"Tack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the Cox, corner of Sherban Lane Cox sid of the post house? boath bound In A bond of A hundred pound for the parish of Ockley to pay one pound for the bewrall of William Drew In case he dy In bed lam and Ly wise to pay the Surgant for Cure of his sore Legs and Lychwise to tack Drew out when cured which sayed Drew was put In by Henry Worsfold and Edward ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... by what mistake, I sailed without observing that he did not re-embark with us; neither I nor the merchants perceived it till four hours after. We had the wind in our stern, and so fresh a gale, that it was not then possible for us to tack about for him." "You believe him then to be dead?" said I. "Certainly," answered he. "No, captain," I resumed; "look at me, and you may know that I am Sinbad, whom you ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... the steamship, and Death chasing it up and down the storm, How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch, and was faithful of days and faithful of nights, And chalk'd in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, we will not desert you; How he follow'd with them and tack'd with them three days and would not give it up, How he saved the drifting company at last, How the lank loose-gown'd women look'd when boated from the side of their prepared graves, How the silent old-faced infants and the lifted sick, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... I was on the wrong tack. Your wife's an honest woman, on my word of honor! And now, my little friend, you must go home to bed. You ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... for to mention is, when the class gets up to read You give 'em too tight of a reinin', an' touch 'em up more than they need; You're nicer than wise in the matter of holdin' the book in one han', An' you turn a stray g in their doin's, an' tack an odd d on their an'; There ain't no great good comes of speakin' the words so polite, as I see, Providin' you know what the facts is, an' tell 'em off jest as they be. An' then there's that readin' in corncert, is censured from first unto last; It kicks up a heap of a racket, when ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... Bijonah rounded the point, gave one majestic wave of his hat in farewell, and put the Rosan over on the starboard tack, for the course was southeast, and followed practically the wake ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... Possession, Columbus proceeded along what is at present called the coast of Honduras, beating against contrary winds, and struggling with currents which swept from the east like the constant stream of a river. He often lost in one tack what he had laboriously gained in two, frequently making but two leagues in a day, and never more than five. At night he anchored under the land, through fear of proceeding along an unknown coast in the dark, but was often forced out to ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... over our lines, trading off swords, wine, cigarettes and trinkets for hard tack and bacon. This soon ended, as there were positive orders against our fraternizing. The Spaniards were a fine looking lot of young men; though generally small in stature, and were very neat and clean, considering. The officers were an intelligent and dignified ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... either to heave her to, or to stand to the northward or southward, so that, should the gale continue, she might weather one end or the other of the islands. After a time it was decided to haul up on the port or larboard tack, as it was believed that she had made but little southing, and was in consequence, nearer the northern than the southern end ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... every part of that dwelling had been planned with a direct reference to her and her tastes; that not a curtain, or a carpet, or a picture had been purchased without Melinda's having said she believed Ethie would approve it. Every stone, and plank and tack, and nail had in it a thought of the Ethie whose coming back had been speculated upon and planned in so many different ways, but never in this way—never just as it had finally occurred, with Richard gone, and no one there to welcome ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... thinks it's merely a life sentence that you get for not watching your step. Just as well, perhaps, for Babe isn't what you would call domestic in his tastes. Give him a 'Home, Sweet Home' motto and he'd tack ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... ebbing, and the attack could not be driven home till it turned, and gave deep water everywhere between the banks of the inlet. King Edward used the interval to array his fleet and get it into position for the dash into the river. His ships stood out to sea on the starboard tack, a brave sight with the midsummer sun shining on the white sails, the hundreds of banners glowing with red, blue, white, and gold, the painted shields hanging on poop and bulwark. On the raised bows and sterns of the larger ships barons ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... living; my cabin and my substance, the same as if you were what the North-countrymen call bairns o' mine: I've none o' my own. My wife was a barren woman. I've none but my old mother at home. Have your sulks out, lads; you'll come round like the Priscilla on a tack, and discover ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Albans' Head, when the wind shifted to the north-east, and gave the Spaniards the weather-gage. The English did their beat to get to windward, but the Duke, standing close into the land with the whole Armada, maintained his advantage. The English then went about, making a tack seaward, and were soon afterwards assaulted by the Spaniards. A long and spirited action ensued. Howard in his little Ark-Royal—"the odd ship of the world for all conditions"—was engaged at different times with Bertendona, of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... off, and filled again upon another tack, sailed swiftly for a minute or so, and brought up once more dead in the wind's eye. Again and again was this repeated. To and fro, up and down, north, south, east, and west, the Hispaniola sailed by swoops and dashes, and at each ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... three or four leagues. The wind was now at E., and blew a fresh gale. With it I stood to the S., till half an hour past six o'clock the next morning, when a sudden squall, from the same direction, took our ship aback; and, before the sails could be trimmed on the other tack, the main-sail and the top-gallant ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... lighted up shelves of brightly labeled canned goods and a long, scarred counter piled high with gay blankets