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Taps   /tæps/   Listen
Taps

noun
1.
(military) signal to turn the lights out.  Synonym: lights-out.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Taps" Quotes from Famous Books



... C. Bose next demonstrated some marvellous results obtained with his apparatus. A seedling which on account of the Winter season appeared stationary jotted down by taps on a moving plate, the rate of its growth. The application of a chemical instantly arrested this growth, but an antidote timely applied, not only removed the torpor but enhanced the growth at an enormous rate. The life of the plant became pliant at the will of the experimenter, and nothing ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose

... pervading the whole assembly; the quaint survival of the time-honoured "overture"—three knocks on the boards—dating back to Roman times when the Prologus of the comedy stepped forth and craved the attention of the audience by three taps of his wand; the chief actor's approach to the front of the stage after the play is ended to announce to Mesdames and Messieurs what in these days they have known for weeks before from the press, that "the piece we have had the honour of playing" is by such a one—all combine ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... to lie on the grass was sufficient satisfaction for the canine mind. And Nebbie, yawning extensively, and stretching himself a little more, closed his eyes in a rapture of peace, and stirred his tail slightly with one, two, three mild taps on the soft grass, when a sudden clear whistle caused him to spring up with every hair bristling on end, fore-paws well forward ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... compromise. This, in view of the Amazonian reinforcements, who were standing by in readiness for a second onset, we were more than pleased to accept. From this inglorious combat we came off without serious injury; but with those gentle poker taps were knocked out forever all the sweet delusions of the ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... and white like Scaramouch's in the pantomime. See, there comes another blue-riband, as I live. My Lord Bamborough. The descendant of the Hotspurs. The proudest man in England. He stops, he bows, he smiles; he is hat in hand, too. See, she taps him with her fan. Get away, you crowd of little blackguard boys, and don't tread on the robe of the lady whom ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... people can't always have nice things, but at least they needn't have things that are merely grotesque. What do you say? I can think of nothing more devastating, more utterly smug than that hideous style—cabinets covered all over with swans' heads, like bath-taps!" ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... concern. Fortunately an idea comes to me. I take one of the mammoth socks that are lying on the counter and fold parts of it neatly back, so as to make it appear very much smaller than it is. Then the shopman suddenly brightens, taps his forehead, climbs his steps again, and pulls yet more boxes and parcels from his shelves. And here at last are the small socks! So I choose a pair, and pay the bill. And the man bows his thanks, well pleased, it seems, to find that in thrusting ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... smoke. The barmaid and her assistant enjoyed their brief minutes of feverish contact with the great world. Behind the counter, walled in by a rampart of dress-shirts, they conjured with bottles, glasses, and taps, heard and answered ten men at once, reckoned change by a magic beyond arithmetic, peered between shoulders to catch the orders of their particular friends, and at the same time acquired detailed information as to the progress ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... I could distinguish the precise moment when he fairly disengaged the lid—also, that I could determine when he removed it altogether, and when he deposited it upon the lower berth in his room; this latter point I knew, for example, by certain slight taps which the lid made in striking against the wooden edges of the berth, as he endeavored to lay it down very gently—there being no room for it on the floor. After this there was a dead stillness, and I heard nothing more, upon either occasion, until nearly daybreak; unless, perhaps, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... we found (among its other strange things) the electric light. At nine-thirty the bell in the chapel sounded taps, and all the lights in the school were extinguished simultaneously. Then the master would make his rounds and find the whole school evidently asleep in their beds. But presently doors would open and books would be read by the light in the hall. Still we had that same adventurous feeling ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... business on his own account His skill as a mechanical draughtsman Invents his drawing instrument His drawing-table His improvements in the self-acting lathe His double-driving centre-chuck and two-armed driver His fluted taps and dies Invention of his Planing Machine Employed to make Babbage's Calculating Machine Resume of the history of apparatus for making calculations Babbage's engine proceeded with Its great cost ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... can keep from telling him, Ethel dear? Try! And I will be your slave forever!" Steps are heard on the stairs outside. "Oh, there he comes!" She dashes out of the door, and closes it after her, a moment before the maid- servant, followed by Mr. Ransom, taps at it. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... since—to say the least of it—the days of the Greeks and Romans. An ancient gem-engraver would to-day be eminent among modern craftsmen. The implements of the Roman surgeons, the proportional compasses used by the Roman architects, the force-pumps and taps used in the Roman houses—all things that could be produced by a man directing his own muscles—were produced in the Rome of Nero as perfectly as they could be produced to-day. To this fact our museums bear ample and minute witness; while the Colosseum and the Parthenon are quite enough to ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock

