the contrary, it seems as if I absorbed a double quantity of air and sun. Mordioux! what will it be then, if I double that fortune, and if, instead of the switch I now hold in my hand, I should ever carry the baton of a marechal? Then I really don't know if there will be, from that moment enough of air and sun for me. In fact, this is not a dream, who the ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... husband, stand pigeon-toed, or lean against him or the wall, or any person, or thing. She must not run her arm through his and let her hand flop on the other side; she must not swing her arms as though they were dangling rope; she must not switch herself this way and that, nor must she "hello" or shout. No matter how young or "natural" and thoughtless she may be, she must, during the ceremony and the short time that she stands beside her husband at the reception, assume ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... the demented mind consciousness still remains, the awareness of the young child or baby stage of life. The connection between the upper or conscious brain centers and the body has been tampered with; it no longer is direct, but breaks off into switch-lines. But the contact still holds between the lower or unconscious mind and the body; so the automatic body functions go on, directed as they were in babyhood before the independent mind assumed control. Hence, when all acute consciousness is finally gone, the unconscious ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter

... card, and gives him a fresh send-off. It wa'n't more'n half an hour afterwards that I was out on an errand, and as I cut through 22d-st. back of the Flatiron I sees a crowd. Course, I pushes in to find out what was holdin' up all the carriages and bubbles that has to switch through there goin' north. Somehow I had a feelin' that it might be Clifford. And ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... the wealth and prestige of the Illinois Central Railroad to support him. Lincoln trusted to some friend to drive him across country, or had to be contented with a seat in a caboose of a freight train, waiting on a switch at a siding, while Douglas's special went whizzing by. The people of each county made the day of the debate a great holiday. From daylight until noon all the converging roads were crowded with wagons, carts and buggies, loaded with people, while other thousands hurried on foot ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... wooden saddle, and Cuthbert tried several times in vain. Then he repeated in a sharp tone the words which he had heard the Arabs use to order their camels to kneel, striking the animal at the same moment behind the fore-legs with a small switch. The camel immediately obeyed the order to which he was accustomed, and knelt down, making, however, as he did so, the angry grumble which those creatures appear to consider it indispensable to raise when ordered to do anything. Fortunately this noise is so frequently made, and the camels ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... a sweep of his hand. He threw on the switch and rocked the wheel; the engine started—click-click-click.... Gathering headway, the Barracouta nosed south, dory and pea-pod trailing behind her. Before them lay ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... "Switch off the light and go," he called to them in a low-sunk voice. "Don't worry yourselves, either of you. Go to bed, and to ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... must take into account the matter of operating apparatus. Perhaps a large part of this important department of house equipment has been built into the house. The water system, the sewer connection or its substitute, and the lighting apparatus are already installed, so that the turn of a switch or a faucet, the pull of a chain, sets one or all to work for us. We are now to consider whether we shall buy a vacuum cleaner or a broom and dustpan; a washing machine and electric flatiron or the services of a washerwoman, or shall telephone ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson

... fact, a great political opportunity for getting rid of the "irreconcilable" element from council and field. Then, in the moment of wildest enthusiasm, the witch-finder darted forward and lightly touched with a switch some doomed man, sitting, it may be, quietly among the spectators, or capering with his fellow-soldiers. Instantly he was led away, and his ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... swimming," replied Oliver. "They will get safe here now. Cannot we help them? I wish I had a rope! A long switch may do. I will get ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau

... as smoothly as I could have hoped. I found it so easy, when desirable, to switch the colonel on to one of my carefully contrived side tracks that I began to be proud of my skill and to enjoy the exercise of it. But one evening, just as we were in the middle of the dessert, he suddenly broke out with, "We were conquered by mere brute ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... 1872.—The two Nassickers lost all the cows yesterday, from sheer laziness. They were found a long way off, and one cow missing. Susi gave them ten cuts each with a switch. Engaging ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... down near the corner, however, he paused. Here was an iron box fastened to one of the fences, a switch box or something of the sort belonging to the telephone company. To it were led all the wires from the various houses on the block and to each wire was fastened a little ticket on which was scrawled in indelible pencil the number of ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... spoke the calm voice of the professor. "I have only turned off the electrics. I want to switch on the search lights, to see if we can learn anything ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood

... was finished. The petty officer in charge of the work pushed in the switch, and the pump started, sucking dry with a harsh racket. The natives twittered in surprise. Then the water came, and the pump settled down to a ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper

... endeavored to loose their hands after Tom, by a movement of his forefinger, had turned the switch of the battery, and one and all of the giant guards were unable to stir, as the electricity gripped their muscles. ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton

... every night in the week 'long-side o' Brother Peter Mosely. Brother Mosely's wife didn't seem to favah their religion no more'n I did; so, seen' as I couldn't follow roun' aftah her with a hickory switch, an' couldn't keep her home or at work no othah way, I just got myself a divorce, an' settled down alone on a patch o' lan' I bought o' Mahs Duke, an' I kep' on looken' aftah his stables long as he kept any. He died just afore young Mahs Tom married ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... her nerves were all but over strung, when she heard a sudden noise behind her of some one rushing into the room, and Adolphe Denot quickly dropped her hand, and gave a yell of pain. He had received a sharp blow of a cherry switch across his face, and the blood was running from ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... a steep incline on the way to Grass Valley in California their special train stopped. When he asked what the trouble was he was told that they would have to wait on a switch while another train came down the single track. He was afraid he would miss the evening's performance, so he asked the engineer if he could beat the down train to the double track. On being told that there was a chance, ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... from Virginia to Mississippi. My mother and I lived on one place and my father lived on another plantation. I remember one Sunday he come to see me and when he started home I know I tried to go with him. He got a little switch and whipped me. That's the onliest thing ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... are a small store and bar-room, apparently well patronized, if one may judge from the mental and physical wanderings of a man who asked the way to Winnipeg, and the wild notes of a fiddle issuing from the open doorway. While the train waited for the switch signal, we were too tired to take much note of our surroundings, the appearance of a rail fence between the track and the outlying country being more suggestive of approaching civilization to our Ontario eyes than ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon

... to the ear of Francisco de Lara, bringing the red colour to his cheeks, as if they had been smitten by a switch. With eyes flashing, and full of jealous ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... emergency light, he scrambled to the bank of communicator-buttons. What had been the floor was now a side wall. He climbed it and thumbed the navigation-room switch. ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster

... to contemplate, beyond the present misery of men, the misery of their children; and the white-haired man who was extolling slavery just now, and trying to turn aside the demands of the people and switch them on to traditional massacre; and he who from the height of his bunting and trestles would have put a glamour of beauty and morality on battles; and he, the attitudinizer, who brings to life the memory of the dead only ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... he was ordered on a Sunday morning to get ready for church. Disobeying the order, he ran off and concealed himself, but was pursued, captured, and returned to his mother, who at once sent for a switch. The switch was a limb from a Lombardy poplar, and the precocious little truant, seeing this, quoted a verse from St. Matthew which was from a lesson he had but recently read to his mother. The quotation was as follows: "Every ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... darky hired-men of the Midland town; and the introspective horses they curried and brushed and whacked and amiably cursed—those good old horses switch their tails at flies no more. For all their seeming permanence they might as well have been buffaloes—or the buffalo laprobes that grew bald in patches and used to slide from the careless drivers' knees and hang unconcerned, half way to the ground. The stables have been transformed ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... gave him good training in running and leaping and swimming. One of them would run round a tree, and she having a thorn switch, and Finn after her with another switch, and each one trying to hit at the other; and they would leave him in a field, and hares along with him, and would bid him not to let the hares quit the field, but to keep before ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... European War. The emigrant will give Greece all Trikoupis dreamed of, but his greatest gift to his country will be his American point of view. In the West he has learnt that men of every language and religion can live in the same city and work at the same shops and sheds and mills and switch-yards without desecrating each other's churches or even suppressing each other's newspapers, not to speak of cutting each other's throats; and when next he meets Albanian or Bulgar on Balkan ground, he ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... for we had to switch off continually to allow ammunition trains and troops to pass. All the railroad stations were packed with soldiers and grieving women, though there was nothing in the way of heroics in these leave-takings, just grim resolve on the faces of the men and silent ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow

... he said, "I have just returned from an airing on your noble horse. He is, indeed, a fine animal, but once or so I was obliged to give him the switch." ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous

... child James Holden. And bankers, being bankers, might very well clog up the operation with a lot of questions. But there was the possibility that James Holden, operating through the agency of an adult, would switch his method. He could even go so far as to bring Brennan to lawsuit to have Brennan stopped from his interference. Child or not, James Holden had been running a checking account by mail for a number of years which ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... the rascals were gentlemanly enough in their manner, and I could not help admiring their mixture of courtesy and cruelty, either of which they could switch on at a moment's notice without ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... itself up at full length and gives utterance to a succession of rasping cries, strangely loud for so small a creature. A horse is likewise brought into the garden, for the pleasure it will presumably afford me to watch it munch bunches of pulled grass, and switch horseflies away with his tail. The horse is tied up about twenty yards from my quarters, but in his laudable zeal to cater to my amusement Mohammed Ahzim Khan volunteers to station it close ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... man, we could not fail to be aware of all the remarkable shots at long words which he bawled out at the top of his voice, and I refrain from recording, lest they should haunt others as they have done by me all my life. Now and then Chapman caught up a long switch and dashed out at some obstreperous child to give an audible whack; and towards the close of the litany he stumped out—we heard his tramp the whole length of the church, and by and by his voice issued from an unknown height, proclaiming—'Let us sing to the praise and glory ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... girls checked their horses to a walk. They were none of them practised riders, and all were glad that no more was expected from them for the present. Honor, however, was some way on in front, and, instead of pulling up, as she was told, she gave her horse a switch across the flank and a tweak on the ear, such as she had been accustomed to bestow on her old pony at home. The effect was magical. Seaside hacks are not generally prone to run away, but this one had a little spirit left in him; he resented his rider's liberties, and, feeling the ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... would deftly switch to a less exciting detail of the Condor-Stillman musicale, before her neighbor had a chance to pick flaws in her logic. But sooner or later the topic would again verge on the controversial. Usually at the point where the scene shifted from Ned Stillman's apartments ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... Thou hast spoiled the work with thy clumsy handling! Why canst not leave alone what thou dost not understand? Who gave permission to change? Body of me! Must I stand over thee every hour in the day and switch ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... of wind as we fell in together. 'Twould presently switch to the south (I fancied); and 'twould blow high from the sou'east before the night was done. The shadows were already long; and in the west—above the hills which shut the sea from sight—the blue of mellow weather and of the day was fading. And by the lengthened shadows I was reminded ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... in this world so comforting to a woman as good feeling with her sisters, one and all," Mother Mayberry said as she watched the last switch of the widow's skirt. "Mother, wife and daughter love is a institution, but real sistering is a downright covenant. Me and Bettie have held one betwixt us these many a year. But you and me have both put a slight on the kitchen since ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... Atta boy—some fin, old top! Say, you Beef—you're asleep at the switch. What time do you want to be called? More pep there, Monty—bust that little old bulb, Roddy! Aw, rotten! Say, Ballard, your playing will bring the Board of Health down on you—why don't you bring your first ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... more of quiet, then the engine and one car, which went down the mountain each morning to bring back the mail, was derailed at the second switchback and crashed into a forest of big oaks. The car was empty, and the train, being on the second switch, was moving backward. The rear end of the coach was crushed but the engine and ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird

... crimes, which are committed by some positive act. But what about involuntary crimes of omission? In a railway station, where the movements of trains represent the daily whirl of traffic in men, things, and ideas, every switch is a delicate instrument which may cause a derailment. The railway management places a switchman on duty at this delicate post. But in a moment of fatigue, or because he had to work inhumanly long hours of work, which exhausted ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri

... out how bad it is indeed," he answered. He reached for the light switch and tried to turn it on. The switch was ...
— All Day September • Roger Kuykendall

... composed the factory of the Pullmore Tractor Company of Zenith was running on night shift to fill an order of tractors for the Polish army. It hummed like a million bees, glared through its wide windows like a volcano. Along the high wire fences, searchlights played on cinder-lined yards, switch-tracks, and ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... will cut some switches, and make them behave," he replied. At the first tree he cut himself a long, slender switch from one of the branches, and shorter ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum

... "No decent bird will have anything to do with them. They lay their eggs in our nests and we have to bring up their lubberly children for them. If I were you I'd drive them away next time and let the flies bite. What's your tail for, anyhow, except to switch the ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... room without a word more to either Repton or his wife. Whatever he did now he must do by himself. He would not be admitted into that house again. He closed the door of the room behind him, and hardly had he closed it when he heard the snap of a switch and the line of light under the door vanished. Once more there was darkness in the drawing-room. Repton no doubt had returned to his wife's side and they were huddled again side by side on the sofa. Thresk walked down the hill with a horrible feeling of isolation and loneliness. ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason

... of the second-head, for a buck of the first-head he was not, had hitherto been slapping his boots with his switch-whip, and looking like a spoiled child that has lost its supper. His murmurs, however, were all vented inwardly, or at most in a soliloquy such as this—'I am sorry, by G-d, I ever plagued myself about her. I came here, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... he answered, lifting his eyes from the little batteries that he was watching as though they were live things. "You know the arrangements. At ten o'clock—that is about two hours hence—I touch this switch. Whatever happens it must not be done before, for fear lest the Doctor's son should not have left the idol, to say nothing of all the other poor beggars. The spies say that the marriage feast will not be celebrated until at ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... as nature intended. Only Mack, the hound, lacking this protection, but hardened to greater exposure, lay flat on his side, his paws extended to the blaze. They all rested quietly, worn out, apparently without the energy to move a single hair. But now Dick, rising, took down from its switch the first of the whitefish. Instantly every dog was on his feet. Their eyes glared yellow, their jaws slavered, they leaped toward the man who held the fish high above his head and kicked energetically at the struggling animals. Sam took the dog whip to help. Between them the food was distributed, ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White

... the muscles of the player, is rubbed into the wounds after which the sufferer plunges into the stream and washes off the blood. In order that the blood may flow the longer without clotting it is frequently scraped off with a small switch as it flows. In rheumatism and other local diseases the scratching is confined to the part affected. The instrument used is selected in accordance with the mythologic theory, excepting in the case of the piece of glass, which is ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney

... make certain gestures which presaged discomfort. He popped back into his cubbyhole. Calhoun threw the overdrive switch and the Med Ship flicked back into that questionable state of being in which velocities of hundreds of times that of light are possible. The sensation of going into overdrive was unpleasant. A moment later, the sensation of ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster



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