and men's rough clothing. Back of the big, pot-bellied stove—cold now—that stood near the center of the room, lidless boxes of hard-tack and crackers yawned in open defiance of germs. An amber, mote-filled ray slanted toward the moss-chinked log wall where a row of dusty fox and wolverine skins hung—pelts discarded when the spring ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... thing dat you'll hatter gi' 'im credit fer, an' dat wuz keepin' his face an' han's clean, an' in takin' keer er his cloze. Nobody, not even his mammy, had ter patch his britches er tack buttons on his coat. See 'im whar you may an' when you mought, he wuz allers lookin' spick an' span des like he done come right out'n a ban'-box. You know what de riddle say 'bout 'im: when he stan' up he sets down, an' when he walks he hops. He'd 'a' been mighty well thunk ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... a sailor—a sailor bold and bluff— Calling out, "Ship ahoy!" in manly tones and gruff. I'd learn to box the compass, and to reef and tack and luff; I'd sniff and snifff the briny breeze and never get enough. Perhaps I'd chew tobacco, or an old black pipe I'd puff, But I wouldn't be a sailor if . . . The sea was very ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... no quartermaster, no one to issue fresh rations. Again I had the cows milked, gathered up all the corn-bread that was left, with some hard-tack, and with the aid of the few decrepit nurses before mentioned made a fire, and warmed up the soup and soup-meat which had been prepared for the convalescent table the day before, but was not consumed. My patients, comprehending the ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... through life never to question the age, name, or family of any lady of my acquaintance. Miss Yerba Buena came of age yesterday, and, as she is no longer my ward, she is certainly entitled to the consideration I have just mentioned. If she, therefore, chooses to tack to her name the whole Spanish directory, I don't see why I shouldn't ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... what can be more untoward than the occurrence, at a critical period and while the habits are still pliable, of such a sweeping transformation as the return of Charles the Second? Round went the whole fleet of England on the other tack; and while a few tall pintas, Milton or Pen, still sailed a lonely course by the stars and their own private compass, the cock- boat, Pepys, must go about with the majority among "the stupid starers and the ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... quarter-deck by Rev. Mr. Rising, of Virginia City, old friend of mine. Spread a flag on the booby-hatch, which made a very good pulpit, and then ranged the chairs on either side against the bulwarks; last Sunday we had the shadow of the mainsail, but today we were on the opposite tack, close hauled, and had the sun. I am leader of the choir on this ship, and a sorry lead it is. I hope they will have a better opinion of our music in Heaven than I have down here. If they don't a thunderbolt will come down and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... view. An assistant behind the scenes took out the original envelopes, opened them, and as he read the questions repeated them into a small telephone. The wires from this telephone ran under the stage carpet to a pair of metal plates with a tack in the center of each plate which pointed upward. These plates were located under certain spots in the carpet and directly in front of the medium's chair. There were also two other pairs of wires ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... of Corea now adopted another tack. He pleaded that the sea-route was beset with dangers to which it would be unseemly to expose the person of an imperial envoy, but he accommodatingly sent the Emperor's letter on to Japan by an envoy of his own. This Corean envoy ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... words went into the man's brain—that, though silent, he was not listening. It seemed almost hopeless to present my views in such a light that he could grasp them. I felt as if I were expounding and arguing at a rock. But when I got on to the tack of his duty towards his wife and himself, and appealed to his moral and religious notions, I felt that I was ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... "hard tack" as they were called, are notoriously poor eating, but in the hands of the Confederate soldier were made to do good duty. When on the march and pressed for time, a piece of solid fat pork and a dry cracker was passable ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... mentally and yearned for exercise, a rise in temperature and fair weather were in order. He amassed a large fortune in making weather bets, but one day when the thermometer was down below zero, he stepped on a tack and all the mercury ran out of his heel. After that he lost all his money betting with a neighbor who had a rheumatic left joint, and died of ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... said, you see; it was the way he said it. I've made more fuss before now over pounding my finger with a tack hammer. And I did a lot of talking myself in that next minute or two. A man can say a whole lot that is almost worth while when he talks strictly to himself. It wasn't alone the fact that he had been able to get back on his feet and keep on traveling after a blow that would have caved in most ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... a game of seven-up going on in the cabin, and the sun striking down the companionway was bothering Andie Howe. He began to complain. "Hi, up there to the wheel! Hi, Eddie—can't you put her on the other tack?—the sun's in my eyes. How can a man see the cards with the ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... could not keep him confined forever. Some time he would get out, and Martin feared that he would set the officers on his track. The remark of Smith that he would make a good boy for their business occurred to him, and he determined to try him on a new tack. If he could get him compromised by a connection with their business, it would be for his interest also to keep ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... States, and am perfectly familiar with the sorrowful fate with which nearly all have been overtaken; but the story of their failures does not deter me in the least, for I regard them as nothing more than warnings to avoid certain mistakes, beacons to illustrate the need of proceeding on a different tack. Broadly speaking, your experimental communities fail because your Utopias all start upon the system of equality and government by vote of the majority, and, as a necessary and unavoidable consequence, your Utopians get to loggerheads, and Utopia goes to smash, I shall ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... Tack, possession, lease. Tacket, shoe-nail. Tae, to. Tae, toe. Tae'd, toed. Taed, toad. Taen, taken. Taet, small quantity. Tairge, to target. Tak, take. Tald, told. Tane, one in contrast to other. Tangs, tongs. Tap, top. Tapetless, senseless. Tapmost, topmost. Tappet-hen, a crested hen-shaped bottle ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Father Francesco. For the acute Father Johannes, casting about for various means to empty the Superior's chair at Sorrento, for his own benefit, and despairing of any occasion of slanderous accusation, had taken the other tack of writing to Rome extravagant laudations of such feats of penance and saintship in his Superior as in the view of all the brothers required that such a light should no more be hidden in an obscure province, but be set on a Roman candlestick, where it might give light to the faithful in all parts ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... hats aside to go along the water-side and show me where the large trout commonly lay, underneath an overhanging bank; and he was much disappointed, for my sake, that there were none visible just then. Then he wandered off on to another tack, and stood a great while out in the middle of a meadow in the hot sunshine, trying to make out that he had known me before, or, if not me, some friend of mine—merely, I believe, out of a desire that we should feel ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a snort, dodged back, and set out at right angles to his former course. From a dead run the pony came to a stand in two fierce plunges, doubled like a shot, and was off on the other tack. An unaccustomed rider would here have lost his seat. The second dash was short. With a final shake of the head, the steers turned to the proper course in the direction of the ranch. The pony dropped unconcernedly to the shuffling ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... permit her to lay her course, when she made a great run to the westward. When the wind again hauled, as haul it was almost certain to do, Captain Crutchely believed himself in a meridian that would admit of his running with an easy bowline, on the larboard tack. No one but a sailor can understand the effect of checking the weather-braces, if it be only for a few feet, and of getting a weather-leach to stand without 'swigging out' on its bowline. It has much the same influence ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... building and to whom I offer a cell ready-built and full of honey does not lay aside her mortar for that. She was doing mason's work; and, once on that tack, guided by the unconscious impulse, she has to keep masoning, even though her labour be useless, superfluous and opposed to her interests. The cell which I give her is certainly perfect, looked upon as a building, in the opinion of ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... exercise, and consequently (is it not?) necessarily improved sleep, and the projects for the fine days, the walking ... a pure bliss to think of! Well, now—I think I shall show seamanship of a sort, and 'try another tack'—do not be over bold, my sweetest; the cold is considerable,—taken into account the previous mildness. One ill-advised (I, the adviser, I should remember!) too early, or too late descent to the drawing-room, and all might be ruined,—thrown ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... about two miles we saw the smoke arising from our old camp. The Mormons after taking what goods they wanted and could carry off, had set fire to the wagons, many of which were loaded with bacon, lard, hard-tack, and other provisions, which made a very hot, fierce fire, and the smoke to roll up in dense clouds. Some of the wagons were loaded with ammunition, and it was not long before loud explosions followed in rapid succession. We waited and witnessed the burning of the train, and then ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... the brush and stir of "coming about" again claimed their attention, and in a minute more they were stretching away on a new tack, with another set of constellations opposite to them in the sky. The breeze was fresh, though as mild as May; the boat made good speed; and in spite of beating down the river the mouth of the Mong was neared fast. Pattaquasset lights, a little cluster of them, appeared unmistakably; ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... the noon hour," answered Bulger. "I was a gallant clerk and hers the fairest fingers that ever caressed a typewriter—" The intent attitude of Norcross, the fact that he neither turned nor smiled, checked Bulger. With the instinct of the courtier, he perceived that the wind lay in another tack. He racked the unused half of his mind ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... braced up on the starboard tack, and the lugger stood on the course proposed, so that the corvette, should she continue on as she was now steering, would pass astern. Dore kept his eye fixed ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... for ever, and I behold again in memory those two noble frigates, the Imperieuse and the Chesapeake, straining tightly at their cables, with smoke-stacks too modest in proportions to impair to the critical nautical eye the tack and sheet suggestions of the graceful, exquisitely symmetrical fabric of spars and yards and rigging soaring triumphantly aloft to where the long whip or pennant at the main flickered like a delicate line of fire against the hard cold blue of the ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... putting them in place. Such windows and doors should be properly marked, like the screens that replace them in summer, with numbering tacks so that, each fall, they may be put in proper place without confusion. The system is simplicity itself. A duplicate tack bears the same number on the sill of each window and on the upright of each door. This is a real saver of time, for so small a variation as half an inch in width or height can make the difference between doors and windows that really fit and ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... To the Reckless Rat, Likewise to the Innocent Lamb: "We'll tack this smack And sail right back To send a Mar-coni-o-gram. For the winds might blow Both high and low And I wouldn't care a Lima Bean, But I never can sail When the ocean gale Blows a little bit in between— Just a little bit ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... back off, and the vessels were soon clear. Haco put his sloop at once on the larboard tack, and looking over the side observed that the bottom of the yawning gap was thus raised nearly three ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... an excellent method of bending small pipes. Fig. 42 will almost describe itself. A is a brass or gun metal ball having a copper or wire rope running through it, and pulled through the flattened part of the pipe as shown. It will be quite as well to tack the bend down to the bench, as at B, when pulling the ball through; well dress the lead from front to back to thicken the back. I have seen some plumbers put an extra thickness of lead on the back before beginning to bend. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... This accords with the general tenor of the later Instructions; but there occurs elsewhere, and previously, the direction that, when the enemy is to windward, if the leading British Squadron finds it can weather any considerable part of them, it is to "tack and stand in, and strive to divide the enemy's body," and that, "being got to windward, is to bear down on those ships to leeward of them," which have thus been ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... south-south-east, being bound to the next church on the voyage of matrimony: but howsomever, we had not run down a quarter of a league, when the wind shifting, blowed directly in our teeth; so that we were forced to tack all the way, d'ye see, and had almost been up within sight of the port, when these sons-of-b—s of horses, which I had bought but two days before (for my own part, I believe they are devils incarnate), luffed round in a trice, and then, refusing ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... How her sharp prow did tear through the waves, and at times she was almost smothered by the leaping water. But this course would not bring them to the overturned boat. It was necessary for them to tack once more, and as they drew near they could see people clinging frantically to the half-submerged yacht. The captain gave a loud shout of encouragement when he came within speaking distance. With much skill he handled his boat, and told Rod to be ready ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... going to take that tack, there's no more to be said. It's easy enough to say that,—but how can the dead send messages if the human ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... with their minds on the rack, Eating salt pork with a little hard-tack, Wading through snow or fording a river, Or asleep on the ground ...
— Our Little Brown House, A Poem of West Point • Maria L. Stewart
... said Dickie, in a low whisper; "you will soon hear the tack of a hammer that was never forged of earthly iron, for the stone it was made of was shot from the moon." And in effect Tressilian did immediately hear the light stroke of a hammer, as when a farrier is at work. The singularity of such a sound, in so ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... ever had been known—so much weight was laid on this matter on both sides,'[393] with a similar result. The Commons made other endeavours to carry the Act in a modified form, and with milder penalties; a somewhat unscrupulous minority made an attempt to tack it to a money bill, and so effect their purpose by a manoeuvre. The Sacheverell episode fanned the strange excitement that prevailed. A large body of the country gentry and country clergy imagined that the destinies of the Church hung in the balance. The populace caught the infection, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... "took us by the hand, congratulating us on our eventful and successful escape, while we cheered the boys for the glorious work they had accomplished for the Union. Haversacks were opened and placed at our disposal. There was a great demand for hard-tack and coffee; but the beauty of it all was, Major Turner was not there, to say what he often repeated, 'Reduce their rations; I'll teach the d——d scoundrels ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... my man," Wilkinson said. "That will do, just enough to keep the wind on the starboard quarter. Keep her at that, keep her at that." Edgar had the sail ready to hoist. "Slacken the tack a little. Now, half a dozen of you tail on here, and get ready to haul it down as soon as the sail is up to its full height and the halliards secured. Now, lads, tail on to the halliards. ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... right enough. When we're on the other tack she'll careen over the other side. The stiffer the breeze and the more sail there is, the more she careens. I've been in a smack when we've been nearly lying down in the water, and it's washed right ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... decks, slept in the forecastle; the tormentor of waking moments, the disturber of dreams. We looked to windward for signs of change. Every few hours of night and day we put her round with the hope that she would come up on that tack at last! She didn't. She seemed to have forgotten the way home; she rushed to and fro, heading northwest, heading east; she ran backwards and forwards, distracted, like a timid creature at the foot of a wall. Sometimes, as ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... WANTED anything that Oliver could furnish. Strangely enough too, as he afterward discovered, the bullet-headed Dutch porter had driven the last tack into the clean, white, welcome face of the sign only five minutes before Oliver stopped in front of it. Still more out of the common, and still more incomprehensible, was the reply made to him by the head salesman, whom he found ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... on both. At last, and whether by design or accident, the bows of the Good Hope were liberated; and the ever-ready Lawless, who had maintained his place at the helm through all the hurly-burly by sheer strength of body and a liberal use of the cold steel, instantly clapped her on the proper tack. The ship began to move once more forward on the stormy sea, its scuppers running blood, its deck heaped with fallen men, sprawling and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was no answer, and I decided that petulance was of no avail. Some other tack was necessary, and I decided to appeal to his sympathies—granting that ghosts have sympathies to appeal to, and I have met some who were so human in this respect that I have found it hard to believe that they ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... had held off some distance from the line. Number Fifteen had just crossed and was now swooping away on her first tack toward the distant stake-boat. The momentum the Coquette obtained racing down to the ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... on breezy morns, they saw The fishing-schooners outward run, Their low-bent sails in tack and flaw Turned white or dark to shade and sun. Sometimes, in calms of closing day, They watched the spectral mirage play, Saw low, far islands looming tall and nigh, And ships, with upturned keels, sail ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... as one pities a blind man who knocks up against one in the street. But he thought it best to abandon Valentine's appearance to its unhappy fate of her dislike, and sailed away on another tack. ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... finding that they freed her of water,—that she was tight still. They cut away upon the masses of ice; and on the 23d of September, in the evening, she freed herself from her encumbrances, and took an even keel. This was off the west shore of Baffin's Bay, in latitude 67 deg. On the shortest tack she was twelve hundred miles from where Captain ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... carefully THRUMS, ends of the weaver's warp; coarse yarn made from THUMB-RING, familiar spirits were supposed capable of being carried about in various ornaments or parts of dress TIBICINE, player on the tibia, or pipe TICK-TACK, game similar to backgammon TIGHTLY, promptly TIM, (?) expressive of a climax of nonentity TIMELESS, untimely, unseasonable TINCTURE, an essential or spiritual principle supposed by alchemists to be transfusible into material things; an imparted characteristic or tendency TINK, ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... wax warm, to forward the Operation, that Member of the Circle towards whom he is so rude as to turn his Back first, runs his Sword directly into that Part of the Patient wherein School-boys are punished; and, as it is very natural to imagine this will soon make him tack about to some other Point, every Gentleman does himself the same Justice as often as he receives the Affront. After this Jig has gone two or three times round, and the Patient is thought to have sweat sufficiently, he is ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... saw ane, shuere eneuch, an' shuere eneuch it was the end of him. We were seeven days oot frae the Clyde—a sair wark we had had—gaun north wi' seeds an' braws an' things for the Macleod. We had got in ower near under the Cutchull'ns, an' had just gane about by Soa, an' were off on a long tack, we thocht would maybe hauld as far's Copnahow. I mind the nicht weel; a mune smoored wi' mist; a fine-gaun breeze upon the water, but no steedy; an'—what nane o' us likit to hear—anither wund gurlin' owerheid, amang thae fearsome, auld stane craigs o' the Cutchull'ns. Weel, Sandy was forrit ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... But they ought to ha' known where it always come from. If their hearts had been full of the dinner He gave the five thousand hungry men and women and children, they wouldn't have been uncomfortable about not having a loaf. And so they wouldn't have been set upon the wrong tack when He spoke about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees; and they would have known in a moment what He meant. And if I hadn't been too much of the same sort, I wouldn't have started saying it was but reasonable to be in the doldrums ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... among soft things. If you must carry anything breakable, do it up carefully, and put it in the center of the trunk, packing clothing closely about it. Bottles should have the corks tied in with strong twine. Put them near articles which cannot be injured by the contents, if a breakage occurs. Tack on your trunk a card with your permanent address. As this card is to be consulted only if the trunk is lost, it is not necessary to be constantly changing it. Take in the traveling-bag, pins and a needle and thread, so that, in case of any accident to your clothes, they ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... be to play billy with the labels!" chuckled Mr. Wickham. "By George, here's a tack-hammer! We might send all these things skipping about the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... whom you speak is an honest Moorish girl who doesn't know a word of French!" "Baia?... Not a word of French?... Where have you come from?" And the Captain began to laugh again, more than ever. Then noticing the long face of poor Sidi Tart'ri, he changed tack. "Well perhaps it isn't the same one," He said, "I've probably got her mixed up with someone else... only look here, M. Tartarin, you would be wise not to put too much trust in Algerian Moors, or Montenegrin princes." Tartarin stood up in ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... she said, in answer to my question. "I reckon you think a fine-lookin' rose like that ought to have a fine-soundin' name. But I never saw anybody yet that knew enough about roses to tell what its right name is. Maybe when I'm dead and gone somebody'll tack a French name on to it, but as long as it grows in my gyarden it'll be jest grandmother's rose, and this is how ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... confidently reckoned that, should the two vessels come to blows, the superior nimbleness of his own ship would more than counterbalance the advantage conferred upon the other by her greater weight of metal. The stranger, when she cleared the land, was close-hauled on the larboard tack, heading about south-south-east, and it was judged, from her position relative to the land, that she had not actually touched at the island, but had simply availed herself of its presence to gain a few miles by turning to windward ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... galleon and an English man-of-war; master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow, in his performances. Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... his soul, then took another tack. "Well, then, bring on this man Britt; he's the only witness for the prosecution, isn't he? Let's have him to dinner. I want to interrogate him, as the lawyers say. I want to know what kind of a man he is before ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... Noble ORSIN, th' hast Great reason to do as thou say'st, And so has ev'ry body here, As well as thou hast, or thy Bear. Others may do as they see good; 275 But if this twig be made of wood That will hold tack, I'll make the fur Fly 'bout the ears of that old cur; And the other mungrel vermin, RALPH, That brav'd us all in his behalf. 280 Thy Bear is safe, and out of peril, Though lugg'd indeed, and wounded very ill; Myself and TRULLA made a shift To help him out at a dead lift; And, having brought ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... canvas, turn the canoe over. Lay the canvas with the centre line along the keel. Stretch it well by pulling at each end, and tack it through the middle at the extreme ends with a few tacks in a temporary manner. Put in temporary tacks along the gunwale at moderate intervals, stretching slightly, and endeavor to get rid of ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... wore about two o'clock in the morning; and stood on the larboard tack with their heads to the northward, carrying their topsails and foresails, and anxiously expecting the dawn of day. When that period arrived, the Combined Fleets were distinctly seen from the Victory's deck, formed in ...
