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Tack   /tæk/   Listen
Tack

noun
1.
The heading or position of a vessel relative to the trim of its sails.
2.
A short nail with a sharp point and a large head.
3.
Gear for a horse.  Synonyms: saddlery, stable gear.
4.
(nautical) a line (rope or chain) that regulates the angle at which a sail is set in relation to the wind.  Synonyms: mainsheet, sheet, shroud, weather sheet.
5.
(nautical) the act of changing tack.  Synonym: tacking.
6.
Sailing a zigzag course.



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"Tack" Quotes from Famous Books



... shipshape, although in the meantime the quarantine launch had hove alongside, investigated, and removed those of the crew who still lived. Shortly thereafter the coroner came and removed the dead, after which Gibney and McGuffey hosed down the deck, located some hard tack and coffee, supped and turned in in the officers' quarters. In the morning, Scab Johnny arrived in a launch with their other clothes (Mr. Gibney having thoughtfully sent him ten dollars on account of their old board bill, together with a request for the clothes), and when the agents of the ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... and at the same time you were yourself, going about with him. You loved him with a passionate, self-immolating love. There wasn't room for both of you on the raft, you sat cramped up, huddled together. Not enough hard tack. While he was sleeping you slipped off. A shark got you. It had a face like Dr. Charles. The lunatic was running after him like mad, with a revolver. You ran like mad. Morfe Bridge. When he raised his arm you jerked it up and the revolver went off ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... makes conduct; life's a ship, The sport of every wind. And yet men tack Against the adverse blast. How shall I steer, Who am the pilot of Necessity? But whether it be fair or foul, I know not; Sunny or terrible. Why let her wed him? What care I if the pageant's weight may fall On Hungary's ermined shoulders, ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli

... 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 ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... starboard tacks aboard, we cast off our weather braces and lifts; we set in the lee braces, and hauled forward by the weather-bowlings, and hauled them tight, and belayed them, and hauled over the mizzen tack to windward, and kept her full and by as near as she would lie. During this storm, which was followed by a strong wind west- southwest, we were carried, by my computation, about five hundred leagues to the east, so that the oldest sailor on board could not ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... are!" he said again; but she did not mind it in the least. With a sweep of her bare arm she had put the tiller hard aport, intending to tack back to Peel, but the wind had freshened and the sea was rising, and by the swift leap of the boat the boom was snapped, and the helpless sail came napping down upon the mast. Then they tumbled into the trough, and Glory had ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... A vast majority of anti-federalists have got into the Assembly of Virginia, so that Mr. Henry is omnipotent there. Mr. Madison was left out as a senator by eight or nine votes; and Henry has so modeled the districts for representatives, as to tack Orange to counties where himself has great influence, that Madison may not be elected into the lower federal House, which was the place he had wished to serve in, and not the Senate. Henry pronounced a philippic against Madison in open ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... questioning, we made shift to ascertain, that about two o'clock, or four bells, Old Cuff had rolled away from under my head, and over the top brim. Fortunately he fell across the fore-topmast studding-sail tack, which broke two of his ribs and his fall, and thence he had gently canted over, and alighted upon the quarter-deck hammock-nettings, nearly knocked overboard the half-asleep main-topman who was perched up there as a look-out. He recovered, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... martinet with MacRae, he took another tack and became the very essence of affability toward me. (I'd have enjoyed punching his proud head, for all that; it was a dirty way to serve a man who had done his ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... the Grand Khan. Steering along the coast of Honduras great hardships were endured, but nothing approaching his ideal was discovered. On September 13th Cape Gracias-a-Dios was sighted. The men had become clamorous and insubordinate; not until December 5th, however, would he tack about and retrace his course. It now became his intention to plant a colony on the River Veragua, which was afterward to give his descendants a title of nobility; but he had hardly put about when he was caught in a ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... said the Representative, as he chewed a tack awhile, thinking it was a clove. 'I want to find a boarding house where the proprietress was an orphan found in a livery stable, whose father was a dago from East Austin, and whose grandfather was never placed on the map. I want a scrubby, ornery, low-down, snuff-dipping, ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... ought to right off. He says there 's no tellin' where anythin' 'll end 'n' it 's wise to be prepared for the worst. He said he knowed a man as walked on a tack 'n' jus' called it a tack, 'n' first they had to cut off the tack 'n' then the toe 'n' then the foot, 'n' they kept on slicin' him higher 'n' higher till he died without no will a tall. I said you wasn't no tack but a cow, but he said it was all one, 'n' I guess it is 's far 's the lawyers ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner

... her work and rose to quit the room. She returned five minutes later with pen and ink, but Aunt Mary was now off on another tack. ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... Tuscans. The remainder I saw at a distance, flying, and but one brave man among them—he appeared a Roman—a youth who turned back, though wounded. They surrounded and dragged him away, spurring his horse with their swords. These Etrurians measure their courage carefully, and tack it well together before they put it on, but throw it off again ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... good way of getting away from the idea of its being a joke. Senator Arnold was past seventy. Slowly he extended his right arm and tested his muscle. "Not very much," he said, "but enough to drive a tack or two." That brought applause and they drew closer together, and the atmosphere warmed perceptibly. "I've fought for the State in more ways than one,"—Senator Arnold was a distinguished veteran of the Civil War—"and if I can serve her now by tacking down carpets, then it's tacking down carpets ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell

... tried to be a boy again just for that night. I grasped the handle of the Perfect Automatic, stretched with our united strength, and pushed down on the lever. The spring-hammer drew back, a little trap or mouth at the end of the slotted tin barrel opened for the tack, the tack jumped out, turned over, landed point downward upon the right spot in the carpet, the crouching hammer ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... 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 situation, made the best of it. But the distribution ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... to the American. One needed a good appetite to enjoy it. Great twenty-five pound white fish were produced from skin bags and sliced off to be eaten raw. Reindeer meat was stewed in copper kettles. Hard tack was soaked in water and mixed with reindeer suet. Tea from the ever present Russian tea kettle and seal oil from a sewed up seal skin took the place of drink and relish. The tea was good, the ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell

... the talk mighty kind-like. I think it's better to let folks always chaw their own hard tack instead of trying to grind it up friendly for them, cause the swalloring of the trouble has to come in the end; but Gid minced facts faithful for me, according to his lights. I didn't rightly make out just what he did expect, only we couldn't go on as we were—and that I've ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... 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 line was what ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe

... and laid his 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 more friendly and at our ease with one ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a fluttering, fearful youngling, somewhat impressed with his graces and courage. This businesslike disposal of his case caused his active mind to change its tack, as soon as it sensed the veer of ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... went off on another tack...still wilder and more incoherent. 'It's the capitalists...that's what it is...they saw that the people...the proletariat...that's ME,' with a thump of his fist on his chest, 'had begun to see too clearly how things were going and so they stirred up this hornet's nest to blind ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White

... change in the following note:—"'Rapid,' indeed;—he topographised and typographised King Priam's dominions in three days. I called him 'classic' before I saw the Troad, but since have learned better than to tack to his name what ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... late. Hobart rushed back out of reach of his arms, and rapped sharply on the door panel. It opened instantly, and big Mike, closely followed by another man, pushed forward into the room. West was trapped, helpless; one man pitted against three. He backed slowly away, brushing tack the dishevelled hair from his eyes, watching them warily, every animal ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish

... tack-hammer, and taps the cover gently on one side, the glass jar breaks, and the juice runs down his trousers leg, on the table and all around. Enough of the fruit is saved for supper, and the old man goes up the back stairs ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... cut out here, Mr Lynton," said the American sternly. "I should change course again, sir, and make a tack in the other direction." Then, turning to ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... countenance, not one remembered tone, not the glance of a kindly eye; all is new, all is strange, all at seeming enmity. The defection of Jerome, my only comrade, was indeed a cup of bitterness. I dreaded to meet him, not knowing what tack he might cut away on. Yet I could not blame him; it was more ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... come dey called us to de wagons an' tole us we wus free. Dey give each of us a cap full of hard-tack. Dey took clothes an' provisions an' give us nothin'. One crowd of Yankees would come on an' give us something an' another would come along an' take it away from us. Dey tole us to call marster an' missus Johnny Rebs, that we wus free an' had no marsters. Dat wus a day for me. Some of de Yankees ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... Nautilus, sailing his fairy boat down a blue channel fringed with purple and salmon-coloured anemones, beneath a hedge of rosy coral. The shimmering sail and carven hull of iridescent pearl skim the water with incredible swiftness, and tack skilfully at every bend of the devious course, not even slackening speed to avoid collision with a lumbering star-fish encountered on the way. These submarine Gardens contain the greatest natural collection of anemones, coral beds, shells, and fish, discovered in the ocean world. The ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... be done to train this exceptional man! We can do much, but the chief thing is to prevent anything being done. To sail against the wind we merely follow one tack and another; to keep our position in a stormy sea we must cast anchor. Beware, young pilot, lest your boat slip its cable or drag its anchor before ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... and heavy, and the boot is a light one. Worn together, they make one walk a little one-sided, and the ladies, in particular Miss Slowcum, don't like it, but, lor', that don't matter nothing to speak of; they can't do nothing to me except tack on a few more names to Sarah. It don't fret me, Miss Jasmine, and it ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... of her list, and had agreed to be patronesses, when lo and behold! Lady Conyngham, not having been sent to by the Duchess of Richmond, took offence, and set up a new list, placing the King at the head, whom she commanded to go, and all these ladies turned tack directly, abandoned the Duchess, and are now of the new Government—a pretty semblance of what might occur in ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... another military station, where as a stranger I tried another tack. The rifle ranges were surrounded by a belt of trees, outside of which was an unclimbable fence guarded by two sentries, one on either side. It seemed impossible to get into or even near the range without ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell

... ticking is a wonderful comfort. Tick-tack, tick-tack! and I think of you stretched asleep and happy and growing up to be a man, and the minutes running and ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Austin are down in the office. Fraulein is after them again. Last night, when the trunks were brought up, Mary and Peggy waited until the lights were out and then they fixed up a tick-tack. They hid in the trunks and worked the thing for almost an hour. It was awfully spooky—nearly scared Fraulein to death. She's just furious at ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs

... you always do me such great injustice. You lawyers always have to be doing something, even if it is only holding down a chair so that it won't blow out of your office window. If you haven't any justice to mete out, you take another tack and dispense injustice with lavish hand. However, I'll forgive you if you'll tell me one ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs

... you're 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 beings always ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells

... the top flat, where the chimes were played, I had to pass through the vault in which the great pendulum was slowly swinging in its ghostly-like tick-tack, tick-tack; while the great ancient clock was keeping time with its sudden and startling movement. The whole scene was almost as uncanny as the witches' cell underneath. There was also a wild rumbling thumping sound overhead. I soon discovered the cause ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... saucy,' said he, filling his pipe. 'Davy will have to take the helm himself, if he would keep you on the right tack. Clear the decks now, and be off to your bed. If the gale lulls, I shall sail ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... he 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 ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... Jonson, which two I behold like a Spanish great 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 of his wit and invention," and there is sufficient poetic ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... Rev. S. Hall Young, of Fort Wrangell, visited it in 1879. They were the first white men to explore this region, and they went thither by canoe. Muir, with blankets strapped to his back and his pockets stuffed with hard-tack, spent days in rapturous speculation. Of all glacial theorists he is doubtless the most self-sacrificing and enthusiastic. I believe, as yet, no one has timed this glacier. It is dissolving away more rapidly than it travels; so that although ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... vaguely wondering, as he dined lunch-counter fashion and then gingerly wound his weary way through a labyrinth of furniture, boxes, and rolls of carpet to his humble couch set up behind the piano or in some other unlikely place, if marriage were a failure, while contact with the business end of a tack gave point to his thoughts. No, indeed! The spring and autumn of his discontent are made glorious summer now by the more civilized system which, beginning at the attic and working downward, cleans one room, or perhaps two at a time, as a day's ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... extraordinary results. But the Somme and Arras showed that, even with those enormous resources, England was not able to beat us. Now, in his greeting to the American Allies, Lloyd George cries out: 'Ships, ships, and yet more ships.' And this time he is on the right tack; it is on ships that the fate of the ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... dropped the tack-hammer within an ace of my head. "By Jove!" he said, "I shall be able to come back ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... as he seemed to enjoy the experience, the other three bore their condition as well as they could without grimace or complaint, till the young man, observing their discomfort, gave immediate directions to tack about. On the way back to port they ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy

... slowly, tossed a bit by the heavy swell, the ponderous boom swinging, and permitting the loosened canvas to flap against the ropes, until the sloop finally steadied onto the new tack. The distance to be covered was not great, and in less than ten minutes, we were drawing in toward the high stern of the anchored vessel. She was larger than I had thought, a lumping craft for those days, ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... the cause of an odd query in the second series of Notes and Queries, which, by the way, has never yet been answered. In John Hall's Hor Vaciv (1646) there is this passage, alluding to the table game called tick-tack. The author wrote: "Tick tack sets a man's intentions on their guard. Errors in this and war can be but once amended''; but the printer joined the two words "and war'' into one, and this puzzled the correspondent of the Notes and Queries (v. 272). He asked: ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley

... family, you ought to have done something to delay, if you could not stop it. Of course, you had the settlements, and devil's in it if you could not have beat about a while—it was not so quick with me—and not doubled the point in a single tack; and you know the beggar has next to nothing. Any way, it was your duty to have printed some notice that the thing was thought of. If you had put it, like a bit of news, in "Galignani," I would have seen it, and known what ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... she does every year, and yet we couldn't very well do without her, so I suppose it's all right. Mind your head-sheets, Jerry, or she'll not come about in this bobble," he observed, as we were about to tack ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston

... Dutch skipper appeared to think, for a few minutes afterwards he gave orders to bring her about on the other tack. Three times they tried and failed; each time the vessel slowly came up into the wind, but the heavy waves forced her head off again before the headsails filled. Then the skipper gave orders to wear her. ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... the river met the influx of the sea-water and the opposition of the waves, it was extremely rough and angry; and the current was beaten back with such a violent swell, that the master of the boat could not make good his passage, but ordered his sailors to tack about and return. Caesar, upon this, discovers himself, and taking the man by the hand, who was surprised to see him there, said, "Go on, my friend, and fear nothing; you carry Caesar and his fortune in your boat." The mariners, when they heard that, forgot the storm, and laying all their ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... widely. "Well, the nearest I can figure it, El Hassan is ruler of an area about the size of Mexico. At least it was yesterday. By today, you can probably tack on Texas." ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... mind where he will go for his daily killing. You cannot very well tell what decides him, but very easily that he has decided. He trots or breaks into short gallops, with very perceptible pauses to look up and about at landmarks, alters his tack a little, looking forward and back to steer ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin

... in my ship, Mr. Leyden," he said. "Try another tack. Sorry I can't stay to talk with you; I'm busy." He mounted the gangway without a further glance at Leyden, leaving that gentleman staring up after him with tight lips drawn back from grinning teeth and a quivering of the arm which was bent ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... now, through the trees," said Phil. "There is the flag, just over that tall pine. Flag by day; lantern by night. That is 'Merryweather.' Ready about, Peggy, for the last tack!" ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards

... round as LE GEOGRAPHE was passing, so as to keep our broadside to her, lest the flag of truce should be a deception, and having come to the wind on the other tack, a boat was hoisted out, and I went on board the French ship, which had also ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... working much of late?" he asked, that being a natural question to follow her reference to her studio. He was, indeed, relieved that the conversation had got on so definite a tack and that she had not alluded to his avoidance of her family or ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... he was sure it was no go, put an end to his own existence. I said that would be wrong, and besides, he couldn't do it. He said, oh yes, he could—he could inject air into a vein, and lots of things. He went on a physiological tack, so I quoted Hamlet." ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... son was as near like his father as one person could be like another. He was eighteen years old, and was an idle and dissolute fellow. Lawrence, the second son, inherited his mother's tack and energy. He was observing and enterprising, and had already made a good reputation as a boatman and pilot. He had worked in various capacities on board of steamers, canal-boats, sloops, and schooners, and in five years had visited every part of the ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic

... knowledge of orchids is infinitesimally small, but there were some eight or nine species plentiful in the Engadine, and I learned enough to appreciate the difficulties. Why do not some of these people who talk about the direct influence of conditions try to explain the structure of orchids on that tack? Orchids at any rate can't try to improve themselves in taking shots at insects' heads with pollen bags—as Lamarck's Giraffes tried ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... stolen himself rich, and now forsooth would tack on a Sir Hugh before his name. Ah! The jewels! I must delicately hint to him that I am in the inner circle of ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... the moving rays as he held the launch on her seaward tack. The light was moving nearer, but its beams were paling. The cutter evidently had not moved from her anchorage. Doubtless she would be kept fully occupied at the goose-neck. The next instant the fog-wall ahead dripped in the ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... within, and a mischievous smile spread over his angry countenance. He tiptoed to the window, and peeped in. He saw his Heart's Desire sitting alone. He cheered up a little, not much—but sufficiently to reach in his pocket for his tick-tack. ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White

... to sing. If we hear constantly repeated at frequent and regular intervals any noise, there is a tendency to group these separate sounds and measure them off regularly. The clock ticks with always the same force and with the same space of time between the ticks, yet we hear tick-tack, tick-tack; we can prove the difference to be in our ear, for it requires but little effort to hear tick-tack or tack-tick, tack-tick. The ticking has ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... for the silence of the tramp convinced him that there had been, after all, a good deal of truth in the rumor. He ran back on another tack and slipped about Lefty. ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... before noon a wind sprang up from the west, and it increased in intensity, so that shortly after the noon hour they were compelled to make a long tack to the south. This meant a night on board ship, and a stormy ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... unfavourable, we were obliged, during the night, to tack in the neighbourhood of Dover. The great darkness which covered both land and sea rendered this maneuvre a very dangerous one; firstly, on account of the proximity of the coast; and, secondly, on account of the number of vessels passing ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... not too sharp for comfort; the breeze from the southward blew steadily and just sent the tops of the waves to foam, here and there, like white stars appearing and disappearing on the expanse to windward. The Pirate lay along on the port tack, and with her skysails to her trucks she made a beautiful sight. Her canvas was snowy white, showing that no money had been spared on her sails. Her spars were all painted or scraped and her standing ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains

... the world—that compound of gregarious incompatibilities—that bazaar of character—that proper resort of semi-social egotism and unamalgable individualities—that troublous haven, where the vessel may ride and tack, half-sheltered, but finds no anchorage. Yet even the Lilliputian ligatures of such a sojourn imperceptibly twine round my lethargic habits, and bind me, Gulliver- like, a passive fixture. Once, in particular, I remember to have stuck at the Hotel des Bons Enfants, in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various

... face of his companion, in which the crow-feet of forty years were distinctly visible, and perceived that he had gone on a wrong tack. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... prospect of soon gaining a port, when there was every appearance of another gale coming on from the south-west. As this was from a quarter which, in all probability, would scarcely allow the frigate to weather Mizen-head, she was hauled off on the larboard tack, and all sail put on her which prudence would permit in the heavy cross sea, ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Jim Ferrers, with such help as Alf was able to give, had supper ready to serve. It was a rough meal, of hard tack, pilot bread, potatoes, canned meats and vegetables, but outdoor life had given all a good appetite and the meal did not long remain ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock

... made rather slow progress. The river, always broad and smooth, curved in mighty sweeping bends, so that sometimes the breeze was dead ahead. Then the Mary Ann must tack and tack, gaining only a few yards in several hundred. At night she tied up, to a tree; and several of her passengers caught some fish from the rail. Charley tended a line, for a few minutes, and caught a cat-fish that weighed ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... saw GAWAIN'S head! With one wild bound toward the dark'ning skies, From out the garden gates he madly flies. But soon his mind it alters. Slipping back, His tune he changes—trying this new tack:"Howe'er it be, it seems to me 'Tis only noble to be good; Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith, than ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various