... sits the President, Abrahamowicz, object of the Opposition's limitless hatred. He is sunk back in the depths of his arm-chair, and has his chin down. He brings the ends of his spread fingers together, in front of his breast, and reflectively taps them together, with the air of one who would like to begin business, but must wait, and be as patient as he can. It makes you think of Richelieu. Now and then he swings his head up to the left or to the right and answers something which some one has bent down to say to him. Then he taps his fingers ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... No such stirring scenes had been witnessed here since the days of the civil war. Troop trains arriving or departing, drills at camp and practice marches through the town, martial music from many bands, reveille and taps, all contributed to impress the town folk with the fact that ...
— A Virginia Village • Charles A. Stewart

... in reminiscence. "But it wasn't so gay that moonlight night, the next February, when we hung Jenkins. He was a Sidney Cove and had just stole a safe, but that was the least of his crimes and of the whole gang. When we Vigilantes heard the taps on the firebell here in the Plaza, we gathered in front of the committee rooms. Nobody was excited; we just had to drive out the Sidney Coves and put an end to crime. We marched Jenkins here and hung him over there to the beam on the south end of the Custom House. Forty ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray

... afore 'im, and always knew when 'er friends died by hearing three loud taps on the wall. The on'y mistake she ever made was one night when, arter losing no less than seven friends, she found out it was the man next door hanging pictures at three o'clock in the morning. She found it out ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs

... the ground: and Jem, who had thrown himself upon him, was apparently searching about for some weapon to put a bloody termination to the conflict, when the trampling of a horse was heard at the door, three taps were repeated slowly, one after the other, and a call resounded ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... dozen of them had been long enough to force him to spend the night in his old suite at the World Police Headquarters at the southern end of the island. He didn't like to stay in Government City; it made him uneasy, being this close to the Nipe's underground nest. The Nipe had too many taps into government communication channels, too many ways of seeing and hearing what went on here in ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... outcome of the German attack on Mombasa. Tanga is a post of considerable importance in German East Africa, and lies midway between Zanzibar and Mombasa. It is the seaport of an important railway line which connects it with Moshi, lying among the foothills of Kilimanjaro (18,700 feet) and which taps most of the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... 'sad, wounded, glad and joyful.' But while discoursing about young ladies, we'll have to illustrate the four states as well. At the end of this recitation, we'll have to drink the 'door cup' over the wine, to sing an original and seasonable ballad, while over the heel taps, to make allusion to some object on the table, and devise something with some old poetical lines or ancient scrolls, from the Four Books or the Five Classics, or with some ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... back yards on its banks would receive. The water can not be pure, and to those who know the facts the idea of drinking it is repulsive. This supply had long been insufficient to the growing city, and in 1835 the well-protected and excellent aqueduct of Ferdinand VII was completed. It taps the Almendares River a few hundred yards above filters mentioned, hence carried by arches to the east El Cerro, and for some distance nearly parallel to the Calzada del Cerro, but finally intersecting this. These works are succeeded by the Famous Vento. When Havana is fought for hereafter the fight ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... Button, to whom we are indebted for both the Glacier and the Geyser springs, seems best to understand the process of successfully boring artesian wells, having made these his special study and profession. Like Moses of old, he strikes, or taps, the rock and behold streams of ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn

... their noise. They do everything by buggies here. They get you up at a quarter to 6 which is first call and you got to dress in 15 minutes because they blow the assembly buggle at 6 and then comes the revelry buggle and then you eat breakfast and so on till 11 P.M. when they blow the taps buggle and that means everybody has got to put their lights out and go to sleep just as if a man couldn't go to sleep without music and any way a whole lot of the boys go to sleep before 11 because with so many of us here how could the officers ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner

... Ragged Staff, Lucas led the way into what must have been one of the courts of offices, for it was surrounded with buildings and sheds of different heights and sizes, and had on one side a deep trough of stone, fed by a series of water-taps, intended for the use of the stables. The doors of one of these buildings was unlocked by Master Hansen, and Ambrose found himself in what had once perhaps been part of a stable, but had been partitioned off from the rest. There were two stalls, one serving the Dutchman for his living ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... at home, so it is my part of the arrangement to ring up Moggridge's when I arrive at my office, and order what we want; that is, whenever I remember. But unfortunately I own the most impossible of head-pieces. It's all right to look at from the outside, but inside the valves leak, or else the taps run. Consequently it generally ends in Joan's writing a note when I return home in the evening. Thus I was not altogether surprised when, one morning after breakfast, Joan asked me to repeat her orders. I did so. "That's not what I said!" cried ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various