— The Death of Lord Nelson • William Beatty
... first efforts were directed toward the steel transom which covered the trapdoor opening out on the roof. This, he discovered with a grunt of disappointment, resisted even his short, curved steel lever, pointed at one end, like a gigantic tack-drawer. Restoring this lever to the bottom of his leather tool-bag, he made his way to the southeast corner of the building, where a tangle of insulated wires, issuing from the roof beneath his feet, merged into one compact cable, which, in turn, entered and was protected by a heavy lead ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... on[e] thing I think my self assured and therefor I Dar[e] not conceall it. To witt that neyther Doht our soueraine so greatlie fear her owen estate by reasson of that book, neyther yet Doth she so vnfeanedlie fauour the tranquilitie of your maiesties reing and realme that she wo[u]lde tack so great and earnest paines onles that her crafty counsall in so Doing ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... being conceded, she went that instant on the opposite tack, and began to tell him how she had missed him, and how sorry she had been anything should have occurred to vex their kind good friend. In short, Edouard spent a delightful day, for Rose took him one way to meet Josephine, who, she knew, was coming another. ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... sure of themselves, even in the strong tower of a cold unimpressible nature: they are capable of many friendships and of a true dignity in danger, giving each other a sympathetic, if transitory, regret—one sorry that another "should be foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack." Words which seem to exhaust man's deepest sentiment concerning death and life are put on the lips of a gilded, witless youth; and the saintly Isabella feels fire creep along her, kindling her tongue to eloquence at ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... he to himself, "I can't blister you there, Bourne, eh? I can't pose as the deserving cricketer kept out of the Eleven by a jealous cad of a captain, eh? So I'll try another tack to keep you in evil ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... and she knew it, but she had not the smallest intention of giving in. She had started on the wrong tack, that was all. Of course the boy was too chivalrous to go back on a friend, particularly as he believed he was under some obligation to her. Her plan of mercilessly tearing the lady to pieces had not been a good ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... Jervis, by carrying a press of sail, came up with them, passed through their fleet, then tacked, and thus cut off nine of their ships from the main body. These ships attempted to form on the larboard tack, either with a design of passing through the British line, or to leeward of it, and thus rejoining their friends. Only one of them succeeded in this attempt; and that only because she was so covered with smoke that her intention was not discovered till she had reached ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... skipper, chocking his axe viciously into a sapling birch and leaving it there, "I'll fill away on another tack." ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... on deck, eagerly, anxiously scanning the sea ahead. And presently an object loomed into view, which soon defined itself for a great ship on fire. As the Arabella with the Elizabeth following closely raced nearer on their north-westerly tack, the outlines of the blazing vessel grew clearer. Presently her masts stood out sharp and black above the smoke and flames, and through his telescope Blood made out plainly the pennon of St. George fluttering ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... not prepared for this line of rejoinder. It seemed to be made with perfect innocence, and yet it put him in a corner at once. He did not care to inquire into the reason of Harry's surprise, or to what work he alluded; so he went off on another tack. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Lincoln now changed its tack. Its unfailing zeal to discredit McClellan assumed the form of insisting that he had a secret purpose in waiting to get his army away from Washington, that he was scheming to leave the city open to the ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... well-assumed welcome. The explanation of this was that somehow news of the fate of General Khan Singh had already reached the Maharani, and with Eastern diplomacy she was preparing to trim her bark on the other tack. Even to the suggestion that she should prepare to make a journey she raised no objection; and it was only when she found herself on the road to Ferozepore, and learnt that her destination was Benares, that the courtesy and dignity of a queen gave place to torrents of scurrilous abuse ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... had scarcely altered, and it now shone full on the captain. He turned away, and made a tack or two on the quarter-deck. He was a tall, thin man, with a graceful carriage, and a little stoop in the shoulders. He had a handsome, sad face, growing old. His hair was more than half way to gray, and he seemed somewhere about fifty. He had the sternness of a man used to command, but under ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... the wrong tack altogether. I'm not a criminal. All your moralizings have no value for me. I don't believe in morality. I'm a ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... birth going to do about it? Struggle desperately? It took that tack at first. Bismarck ranged himself in its support for some time. He was himself an agrarian. But he was not long in installing paper mills on his estates at Varzin. It is said that the Emperor himself possesses porcelain ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... woman, tack, but not with a hammer or nails. You'll see, coming home, if this breeze ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... laugh. It started early in the morning, just after daylight, when Smoke went to the bulletin-board outside the A. C. Company store and tacked up a notice. Men gathered and were reading and snickering over his shoulder ere he had driven the last tack. Soon the bulletin-board was crowded by hundreds who could not get near enough to read. Then a reader was appointed by acclamation, and thereafter, throughout the day, many men were acclaimed to read in loud voice the notice Smoke Bellew had nailed up. And there were numbers ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... tiger comin', for he turned as pale as death; but he didn't look at him, and never stirred tack or sheet. He stuck right on to the spokes, and steered her as true as a die; and well he did, for if he hadn't, we'd a broached to in five seconds, and that would a been wuss than the tiger. Well, the cussed beast went close up ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... one to stand by tack an' sheet when it's comin' on to blow; Never the roar of 'Rio Grande' to the watch's stamp-an'-go; An' the seagulls settin' along the rail an' callin' the long day through, Like the souls of old dead sailor-men as used ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... two pole masts with leg-of-mutton sails stepped in thwarts. A single leeboard was fitted and secured to the hull with a short piece of line made fast to the centerline of the boat. With this arrangement the leeboard could be raised and lowered and also shifted to the lee side on each tack. This took the strain off the sides of the canoe that would have been created by the usual leeboard fitting.[3] Construction of such canoes ceased in the 1870's, but some remained in ...