... saying, "Go down and pull up the mooring-satke." Nur al-Din feared lest he should strike him also with the sword; so he sprang up and leapt ashore and pulling up the stake jumped aboard again, swiftlier than the dazzling leven. The captain ceased not to bid him do this and do that and tack and wear hither and thither and look at the stars, and Nur al-Din did all that he bade him, with heart a-quaking for affright; whilst he himself spread the sails, and the ship fared with the twain into the dashing sea, swollen with clashing billows.—And Shahrazad ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... that if the end is badly pointed, it does not matter how well the lashing is put on; therefore it is an invariable rule that lashings must be pointed as carefully as possible. When I looked at this one, what do you think I saw? Why, the end of the lashing was nailed down with a little tack, such as one would use to fasten labels. "That would be a nice thing to take to the Pole!" This final observation of Hanssen's was doubtless the mildest expression of what he thought of the work. I saw how the new lashings were being put on, and I was quite ready to agree ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... simple and obvious the next morning. In the same way, we may take a thing to be thus and so while tired in the evening, and in the morning see our notion to be a coarse misunderstanding. Hoppe tells of a hospital interne who became so excited and tired through frequent calls that he heard the tick- tack of his watch as "Oh-doc-tor.'' A witness who has been subjected to a prolonged and fatiguing examination falls into a similar condition and knows at the end much less than at the beginning. Finally, he altogether misunderstands the questions put to him. The situation ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... of the coast not worthy of the name of a roadstead. The king, to remove all suspicion from the coastguards and the Sicilian scorridori, [Small vessels fitted up as ships-of-war.] ordered that all lights should be extinguished and that the vessels should tack about during the night; but towards one o'clock such a violent land-wind sprang up that the expedition was driven out to sea, so that on the 6th at dawn the king's vessel ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... of this the most majestic creation the hand of man has wrought. But the great image contemplated the dead ages as calmly as ever, unconscious of the small insect that was fretting at its jaw. Egyptian granite that has defied the storms and earthquakes of all time has nothing to fear from the tack-hammers of ignorant excursionists—highwaymen like this specimen. He failed in his enterprise. We sent a sheik to arrest him if he had the authority, or to warn him, if he had not, that by the laws of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... think that Uncle Sam has a great deal to answer for on that tack; and I can say, too, that the love of rum that I acquired in the government service had pretty nearly fixed my flint, both for this world and the next. But still, Jack, it wont do for seamen to drink ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... Billy. Terry can't drive a carpet tack, nor draw a straight line with a ruler." Ted was always in a bantering mood and eager for a laugh at anybody. "I'll bet Cora's radio will radiate royally and right. You going to make ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... who hated him, discussing him floridly once with Querida at the Thumb-tack Club in the presence of a dozen others, characterised him as "one of those passively selfish snobs whose virtues are all negative and whose modesty is the mental ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... hoisted their sails to have the wind on their quarter, as the sun shone full in their faces, which they considered might be of disadvantage to them, and stretched out a little, so that at last they got the wind as they wished. The Normans, who saw them tack, could not help wondering why they did so, and said they took good care to turn about, for they were afraid of meddling with them. They perceived, however, by his banner, that the King was on board, which gave them great joy, as they were eager to fight with him; so they put their vessels in proper ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... they saw it, for the Laocoon's helm was put down, her great sails shivered and threshed, and she stood off on the other tack. As she stood away we saw an officer leap on to the taffrail, holding on by the mizen backstays. "Tar my wig," said Marah, "if ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield

... King's not going abroad: I like to talk on that side; because though it may not be true, one may at least be able to give some sort of reason why he should not. We go into mourning for your Electress on Sunday; I suppose they will tack the Elector of Mentz to her, for he is just dead. I delight in Richcourt's calculation- I don't doubt but it is the method he often uses in ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... the first time that Corny had let herself out in this way, but I don't wonder she did it. The captain explained that the ship couldn't sail right to us, because the wind was not in the proper direction for that. She had to tack. If she had been a steamer, the case would have been different. We all sat and waited, and ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton

... 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 make up ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... 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

... and I doubt whether it will go round soon enough to save us. If it should go round a little more to the north, we must try and get her on the other tack; but I am afraid, in such a sea, she will not go about. Of course, our great aim is to reach Port Cornwallis; or, if we cannot get as far as that, I have just been having a look at the chart, and I see there are three narrow straits. ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... it perfectly. They are on a new tack. It occurs to me that they fear we suspect something and the dinner is a ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... the little waves. On the 11th, at the hour of noon the happy signals indicating the sight of land were to be seen. Soon the charming coast of Long Island came into the view of all and great shouts of joy were wafted across the waters towards it from this swimming city. Carefully did the fleet tack during the night because the water was becoming ever more shallow. On the next morning, the 12th of August, an English squadron of 24 vessels was seen from the ocean and this, after a few hours, united with the fleet, following the ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister

... clears up, and a fresh breeze comes, it is generally from the southward, directly in the outward-bound navigator's teeth. He must have patience, however, and strive to make the most of it by keeping on that tack by which most southing is to be gained. It is now, I believe, generally held to be the best practice to place the ship between 18 deg. and 23 deg. of west longitude on losing the north-east Trade; and likewise to endeavour, if possible, to cross the equator somewhere between ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... were sixteen in number, and well armed, we told them it was useless, and the constable who was with us desired them to be peaceable and put their weapons down. As they saw they were on the wrong tack, they surrendered. The dear little sleeping infant in the cradle proved a fine lad sixteen years old. The over-fatigued female in the next room turned out a young seaman, whom we secured with the pretended sergeant, the nurse, and the doctor, making in the whole eight good seamen. This was a good ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... to be left behind," said the mouse. "I wanted to see what Africa was like—I have relatives there. So I hid in the baggage and was brought on to the ship with the hard-tack. When the ship sank I was terribly frightened—because I cannot swim far. I swam as long as I could, but I soon got all exhausted and thought I was going to sink. And then, just at that moment, the old man's ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... a deal to conceal, I don't doubt. Well, there they are,—with her still,—and the box is gone, and the people as is bringing the lawsuit, Mr. Camperdown and the rest of 'em, is off their tack. What's she to do ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... do!" Ransom went on, laughing. "You are on the wrong tack altogether. Do you really take the ground that your sex has been without influence? Influence? Why, you have led us all by the nose to where we are now! Wherever we are, it's all you. You are ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... True, Boatswain, but we are not the very humblest. Sir Joseph has explained our true position to us. As he says, a British seaman is any man's equal excepting his, and if Sir Joseph says that, is it not our duty to believe him? ALL. Well spoke! well spoke! DICK. You're on a wrong tack, and so is he. He means well, but he don't know. When people have to obey other people's orders, equality's out of the question. ALL (recoiling). Horrible! horrible! BOAT. Dick Deadeye, if you go for to infuriate this here ship's company too far, I won't answer for being able to hold 'em in. I'm ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... break out into insurrection. Jerusalem at the Passover was like a great magazine of combustibles, and into it Jesus flung a lighted brand amongst the inflammable substances that were gathered there. We have to remember, too, that all His life long He had gone exactly on the opposite tack. Remember how He betook Himself to the mountain solitudes when they wanted to make Him a king. Remember how He was always damping down Messianic enthusiasm. But here, all at once, He reverses His whole conduct, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... [Footnote: Woodyer, Woodger, may also be for wood-hewer. See Stanier] and -or, -our, as in Taylor, Jenoure (Chapter III). The latter ending, corresponding to Modern Fr. -eur, represents Lat. -or, -orem, but we tack it onto English words as in "sailor," or substitute it for -er, -ier, as in Fermor, for Farmer, Fr. fermier. In the Privy Purse Expenses of that careful monarch Henry ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... the Ionian Islands with gunpowder and munitions for Ali de Tebelen. You know, don't you, that the British sell powder and munitions of war to all the world,—Turks, Greeks, and the devil, too, if the devil has money? From Zante we were to skirt the coasts of Greece and tack about, on and off. Now it happens that my name of Georges is famous in that country. I am, such as you see me, the grandson of the famous Czerni-Georges who made war upon the Porte, and, instead of crushing it, as he meant to do, got crushed himself. His son took ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac

... a gray, gloomy sky, the doomed craft beat on; now on this tack, now on that; battling against hostile blasts, and drenched in rain and spray; scarcely making an inch of progress ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... importance of going to Ephesus. He tried to do it, but Christ said 'No.' and Paul did not knock his head against the stone wall that lay between him and the accomplishment of his purpose, but he gave it up and tried another tack. He next wished to go up into Bithynia, and he might have said a great deal about the needs of the people by the Euxine; but again down came the barrier, and he had once more to learn the lesson, 'Not as thou wilt, but as I will.' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... had bought it in the city, where such things are abundant and excite no remark; but to the woodsman each article possessed a separate and particular value. The tent, an iron kettle, a side of bacon, oatmeal, tea, matches, sugar, some canned goods, a box of hard-tack,—these, in the woods, represented wealth. Wallace's rifle chambered the .38 Winchester cartridge, which was unfortunate, for Thorpe's .44 ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... ships especially, the rocking form of wave-motor as an aid to propulsion will be recommended on account of the fact that when the weather is "on the beam" both of its sources of power can be kept in full use. The sailing vessel must tack at any rate with the object of giving its sail power a fair chance, and thus, when it has not a fair "wind that follows free," it must always seek to get the breeze on its beam, and therefore usually ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... Springtime about it; and the breeze is neither too hard nor too squally. It comes from the best quarter we could wish for, across from the west, so we'll be able to run up or down the river without trying to tack, and that's always a hard job on a narrow stream, when you're booming ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... refractory, for they persist in holding their fairs, markets, &c. as usual, without any regard to the hallowed decade of their legislators. As it is to be presumed that the French do not wish to relinquish all commercial intercourse with other nations, they mean possibly to tack the republican calendar to the rights of man, and send their armies to propagate them together; otherwise the correspondence of a Frenchman will be as difficult to interpret with mercantile exactness as the characters ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... scheme of National Education is seized and half-throttled by the Repair party. "Oh! utilize what there is; improve on and tack to the denominational system; avail yourself of the jealousy of sects; see what a grand building that has already erected! True, it is not large enough; true, it is badly built; but repair that, and add wings. It will cost you ever so much ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins

... 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

... imagine the little family groups gathered on the decks, eagerly planning for their new life. We can see the brightening in the tired eyes of women and of children as the ships tack near to the flowery shore; as schools of fish break the river into patches of flashing silver; as strange, brilliant birds go flaming in the sunlight; as beauty is added to beauty in this wondrous ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins

... Calaseraigne. However, the vessel and the swimmer insensibly neared one another, and in one of its tacks the tartan bore down within a quarter of a mile of him. He rose on the waves, making signs of distress; but no one on board saw him, and the vessel stood on another tack. Dantes would have shouted, but he knew that the wind ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... room once more; but as it was far neater than her own, she could not reasonably find any fault there, so started on a new tack. ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... think o' that?" ejaculated Martha. "Nobody didn't seem to like nothin' in that combination, did they? You was the only one in the whole outfit that showed any tack." ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann

... another highly unpopular fatigue. First of all you produce your portable entrenching-tool—it looks like a combination of a modern tack-hammer and a medieval back-scratcher—and fit it to its haft. Then you lie flat upon your face on the wet grass, and having scratched up some small lumps of turf, proceed to build these into a parapet. Into ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... the name of Heaven, the truth! Do not flatter a dying man with a hope that may prove vain." There he stopped, a look from Colbert telling him that he was on a wrong tack. ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... was rather puzzled one day by an anonymous letter telling him he was all on the wrong tack; it was not a Trade job, but contrived by a gentleman for his private ends. Advantage had been taken of Little being wrong with the Trade; "but," said the letter, "you should look to the head for the motive, not to the hands. One or two saw them ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... Mark Poison Bottle.—When you purchase a bottle of poison run a brass-headed tack into the top of the cork. It serves as a marker, and children will be more cautious of the marked bottle. If the label comes off or is discolored, the marker remains as a warning that the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... that they had been blown off, but how far they could not tell, and Jack now began to discover that a cruise at sea without knowledge of navigation was a more nervous thing than he had contemplated. However, there was no help for it. At night they wore the ships and stood on the other tack, and at daylight they perceived that they were close to some small islands, and much closer to some large rocks, against which the sea beat high, although the wind had subsided. Again was the helm put up, and they narrowly escaped. As soon as the sails were trimmed ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat



Words linked to "Tack" :   pushpin, secure, navigation, bit, create, bring together, confuse, compound, bearing, turn, fix, make, harness, aim, saddle blanket, join, sew together, housing, boat, sew, attach, reverse, gear, change by reversal, yoke, mix up, configure, hang on, stitch, run up, piloting, subjoin, horse blanket, confect, cinch, martingale, disassemble, girth, comfit, fasten, paraphernalia, drawing pin, heading, trapping, sail, ship, change of course, seafaring, nail, saddlecloth, confection, jumble, sailing, hame, rig up, appurtenance, caparison, line, pilotage, headgear, reassemble, futtock shroud



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