... rock has been pierced in several places, deliciously pure, cool water issuing from the taps. Crowds are always collected here, impatient to drink of the miraculous fountain, and to fill vessels for use at home. We see tired, heated invalids, and apparently dying persons, drinking cups of this ice-cold water; ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... interstices have been left for the express purpose of ventilation?" I continued tapping with the hammer. I noticed one peculiarity, that it was only when I held the box in a particular position, and tapped at a certain spot, there came the answering taps from within. "I tell you what it is, Pugh, what I hear is the reverberation of ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... to Europe I'll stay at home!" moaned this individual. "Oh, my! oh, my! How bad I feel! Next that comes will be the shaps of my twos—I mean the taps of my shoes!" ...
— Frank Merriwell's Nobility - The Tragedy of the Ocean Tramp • Burt L. Standish (AKA Gilbert Patten)

... heard the smooth blur of the cutter. Not six times had Bobby traversed the lawn when Lulu saw Di emerge from the house. Di had been caring for her canary and she carried her bird-bath and went to the well, and Lulu divined that Di had deliberately disregarded the handy kitchen taps. Lulu dusted the south window and watched, and in her watching was no quality of spying or of criticism. Nor did she watch wistfully. Rather, she looked out on something in which she had never shared, could not by any chance ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale

... led along the east coast in the days of Captain Kidd. Portugal captured the place, but the Arabs drove her out again. Now England is making Mombasa into a mighty big trading center, and as the Uganda Railway taps the Cape-to-Cairo, which is about done, ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney

... godmother, scooping out the inside of the pumpkin, leaves the rind, which she taps three times, and immediately it becomes ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... expected to read to the boys in his tent a chapter from the Bible and have prayers before "taps" each night, also to take his turn in leading the morning devotions at breakfast table. Groups of boys will meet for occasional Bible study at sunset under various leaders. Each session will continue twenty minutes—no longer. Sunday morning service will be somewhat ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson

... must be in the same chamber with his two fellow-priests, separated from them by the flooring on which he stood. He rapped gently with his foot twice. Two soft taps came back. ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... you seventy-five dollars for the outfit, just as you got it—chaps, taps, and latigo straps, if you'll have it in front of my ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips

... "Were they hard taps?" inquired Lucille, reappearing from behind the flagon. "I hate them myself, even on the funny-bone or ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... their auditors. In this kind of lyric "A Leaping Wind from England" will long keep fresh the name of W.N. Hodgson, who was killed in the battle of the Somme. His verses were collected in November 1916. The strange rough drum-taps of Mr. Henry Lawson, published in Sydney at the close of 1915, and those of Mr. Lawrence Rentoul, testify to Australian enthusiasm. Most of the soldier-poets were quite youthful; an exception was R.E. Vernede, whose War Poems ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... cruelly dark, and rain fell and wind blew, till the walls of the cottage shook again. There they all sat round the fire, busy with this thing and that. But just then, all at once something gave three taps on the window-pane. Then the father went out to see what was the matter; and, when he got out of doors, what should he see but a ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen

... there was more. A great flake of cement dropped on to my feet, and I saw marks on the stone underneath. I had tracked the Abbot down, my dear Gregory; even now I think of it with a certain pride. It took but a very few more taps to clear the whole of the cement away, and I saw a slab of stone about two feet square, upon which was engraven a cross. Disappointment again, but only for a moment. It was you, Brown, who reassured me by a casual remark. You ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James

... went with him on all his voyages. It beat the men to quarters in the fight with the Spanish Armada and in all his battles on the Spanish Main, when, to use his own words, he was 'singeing the whiskers of the King of Spain.' He was buried at sea in the West Indies, and the drum beat taps when his body was lowered into ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes

... read the burial service, and the trumpeters stepped to the edge of the graves and sounded "Taps," which echoed sad and melancholy far over those parched and arid lands. My eyes filled with tears, for one of the soldiers was from our own company, and had been ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... stroll of inspection of the effects of the storm. He then strangled him, somewhere, and placed him in the quicklime in the Sapsea vault, locked him in, and went to bed. Next, according to Mr. Proctor, Durdles, then, "lying drunk in the precincts," for some reason taps with his hammer on the wall of the Sapsea vault, detects the presence of a foreign body, opens the tomb, and finds Drood in the quicklime, "his face fortunately protected by the strong silk shawl with which Jasper has intended ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang

... Tom and Harry were putting in some of the last taps of the hammer. They had made a very creditable job of the flooring. It was now five o'clock. Dick & Co. had worked so briskly that they were ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock

... what, for goodness' sake?" snapped one of the would-be hearers, breaking in rawly upon the soft waves of the hand and the imploring taps with which each of the two gentlewomen was endeavouring to make way ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... never felt so brave since, as I used to feel as I jumped into bed conscious of an ordeal creditably over. Why is bed such a safe place? I am not half so brave as I used to be. I remember at the age of ten doing a thing that I have never dared to do since. I sat in the bath with my back to the taps. Do you suppose the innocent designer of baths meant everybody to sit like that, with a tap looking over each shoulder? Taps are known to be savage brutes, and it is everybody's instinct to sit the other way round, and keep an eye on the danger. If I were as brave ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson

... in his pockets and making an infantile attempt to whistle, strolled right along beyond the end of the wall. There he recalls a number of mean dirty shops, and particularly that of a plumber and decorator with a dusty disorder of earthenware pipes, sheet lead, ball taps, pattern books of wall paper, and tins of enamel. He stood pretending to examine these things, and coveting, passionately desiring, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... besides he had Perezvon, who had been told to lie flat, without moving, under the bench in the hall. Every time Kolya, walking to and fro through the rooms, came into the hall, the dog shook his head and gave two loud and insinuating taps on the floor with his tail, but alas! the whistle did not sound to release him. Kolya looked sternly at the luckless dog, who relapsed again into obedient rigidity. The one thing that troubled Kolya was "the kids." He looked, of course, with the utmost scorn on Katerina's ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... the boy knelt bareheaded before him King Henry with drawn sword gave him the accolade—three smart taps with the flat of the sword on the shoulder and one with the palm of the hand on the cheek. Then said the king: "William of Normandy, in the name of God, St. Michael, and St. George, I dub thee knight. Be valiant, bold, ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... night, she has always time for a smiling salutation to all ranks. She also speaks English quite creditably—a fact of which Madame is justly proud. "College!" explains the mother, full of appreciation for an education which she herself has never known, and taps her learned daughter affectionately ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)

... were dug. On one side of them stood a line of poilus in their uniforms of horizon blue and red, and on the other a line of American soldiers in khaki. The flag-covered caskets were lowered, as the bugler sounded "taps," and the batteries ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... generally used to communicate the signals. Instead of a continuous noise, lasting as long as the key at the transmitting station is held down, the operator at the receiving station hears only a series of taps made by an instrument called a "sounder." The principle of this simple device is illustrated by the working diagrams in Fig. 35. M is a horseshoe magnet fixed to a base, A. Close to it is an armature, AR, of ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams

... colonel and one or two of his officers had been in the station a while during the evening and had sent messages to Cheyenne and Omaha and received one or two, but that they had all gone out to camp. Everything was quiet; "taps" had just sounded and they ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... Sultan Barkuk, the assassin, we see, issuing from it, a whole band, some twenty in a line, who emerge from the darkness of the abandoned walls, each trotting on his little donkey and each followed by the inevitable Bedouin driver, who taps with his stick upon the rump of the beast. They are returning to Cairo, their visit ended, and exchange in a loud voice, from one ass to another, more or less inept impressions in various European languages. . . . And look! There is ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... confidingly; a rose Taps at the window, as the sunlight throws A brilliant, jostling checkerwork of shine And shadow, like a Persian-loom design, Across the homemade carpet—fades,—and then The dear old colors are themselves again. Sounds drop in visiting from everywhere— The bluebird's and the robin's trill are there, ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley

... with a small ladder, arrived with eclat, native gendarmes clearing the road, and Frenchmen and natives shouting the danger of death by these formidable engines. They were of no purpose, the water-taps which were conspicuous in the main streets being absent here, and no water under pressure was available. They knew this, of course, but the hose was unreeled, and a dozen people tripped up by its ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... from the reservoir to the city, smaller mains convey the water to the various sections of the city, and service pipes lead to the individual house taps. During this long journey, considerable force is expended against friction, and hence the flow at a distance from the reservoir falls to but a fraction of its original strength. For this reason, buildings situated near the main supply have a much stronger flow (Fig. ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... cigar case again, extracts a cigar from it and lays the latter down on the table.] You'll come over to my house afterward, won't you? I have a necessary evil with two horses standing out there in which we can drive straight over. [He taps his cigar against the edge of the table.] Oh, the holy state of matrimony! O Lord! [Striking a match.] So you're still pure, free, ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... Now the plantin' taps are tinged wi' goud, on yon burn side, And gloamin' draws her foggy shroud o'er yon burn side; Far frae the noisy scene, I'll through the fields alane, There we'll meet, my ain dear Jean, down by yon ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... Pedlow. "Here's to her—brightest and best—and no heel-taps! And now let's set down over in the corner and take it easy. It ain't hardly five o'clock yet, and we can set here comfortable, gittin' ready for dinner, until half-past ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington

... led straight into the dispensing-room outside, a long shed of corrugated iron run up against the garden wall and lined with honey-colored pine. Under a wide stretch of window was a work table. At one end of this table was a slab of white marble; at the other a porcelain sink fitted with taps and sprays for hot and cold water. From the far end of the room where the stove was came a smothered roar of gas flames. On the broken inner wall were shelves fitted with drawers of all sizes, each with ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... go, after mass, to hear orally the orders that the cabezas communicate to them. In order to summon any of them when necessity requires, they have adopted certain taps of the drum; and on hearing it they go to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various

... to receive more substantial tokens of sympathy. But there were parting gifts showered on the regiment, enough to establish a variety-shop. Handkerchiefs, of course, came floating down upon us from the windows, like a snow. Pretty little gloves pelted us with love-taps. The sterner sex forced upon us pocket-knives new and jagged, combs, soap, slippers, boxes of matches, cigars by the dozen and the hundred, pipes to smoke shag and pipes to smoke Latakia, fruit, eggs, and sandwiches. One fellow got a new purse with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... looked dressy in Evangeline's fur coat. I added my silk hat to the geyser's cosy costume and a pair of boots on the bath-taps. But I was told not to be silly, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various

... lamb. Yes," he said, taking his wife by the waist and striking her with little taps, under an emotion of joy which lighted up his features, "I did not wish to tell you of this matter till it was all cooked; but to-morrow it will be done,—that is, perhaps it will. Here it is then: Roguin has proposed a speculation to me, so safe ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... the four movements of this exercise has a distinct sound. The dropping of the toe, the stamping of the ball of the foot, of the heel, and of the flat foot, each creates a separate and distinct sound. I have named these sounds "taps," and it is the various combinations of these sounds that are used so effectively in musical comedy dances, in tap, step, and American specialty dancing (sometimes called clogging), as well as in some of our ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn

... infantrymen, in their picturesque uniforms of red and horizon blue, stood on one side and a detachment of American soldiers on the other while the flag-wrapped coffins were lowered into the grave, as a bugler blew taps and the batteries nearby fired minute guns. The French officer commanding in the sector paid an eloquent tribute to the fallen Americans, his words being punctuated by the roar of the guns and the whistle of shells. In ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... think he does anything much: taps the barometer, advises the gardener, fusses with fowls, potters in the garden, teaches the dog tricks. It makes him happy to feel himself rushed, and to go carrying unopened letters at tea-time. They have no children. Mrs. Jowett is a dear. She ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... for a 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 to tie his thumb up in a rag, and ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... and extending her arms in ecstasy goes to cabinet, takes them up and comes down L. OLIVIA sits on settee with curtains in her lap and places the work-box to her L. on settee, and as she does so MR. PIM enters from up R. through windows and coming to R. of writing-table taps it with his umbrella to attract OLIVIA'S attention. She turns and sees him. He looks nervously round at staircase R. fearing ...
— Mr. Pim Passes By • Alan Alexander Milne

... staid old painter who takes life as he finds it, and who loves to watch the procession from the sidewalk without any desire to carry one of the banners or to blow one of the horns—one of your three-meals-a-day, no heel-taps, and go-to-bed-at-ten-o'clock kind of a man, then make a note of the Cycle. The melons are excellent; the omelets are wonders, and the salads something to be remembered. But, if you are two-and-twenty, with the world in a sling and ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... ponderous slap on one side of my face with the big broad hand that was uninjured, which made me reel and tumble down; but a second blow, a backhander on the opposite side of my head, brought me up again, "all standing." Still, although I felt these gentle taps, I could not help grinning, which, of course, increased his rage, ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson

... unoccupied. All of the work of the camp was done by the boys, who served in turn on orderly duty. The officers were always, if possible, prominent athletes, to whom the boys could look up as being capable in physical as well as spiritual fields. There was a brief address each night before "taps" in the big marquee used for mess; and one night was always a straight talk on the problems of sex by the medical officers, whom the boys were advised to consult in their perplexities. These camps were among the happiest memories of my life, ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... health, and it was with a pang that he fancied himself being probed by the civil-speaking Life Insurance doctor (a gentleman who seems to issue upon us applicants from out the muffled folding doors of Hades; taps us on the chest, once, twice, and forthwith writes down our fateful dates). Probably, Anthony would not have to pay a higher ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... her old, pretty, lazy way. Certainly there were no signs of romantic misery or tragic disillusionment about her. Again I asked myself whether my sympathy were not more justly due to Struboff—Struboff, who sat now smoking a big cigar and wobbling his head solemnly in answer to the emphatic taps of Wetter's forefinger on his waistcoat. The question was whether human tenderness lay anywhere under those wrappings; if so, M. Struboff might be a proper object of compassion, his might be the misery, his (O monstrous thought!) ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... not heard the gentle taps, and when she saw her, started, and tried to hide her face in ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... the people resort to divination in order to discover the wicked magician who has perpetrated the crime. For this purpose they place the corpse on a bier, cover it with a mat, and set it on the shoulders of four men, while a fifth man taps lightly with an arrow on the mat and enquires of the departed whether such and such a village has bewitched him to death. If the bier remains still, it means "No"; but if it rocks backward and forward, it means "Yes," and the avengers of blood must seek their victim, the guilty sorcerer, ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... Then she went through the most blood-curdling pantomime ever was, I reckon. First she comes up to me and taps me on the chest and says, ''Edge.' Then she goes creeping round the room on tiptoe, p'inting out of the winder all the time as much as to say she was pertending to walk through the woods. Then she p'ints to one of the stumps we used for ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... towards Ethiopia" (Night cli.), and the "Islands of the Children of Khaledan" (Night ccxi.) instead of the Khalidatani or Khalidat, the Fortunate Islands. It was by no means "des petite soufflets" ("some taps from time to time with her fingers") which the sprightly dame administered to the Barber's second brother (Night clxxi.), but sound and heavy "cuffs" on the nape; and the sixth brother (Night clxxx.) was not "aux levres fendues" ("he of the hair-lips"), ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... taps of a fan I awake my surprised mousme; and, curious to catch her first impressions, I announce my departure. She starts up, rubs her eyelids with the backs of her little hands, looks at me, and hangs her head: something like an expression of sadness ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... "call spirits from the vasty deep" by making a circle of their thirty fingers upon a wooden table. Very soon the table gave signs of upheaval, while some cobbling sprite fell to tapping merrily at his trade within its ligneous recesses. Lady Macbeth said that these taps denoted its readiness to hold communion with the grosser earth, and constituted its sole vocabulary. As in the game of Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral, its information was to be extracted by a series of queries admitting of "yes" or "no" in answer. ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... another glass of wine, and began to study the scheme. He was abnormally quick with his brains at puzzles, and with his hands at conjuring, and it did not take him long to learn how he might convey simple messages by what would seem to be idle taps upon a table or knee. But wine and companionship had always the effect of inspiring him to a farcical ingenuity, and the Professor soon found himself struggling with the too vast energy of the new language, as it passed through ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... for you to-night will you go out canoeing with me, just you alone? And please get permission to stay out as long as you like, as the Counsellor in our lodge will be away to-night and if I'm not in when 'Taps' blows nobody will ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... as a watchmaker I found it quite convenient to keep my small drills, taps, small brooches, etc., In boxes having a sliding cover. To keep the contents from spilling or getting mixed in my case I used a small fastener as shown in the accompanying illustration, The fastener is made of steel or brass and ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... stood with her back towards her husband, trembling and crying bitterly. I caught Peerat's arm, picked up a little switch from the ground, and told him to beat her on the shoulders with that. He gave her two slight blows, or rather taps, in order to know where it was I meant him to strike; but the poor girl cried so bitterly from fear that I stopped him, told her that for this time she should be pardoned, and then called the other woman up, but ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... two saw no traceable developments in the situation, but Miss Mapp's trained sense told her that there was underground work of some kind going on: she seemed to hear faint hollow taps and muffled knockings, and, so to speak, the silence of some unusual pregnancy. Up and down the High Street she observed short whispered conversations going on between her friends, which broke off on her approach. This only confirmed her view that these secret colloquies ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... ordinary workman to judge when two-thirds of the contents of the big pot are in crystals, and one-third liquid; and when he sees this to be the case, instead of ladling out the crystals ladleful by ladleful, as in the old Pattinson process, he taps out the liquid lead by means of two pipes, controlled by valves, the crystals being retained in the pot ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various

... Lichnowsky, who had observed Beethoven's act in disciplining Ries earlier in the evening, stationed herself back of Beethoven's chair, while Ries turned the pages. When Beethoven made a mistake similar to that of Ries, the Princess playfully hit him several taps on the head with her hand, saying: "If the scholar is punished for making a slight mistake, the master should not escape, when making a graver one," at which all laughed, Beethoven taking the lead. Then he began again and fairly outdid himself, particularly in the ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... the Locusts. The sixteen years which have passed since Hero followed his little mistress home have brought many changes. He is only a tender memory now. A square, white stone stands on the lawn where "taps" were sounded over him one September day, long ago. But the sight of it no longer brings pain to the Little Colonel. With the sweet ambition in her heart to make life happier for every one she touches, she has grown up into a ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston

... are cruelly voluble, but their volubility taps the evil humour of the universal human disease. Their thoughts are our thoughts, their obsessions, our obsessions. Let no one think, in his vain security, that he has a right to say: "I have no part in this morbidity. I am different from these ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... was heard; and Jack, taking hold of the dog's large head, gave him several little friendly taps. ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne

... with the plunder of the corpse, and yet he paused a moment as three light taps resounded upon the closed folding doors. "She is sound asleep; I cannot waken her now," whispered Leah Einstein. "Then help me to carry her upstairs. You must not leave her for an instant till ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... 1-1/4-inch gas tube 3-1/2 feet in length, one end of each being stopped, and having 1/3-inch holes drilled therein at intervals of about 1 inch, the other end being left open for the insertion of ordinary 3/8-inch brass gas taps. Another plan preferred by some japanners is to have three rows of burners the full length of the stove, which, under some circumstances, due to structural conditions, will be found more suitable. Anyway, ...
— Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition - For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and - Galvanizing • William N. Brown

... and Power Bolt and Pipe Cutters, Bolt Pointers, Bolt Headers, Hot and Cold Pressed Nut Machinery, Taps and Dies, etc. Send for ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various

... the poker then and, asking Henny to put his hand upon the stove leg, he gave the hard candy a few sharp taps with the poker and chipped the ...
— Raggedy Andy Stories • Johnny Gruelle

... hospitality who have left the triumphs of the drama to cheer the unfortunate soldier on his war-ward way, I raise my glass and drink to each Terpsichorean toe which, erstwhile, was pointed skyward amid the thunder of metropolitan plaudits, and which now demurely taps my flattered carpet. Gentlemen—soldiers and civilians—I give you three toasts! Miss Carew, Miss Lynden, Miss Trent! Long may they ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... dreary forgetfulness of the past. Hour after hour whiled away. The tiny lights in the natives' shacks along the opposite shore began to go out and grow fewer and fewer until the closing day had died safely away into the solemn night. As usual, "taps" were blown at ten o'clock and things on the island grew very quiet. Days—yes, weeks—seemed to crowd themselves into those long hours. ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey

... black-and-gold washroom, was amused at the slight but definite popping of ambassadorial eyes. Earth might be dying, he thought, but at least her destroyers would leave a heritage. He motioned toward the basin with its mermaid taps and Captain Yaelstrom hesitated, then began pulling off ...
— It's All Yours • Sam Merwin

... forgot her doubt as she realized the ingenuities of the room. She ran about, turning on the taps of the bathtub, which gushed instead of dribbling like the taps at home, snatching the new wash-rag out of its envelope of oiled paper, trying the rose-shaded light between the twin beds, pulling out the drawers of the kidney-shaped walnut desk ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... confusion this first night before everyone got settled, for many of the girls had never camped before and were unskilled in the art of undressing rapidly in the close quarters of a tent, and "Taps" sounded before a number were even undressed. The Lone Wolf was lenient this first night, however, and did not insist upon prompt lights out, an act of grace which added greatly to ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey

... shook his head, as was his wont when he was about to relapse into reminiscences, and gave old Nancy several thoughtful taps with the whip, which she ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... raised to the nth power of impressibility. The occultist will point you to a universal medium as much above the cinema film as that is above the brick or stone, and in which are stored up the memoria mundi. It is this sensitized envelope of the planetary atom that your sensitive taps by means of his clairvoyant, psychometric and ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial

... her!" laughed Courtenay at last, rising and holding up his glass. "We can't explain her, so let's drink to her! No heel-taps! Here's to Rewa ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... libations still renew The fervours of her dancing crew. Land of delight! let mem'ry strive To keep thy flying scenes alive; Thy grey-limb'd orchards, scattering wide Their treasures by the highway side; Thy half-hid cottages, that show The dark green moss, the resting bough, At broken panes, that taps and flies, Illumes and shades the maiden's eyes At day-break, and, with whisper'd joy, Wakes the light-hearted shepherd boy: These, with thy noble woods and dells, The hazel copse, the village bells, Charm'd more the passing ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield

... he visited cleanliness was discouraged, and the water system seemed a mere after-thought. In most cases the taps were buttons requiring continuous pressure, and then yielding only an exiguous supply; a kettle took nearly a minute to fill, so that while one tenant drew service others stood waiting. He spoke indignantly of it to Sister Jenifer. ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... from it then. The only hope was to take it somewhere else than amidships. Engine and boiler compartments were amidships. If it struck her there they might as well call it taps for all hands. So the commander put the wheel hard over—to take it on his quarter, where there was also a chance that ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly

... and wise advisers snore; And softly slip-shod youths unbar the door. Now footsteps echo far, and watch-dogs bark; Worms glow, and cats' eyes glitter in the dark. The vagrant lover crosses moor and hill, And near the lowly cottage whistles shrill: Or, bolder grown, beneath the friendly shade, Taps at the window of his fav'rite maid; Who from above his simple tale receives, Whilst stupid matrons start, and think of thieves, Now daily fools unbar the narrow soul, All wise and gen'rous o'er the ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie

... laughed Courtenay at last, rising and holding up his glass. "We can't explain her, so let's drink to her! No heel-taps! Here's to Rewa Gunga's ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... shines never at morn, Because it was built in the widow's corn; And its foundations can never be sure, Because it was built on the ruin of the poor. And or an age is come and gane, Or the trees o'er the chimly-taps grow green, We kinna wen where the house ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... course they just called it the heating furnace to avoid frightening him. The little boy became acutely conscious of his misdeeds. He had taken ... no, stolen an apple from the nursery pantry and had eaten it. Against all orders he had played with the taps in the sink. The burden of his iniquities pressed heavily on him; remembering the encouraging warnings Mrs. Fairchild, of The Fairchild Family, gave her offspring as to their certain ultimate destiny when they happened ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... and he watching her every movement, and listening to every syllable, with a rapt interest such as only very early youth can feel. How happy he used to look! How his face would lighten up, as if an angel's wing had swept over it, when the two gentle taps at the door heralded young Jessie! How his boyish reverence, mixed with boyish care, gave his wasted features an expression almost unearthly, as he hung over her so protectingly, so tenderly, so adoringly! It was so different from a man's love! There was something so exquisitely pure ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various

... was tired out. Somebody loaned us a victoria, and thus the trip was short. A deep-mouthed bell in the church tower rang out ten slow strokes as I threw back the shutters after putting out my light. The military bugles took up the sound with "taps," and the figure of the sentry on the bridge was a moving patch ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... of the worst that both feared was yet to come—and "Taps" sounded soft and dear on ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... line of the Southern Michigan and Northern Indiana Railroad, which taps a rich and important portion of Michigan, is 461 miles in length. The business on this line has recently shown a ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

... skeptic's familiar, with whom he has made a compact; and if he forgets it, and indulges in happy day-dreams, or building of air castles, or listens to sweet music, let us say, or to the bells ringing to church, But taps at the door, and says, 'Master, I am here. You are my master; but I am yours. Go where you will you can't travel without me. I will whisper to you when you are on your knees at church. I will be at your marriage pillow. I will sit down at your table with your children. I will be behind ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... into the furnace and regulate the water-level by the feed valve and pump. The small engine, more reliable and quite as powerful as a hundred men, was in perfect order. It abounded in valves and taps, but Walker's parting ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... woodpecker begins at the bottom of a tree and taps his way upward, so a bee begins at the lower and older flowers on a spike and works up to the younger ones; a fact on which this little orchid, like many another plant that arranges its b1ossoms in long racemes, depends. ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... within with dainty satin sides, Where all the long day through the sleeping dryad dreams, But when the moon bends low and taps thee thrice she glides, Knowing the fairy knock, to bask ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne

... that an't often), and before I can turn my head, her voice is in my ear, saying, "Richard, don't look round. For Heaven's love, give her this!" She brings it where I live: she sends it in letters; she taps at the window and lays it on the sill. What CAN I ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens

... through the whole Potpourri with a confident, conceited air, to the great despair of Dominie. At the choral, the aunt taps him on the shoulder, ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck

... least he can show his learning by pointing out the spot. In the waving of good-byes he is expert and takes a legitimate pride, and upstairs he has learnt that there are new delights. He himself can turn on the taps in the bathroom, and he can set every article in the proper place ready for use. All children love their bath, and if interest and good temper has been so far preserved, without a break, it will be ill-fortune if even the drying process is ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron

... had houses many on The avenues and squares, And hired the young Avenger Smith To see to the repairs, And Smith put faucets in, and cocks, And meters, eke, and taps, Connections, T-joints, sewer pipes, Basins and water-traps; He tore the walls and ripped the floors To reach the pipes beyond, And excavations in the street And 'neath the side-walk yawned; And daily as he entered up The items in his book The plumber's face wore a serene And retrospective ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee

... Some of them were still so drunk that they staggered, their awkwardness affording huge sport to their companions, yet even in their intoxication they were surprisingly capable. There was a great deal of laughter and disorder on every hand, and all made frequent trips to the water-taps, returning adrip to the waist, their hair and beards bejewelled with drops. Boyd saw one, a well-dressed fellow in a checked suit, remove his clothes and hang them carefully upon a nail, then painfully ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... But neither religion nor any other human interest consists in essentials. Such a practical conviction as that which has been defined inevitably flowers into a marvelous complexity, and taps for its nourishment every spontaneity of human nature. If it be said that only the practical conviction is essential, this is not the same as to say that all else is superfluous. There may be no single utterance that my religion could not have spared, and yet were I to be altogether ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... each child has his own little cupboard or shelf. In the middle of the room there are very simple washstands, consisting of tables, on each of which stand a small basin, soap and nail-brush. Against the wall stand little sinks with water-taps. Here the children may draw and pour away their water. There is no limit to the equipment of the "Children's Houses" because the children themselves do everything. They sweep the rooms, dust and wash the furniture, polish the brasses, lay and ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori



Words linked to "Taps" :   war machine, armed services, armed forces, military machine, military, bugle call



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