— The Migrations of an American Boat Type • Howard I. Chapelle
... don't see how we can talk. It keeps coming back again. I've had all those plants kept safe that you sent me, Rodney," she began, briskly, upon a fresh tack. ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Sabbath! We have always been right, but we never knew it till now! Thanks to J. Turner for confounding the whole world, and now no more about this much vexed question! "We shall fill our paper mostly with other matter for the future." The wind has favored us and we have made a first rate tack to windward, and now we can breathe much freer seeing our enemies are under our lee. Hear what he says? "We supposed and still do suppose that Barnabas had reference to a class well known to the adventists in Connecticut and Massachusetts, who went into ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates
... apartment with three windows, each shaded by white cotton curtains. On the floor was a home-made carpet; no hand was employed in its manufacture save its owner's, from the time she commenced tearing the rags in strips, to the final blow given to the last tack that confined it to the floor. A very high post bedstead, over which were suspended white cotton curtains, gave an air of grandeur to one side of the room. No one had slept in it for ten years, though it was made ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... knees with his hand over it, and dipping each bit first into the jam, popped it into his mouth. Mac had good teeth, but, all the same, it took many long minutes of hard jaw work to get on the outside of a biscuit and a half. This, he had calculated, was as much dry tack as his daily ration of dirty water could ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... official statement in the Moniteur to the effect that, although public opinion had been agitated by alarming rumours, there was nothing in the foreign relations of France to justify the fears these rumours tended to create. He continued on this tack, with more or less consistency, to the very verge of the outbreak of hostilities. 'The Empire was peace,' as it was always announced to be in the intervals when it was not war; there was no more harmless dove in Europe than ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... spared from the windlass, busy in a way to spread sail after sail with a rapidity little short of that seen on board of a vessel of war. The rattling of the clew-garnet blocks, as twenty lusty fellows ran forward with the tack of the mainsail, and the hauling forward of braces, was the signal that the ship was clear of ground, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... hopes. She saw herself again listening, amid her sums, for the welcome voice that would call her away; she saw herself again examining its grave face and striving to calculate, with childish eagerness, if she would have time to build another Tower of Babel or put another tack in the doll's frock before the ruthless iron tongue struck ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... diverged their wakes; and long as the strange vessel was in view, she was seen to yaw hither and thither at every dark spot, however small, on the sea. This way and that her yards were swung round; starboard and larboard, she continued to tack; now she beat against a head sea; and again it pushed her before it; while all the while, her masts and yards were thickly clustered with men, as three tall cherry trees, when the boys are ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... straw or matting for the bottom of my carriage. When I turn up into the mouth of the Assabet, which is wooded, large fleets of leaves are floating on its surface, as it were getting out to sea, with room to tack; but next the shore, a little farther up, they are thicker than foam, quite concealing the water for a rod in width, under and amid the Alders, Button-Bushes, and Maples, still perfectly light and dry, with fibre unrelaxed; and at a rocky bend where ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... before the wind Wind abeam Port tack Wind abeam Starboard tack Pointing into the wind Port tack Pointing into ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... shrillest laugh. "Behind the coffin as Chief Mourner, I suppose. And you'll tack on the orthodox black sleeve-band, and look out for Number Two. And choose the ordinary kind, who funks raw-head and all the rest of it, for the next venture. But I prophesy you'll be bored. It's settled about Sheila and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Japan via the United States, and stopped to see the nearest tack-manufacturer. He showed him the label ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... he chirped, as Dave worked the ailerons to counteract the leaning of the machine. A swing of the rudder had caused the biplane to bank, but quick as a flash Dave righted it by getting the warping control on the opposite tack, avoiding a bad spill. ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... after her departure, the schooner, thwarted by strong breezes from the east, was obliged to tack to larboard to make headway against the wind. So, at the date of February 2d, Captain Hull still found himself in a higher latitude than he would have wished, and in the situation of a sailor who wanted to double Cape Horn rather than reach the New ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... hold, when in a bitter mood, is that inexorable circumstance only tries to prevent what intelligence attempts. Renounce a desire for a long-contested position, and go on another tack, and after a while the prize is thrown at you, seemingly in disappointment that no ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... travel by the merry microbe and are immune from the effects. Of course Jack has all sorts of theories as to why this is so. But did you ever see a scientist who didn't have a workable theory for everything from the wrong end of a carpet-tack to the evolution of a ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... states, a piece of brass in both states, a piece of iron in both states, a piece of steel in both states, a piece of tinfoil, a piece of solder, a screw, a clasp nail, a clout nail, a hob nail, a spike nail, a sparable, and a tack. ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... back again." March thrust a finger into his vest-pocket. "I had a thumb-tack." He found it. "Now, Enos, I'll tack this thing up myself. But you'll stand behind me, sir, so's if anyone shoots he'll hit you first, and if you try to get away or to uncover me in the least bit, or if anybody ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... did these two girls know, as they sat quietly eating their supper, that there was at this very moment a band of painted enemies hurrying across the dim prairie toward their cottage! Everything was perfectly still in the house, and the tick-tack of the clock smote the silence. The heart of each girl was far away, and the eyes of both were on the ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... below Thermopylae. Welcoming the chance, he resolved to enclose them north and south, to do which not an hour could be lost; even the fruits and wines and women of Naxos must be left behind. So he sailed away without stop or tack until, a little before nightfall, Mount Ocha was seen upreared against the sky, and the pilot reported the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... check, and went on another tack. "I have been an idle fellow and am not at all learned," he said. "Tristram and I were at Eton together in the same house, and we were both dunces; but he did rather well at Oxford, and I went ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... wise in weather-lore; and he must be sympathetically familiar with the peculiar qualities of his boat which differentiate it from every other boat that was ever built and rigged. He must know how to gentle her about, as one instance of a myriad, and to fill her on the other tack without deadening her way or allowing her to fall off ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... kanakas sleep through that long hot day that they did not see the cutter run out through the passage and head south, close-hauled on the southeast trade. Nor was the cutter ever sighted on that long tack to the shores of Ysabel, and during the tedious head-beat from there to Malaita. He landed at Port Adams with a wealth of rifles and tobacco such as no one man had ever possessed before. But he did not stop there. He had taken a white ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... clearly defined that it is difficult to go wrong; and a farmer who does his own wiring and takes pride in its appearance is more apt to be right than a professional electrician who is careless at his task. After the work has been passed, tack on the moulding capping, with brads, and paint the ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... stroll backwards and forwards by the lakeside. Encouragement was all very well; but... "Shall I—shall I not? Shall I—shall I not? Shall I—shall I not?" The eternal question went tick-tack, tick-tack, to the rhythm of his march. He glared at vacancy, and tried hard to ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... maybe out of a hundred, Pretty, has been saved by the mercy of God, and come home, after being given over for dead, and told of all hands lost, I—I know a story, Heart's Delight," stammered the captain, "o' this natur', as was told to me once; and being on this here tack, and you and me sitting by the fire, maybe you'd like to hear me tell it. Would ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... sat men and women, old and young, playing away estate and fortune and honour at tick-tack or ombre or basset. One noble lord was so old that he could not see to game, and must needs have his valet by to tell him how the dice came up. On the walls hung the works of Vandyke and Correggio and ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... eighth innings started, William, all swagger and confidence, started on a new tack. "Fans and fan-esses," he said, addressing the crowd through the megaphone, "why don't you root? Make a noise like you meant it. The Torontos have simply gotter win this game; they need it, but you gotter help 'em. Now then, every-body—ROOT," and "root" they did, arduously, continuously, joyously. ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... is the trader of Stepney Town? Wake her up! Shake her up! Every stick a-bending! Where is the trader of Stepney Town? His gold's on the capstan, his blood's on his gown, All for bully Rover Jack, Reaching on the weather tack Right across ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in fact did so. For seeing the vessel so far at sea, with what I knew of the captain's disposition, I began to fear that he had formed the plan of leaving me on the island. My fears, nevertheless were ill-founded; the vessel made a tack toward the shore, to my great joy; and a double pirogue was furnished me, through the good offices of our young friend the French schoolmaster, to return on board ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... only means they had of procuring that useful and necessary article. On the 18th in the forenoon we saw a very high island and as I supposed it to be a new discovery I called it Chatham island,[49-1] and standing in for it, I perceived a Bay towards the N.E. end and I made a tack to endeavour to look into it. Perceiving that I could not accomplish my intentions before night I bore away and ran along the shore and sent the tender to reconnoitre, and found, opposite to a sandy beach where there was an Indian town, she got 25 fathoms about a quarter of a mile from ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... It is to be feared that many readers will transfer this note of interrogation to the Essay itself. What is the definite belief of Emerson as expressed in this discourse,—what does it mean? We must tack together such sentences as we can find that ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes |
