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Thaw   /θɔ/   Listen
Thaw

verb
(past & past part. thawed; pres. part. thawing)
1.
Become or cause to become soft or liquid.  Synonyms: dethaw, dissolve, melt, unfreeze, unthaw.  "The ice thawed" , "The ice cream melted" , "The heat melted the wax" , "The giant iceberg dissolved over the years during the global warming phase" , "Dethaw the meat"






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"Thaw" Quotes from Famous Books



... it was never quite dark. Our horses were kept, or rather starved, underground; and as for our servants, whom we hired here to look after ourselves and horses, we had, every now and then, their fingers and toes to thaw and take care of, lest they should mortify ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... compliment without flattering; her cordiality warmed like wine, and her ready wit, repartee, and ability to thaw all social ice and lead conversation along any line, were accomplishments which perhaps have never been equaled. The women who "entertain" often only depress; they are so glowing that everybody else feels himself punk. And these people who are too clever are very numerous; they seem inwardly ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... few days had given place to a thaw. The melting ice in the river was streaked in strange curves, and the bare trees along the straight heights of the Palisades were blurred by a faint bluish mist, out of which white lights and ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

... has been a thaw, as you know, and there isn't enough ice in Lake Metoka on which to sail the Bird. I guess Tommy'll have to wait until you get back there, Bert. We'll have more ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City • Laura Lee Hope

... length was reached. This river must be crossed. But the frightful chill, which hitherto had pursued the fleeing host, now inopportunely decreased, a thaw broke the frozen surface of the stream, and the fugitives gazed with horror on masses of floating ice where they had dreamed of a solid pathway for their feet. The slippery state of the banks added to the difficulty, while on the opposite side a Russian army commanded the passage with ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... awaken'd, straight, All he hath seen forgets; yet still retains Impression of the feeling in his dream; E'en such am I: for all the vision dies, As 't were, away; and yet the sense of sweet, That sprang from it, still trickles in my heart. Thus in the sun-thaw is the snow unseal'd; Thus in the winds on flitting leaves was lost The Sybil's sentence. O eternal beam! (Whose height what reach of mortal thought may soar?) Yield me again some little particle ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... to nothin', dear;" sais I, "I am just a nateral man. There is a time for all things, and a way to do 'em too. If I have to freeze down solid to a thing, why then, ice is the word. If there is a thaw, then fun and snow-ballin' is the ticket. I listen to a preacher, and try to be the better for his argufying, if he has any sense, and will let me; and I listen to the violin, and dance to it, if ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... to patronizing her. "She is really a very nice creature, and ought to join us more in our plays," we said. So we used to make her "one of us" in the play-ground. In fact, I began to thaw towards her very considerably. There was something in Abby ...
— The Old Castle and Other Stories • Anonymous

... had come over her,—a feeling that she was one of the great human family after all, and the icy mountain of reserve began to thaw just a little. Her purchases made, she concluded to take another road home. This route lay past a church. It was lighted, though early, and a few real worshipers had met to pray before the ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various

... the next morning was fair and bright, flushed with pink and warmed with sunshine to its golden heart. It was acknowledged to be the "beatinest" winter weather that ever was known,—a thaw that was not enough of a thaw to make the roads impassable, and without rain. The rude little settlement was alive long before the sun was up. Candles and lanterns flitted to and fro. The people were all eager and alert. Even the dogs and roosters seemed to feel the unusual excitement ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... they were among the islands at the mouth of the Richelieu, where muskrats scuttled through the rushes and wild-fowl clouded the air. The south shore of Lake St. Peter was heavily forested; the north, shallow. The lake was flooded with spring thaw, and the Mohawks could scarcely find camping-ground among the islands. The young prisoner was deathly sick from the rank food that he had eaten and heart-sick from the widening distance between himself and Three Rivers. Still, they treated him kindly, saying, "Chagon! Chagon!—Be merry! Cheer up!" ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... of October 15th we got up at three o'clock. Hot sweet tea was the one thing we all craved. The tea-pot was found to be frozen solid, although it had been hung up in the tent. It took an hour to thaw and the tea was just warm enough for practical purposes when I made an awkward move in the crowded tent and kicked over the tea-pot! Never did men keep their tempers better under more aggravating circumstances. ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... all that you have to do, is to keep the apples in a state of total darkness until some days after a complete thaw has come. In America they are frequently frozen as hard as stones; if they thaw in the light, they rot; but if they thaw in darkness, they not only do not rot, but lose very little of their original flavour. This may be new to the English ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various

... this; and flattery (we are told) will warm the most austere of authors—which Staff was not. He said "Oh!" and smiled his slow, wry smile; and Mr. Iff, remarking these symptoms of a thaw with interest and encouragement, ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... to the gates of the farm, when the thaw came after severe winters. But the flood had never increased so rapidly. We could see through the open door that the courtyard was transformed into a lake. The ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... niggard skies afford. Gloomy Winter, hence away, Love and fancy scorn they sway; Love, and joy, and friendly mirth Shall bless this roof, these walls, this hearth, The rigor of the year control, And thaw the winter ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various

... a mistake had been made. The speech was a success, and the programme provided for the entertainment of the orator and his wife included the hospitality of several private houses. Selma felt that she could afford to hold her head high and not to thaw too readily for the benefit of a society which had failed to appreciate her worth when it had the chance. She was the wife now of one of the leading public men of the nation, and in a position to set fashions, not to ask favors. Nevertheless she ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... unwritten, for him to consume his scanty stock of vigor in the tedious and exhaustive routine of political existence; waiting whole evenings for the vote, and then ... trudging home at three in the morning through the slush of a February thaw." He therefore spared himself as a member of Parliament, and carefully husbanded his powers in order to work upon his book. He gave himself more time for his annual vacation, yet would write when he could on the subjects which engrossed his life. His labors were too severe ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... the softer atmosphere from the distant ocean. The rising sun was obscured by denser and increasing columns of clouds, while the southerly wind that rushed up the valley brought the never-failing symptoms of a thaw. ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... challenge. Frank Harris is deprived of a publisher for his "Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confession" by threats of immediate prosecution; the newspapers meanwhile dedicate thousands of columns to the filthy amusements of Harry Thaw. George Moore's "Memoirs of My Dead Life" are bowdlerized, James Lane Allen's "A Summer in Arcady" is barred from libraries, and a book by D. H. Lawrence is forbidden publication altogether; at the same time half a dozen cheap magazines devoted to sensational sex stories attain ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... sufficient; he pressed his hand in silence, and led him to a place by the side of the baroness. An animated discussion now began concerning the weather, which was completely changed; a strong south wind had risen in the night, so there was now a thaw. The snow was all melted—the torrents were flowing once more, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... I find for metaphor; All else were contrast,—save that contrast's wall Is down, and all opposed things flow together Into a vast monotony, where night And day, and frost and thaw, and death and life, Are synonyms. What now—what now to me Are all the jabbering birds and foolish flowers That clutter up the world? You were my song! Now, let discord scream! You were my flower! ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... spring thaw usually begins in May in the forest region, and in June and July on the high Sierra, varying somewhat both in time and fullness with the weather and the depth of the snow. Toward the end of summer the streams are at their lowest ebb, few even of the strongest singing much above a ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir

... the work of getting the city's ancient reservoirs cleared of silt before the next spring thaw brought more water down the underground aqueducts everybody called canals in mistranslation of Schiaparelli's Italian word, though this was proving considerably easier than anticipated. The ancient Canal-Builders must have anticipated a time when their descendants would no longer be ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper

... on the ground, but the earth was frozen in great ribs after a late thaw. Ellen ran painfully between the ridges which a long line of ice-wagons had made with their heavy wheels earlier in the day. When the spaces between the ridges were too narrow for her little feet, she ran along the crests, and ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... an Author that had his Hero and Heroine consent together very prettily; but 'twas in a Thaw, and the Editor being stout, the match was broken off unblessedly, till a Pact was made that it should indeed be a Thaw, but sufficient only to let the Heroine drop through ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... continted with one another, for it was too soon for her to begin to regulate him the way she used with poor Jim Soolivan, so they wor comfortable enough; but this was too good to last, for the thaw kem an', an' you may be sure Jim Soolivan didn't lose a minute's time as soon as the heavy dhrift iv snow was melted enough between him and home to let him pass, for he didn't hear a word iv news from home sinst he lift it, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... when the Bunch were having one of their best parties, Babbitt drove them to the skating-rink which had been laid out on the Chaloosa River. After a thaw the streets had frozen in smooth ice. Down those wide endless streets the wind rattled between the rows of wooden houses, and the whole Bellevue district seemed a frontier town. Even with skid chains on all four wheels, Babbitt was afraid of sliding, and when he came ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... Australia; for palaeontologists produce fossil remains of marsupials or kangaroos. As for the polar conditions, when going round for snipes I constantly saw these in miniature. The planing action of ice was shown in the ditches, where bridges of ice had been formed; these slipping, with a partial thaw, smoothed the grasses and mars of teazles in the higher part of the slope, and then lower down, as the pressure increased, cut away the earth, exposing the roots of grasses, and sometimes the stores of acorns laid up by mice. Frozen again in the night, the ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... light in a way that is oftentimes amazing. Sometimes these facts appear within a few hours; again they are days in developing; and occasionally, after they have developed, the story will "follow" for weeks, months, and even years without losing its interest. The Thaw, Becker, and Charlton stories ran for years. The first item about the Titanic disaster was a bulletin of less than half a stick; yet the story ran ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... time before and after the poem appeared, Byron was, as he told Leigh Hunt (February 9, 1814; Letters, 1899, iii. 27), "snow-bound and thaw-swamped in 'the valley of the shadow' of Newstead Abbey," and it was not till he had returned to town that he resumed his journal, and bethought him of placing on record some dark sayings with regard to the story of the Corsair and the personality ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... will I be true, Nor shall my will rebellious prove. Amid the curls of golden hair That wave those beauteous temples round, Cupid spread craftily the snare With which my captive heart he bound: And from those eyes he caught the ray Which thaw'd the ice that fenced my breast, Chasing all other thoughts away, With brightness suddenly imprest. But now that hair of sunny gleam, Ah me! is ravish'd from my sight; Those beauteous eyes withdraw their beam, And change to sadness past delight. A glorious death by all is prized; Tis death ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... remembered Prato with horror. The marchese may well have thought me reserved, for it is true that I could barely be civil to him. He argued from that, as I learned afterwards from Donna Giulia, that I was of a ducal family, and in proportion as I froze, so did he thaw. As I receded, so did he advance. He pressed invitations upon me, all of which I could not decline; it was proper that I should offer him some hospitality in return—and I did. He supped with me once or twice in my lodgings, lost ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... We used to carry large pieces of it wrapped up in a newspaper, and when at the camp-fire we desired a little in our cup of tea, we cut it off with an axe. As will be seen from this we had about seven months of bright cold winter. During all that time there was not a thaw, the snow was never soft, and there was no dampness in the air or under foot. Soft deer skin moccasins are very much superior to civilised boots or shoes under ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... flinging himself bodily upon that gentleman. "I thaw cook cut a fowl's froat vis ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... Which tore from oaks their branches broad, And stars from the ecliptic road. Time wore he as his clothing-weeds, He sowed the sun and moon for seeds. As melts the iceberg in the seas, As clouds give rain to the eastern breeze, As snow-banks thaw in April's beam, The solid kingdoms like a dream Resist in vain his motive strain, They totter now and float amain. For the Muse gave special charge His learning should be deep and large, And his training ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... had a great deal of sewing to do, and for two days Dinky-Dunk stayed in and helped me fix up the shack. I made more book-shelves out of more old biscuit-boxes and my lord made a gun-rack for our fire-arms. Percival Benson rode over once, through the storm, and it took us half an hour to thaw him out. But he brought some books, and says he has four cases, altogether, and that we're welcome to all we wish. He stayed until noon the next day, this time sleeping in the annex, which Dinky-Dunk and I have papered, so that it looks quite presentable. But as yet there ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer

... the old man shrank sensitively within him for a moment. Then he said to himself, "He will know of it some day, and I may as well tell him." For the heart that had been frozen for years this youth had had power to thaw. ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... from cold in the winter, and hope you are in a warm, comfortable house, have pleasant books to read, and some pleasant friends to see. One does not want many; only a few bright faces to look in now and then, and help thaw the ice with little rills of genial conversation. I have fewer of these than at Rome,—but still several. * * * * * Horace Sumner, youngest son of father's friend, Mr. Charles P. Sumner, lives near us, and comes every evening to read a little while with Ossoli. He has solid ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... and it being yesterday and to-day a great thaw it is not for a man to walk the streets, but took coach and to Mr. Povy's, and there meeting all of us again agreed upon an answer to the Lords by and by, and thence we did come to Exeter House, and there was a witness ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... come. At first it came dribbling in by rail in trucks, till the thaw set in; and then fast, in a multitude of barges, with a great rush of unbound waters. The gentle master stevedore had his hands very full at last; and the chief mate became worried in his mind as to the proper distribution of the weight of his ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... provide them with food and shelter. They passed by the way armies of those who had set out upon the perilous enterprise, who stood frozen stiffly, without sense or motion; but Prince Mannikin strictly forbade that any attempt should be made to thaw them. So they went on and on for more than three months, and day by day the Ice Mountain, which they had seen for a long time, grew clearer, until at last they stood close to it, and shuddered at its height and steepness. But by patience and perseverance they crept up foot by foot, ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... snaw when it's thaw, Jean; I'm wearing awa', To the land o' the leal. There's nae sorrow there, Jean, There's neither cauld nor care, Jean, The day is aye fair In the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... between the old and the new. The new, though not acknowledging itself to be beaten, takes to its heels, and flees in the stormy night through wind and snow. But the snow is moist and heavy; it is beginning to thaw. There is a vague presentiment ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland

... two minutes after rising before Lieut. Greely could speak, so great was the outburst of enthusiasm which greeted him. He remarked that he was surprised to learn that the ground did not thaw lower at Lieut. Ray's station, which was ten degrees farther south than his own, where the ground thawed to a much greater depth—namely, twenty to thirty feet. In regard to an open polar sea, he differed from Lieut. Ray. He did not believe there was ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various

... I had better go to Sue's to thaw out some of my loneliness over this play," I answered him as I looked up with desperation and a smudge on my face. Then I went to my room and left Tolly alone with Peter's poor little heroine. "Say, tell the poet ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess

... a long speech for Abbot, but his heart is full. The old gentleman's sad face seems to thaw and beam under the influence of his frank avowal and that winning plea. Abbot has held forth his other hand, and there the two men stand, both trembling a little, under the influence of a deep and ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King

... on you for next Friday. A young American author studying England—I suppose like that Count Something-or-other in Pickwick Papers—is coming to dinner. I understand he drinks very little, so I am relying on you to thaw him. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... mysterious principle of duplication governing so many Martian phenomena.[991] Changes of the hues associated respectively with land and water accompanied in lower latitudes, and were thought to be occasioned by floods ensuing upon this rapid antarctic thaw. It is true that scarcity of moisture would account for the scantiness and transitoriness of snowy deposits easily liquefied because thinly spread. But we might expect to see the whole wintry hemisphere, at any rate, frost-bound, since the sun radiates less than ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... for snow shoes after that snowstorm. A thaw followed by a cold spell caused a thick crust to form on the snow which would nearly hold us up without the aid of our snowshoes. We were rather awkward with those shoes for a while, trying to keep them clear of each other, and we found it particularly hard to turn sharply without causing ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond

... broken, but it was cracking in all directions under this unexampled thaw. The two had clearly indicated a mutual suspicion of each other's industrious habits after dinner.... They had never got quite so far as this before: some quarrel had congealed the surface again. But now, with a desperate disagreement just behind them, ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... slums, and instinctively thinks in terms of them. If he talks of segregating some incurably vicious type of the sexual sort, he is thinking of a ruffian who assaults girls in lanes. He is not thinking of a millionaire like White, the victim of Thaw. If he speaks of the hopelessness of feeble-mindedness, he is thinking of some stunted creature gaping at hopeless lessons in a poor school. He is not thinking of a millionaire like Thaw, the slayer of White. And this not because he is such a brute as to like people like White or Thaw any more ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton

... be serious. I'm not goin' for that, but I really am goin'. I had a letter from Dad this evenin'. Did you have a good time after I left this afternoon? Did Mrs. Keyton-Wells thaw out?" ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... muffler round his neck, and a peculiarly comfortable greatcoat,—best double Saxony, equally new,—dashed into the room, bringing with him a very considerable quantity of cold air, which he hastened to thaw, first in my father's arms, next in my mother's. He then made a rush at the Captain, who ensconced himself behind the dumb-waiter with a "Hem! Mr.—sir—Jack—sir—hem, hem!" Failing there, Mr. Tibbets rubbed off the remaining frost upon his double Saxony against your humble servant, patted Squills ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... seditious, as well as by fulminating against insurrections that only existed in their own guilty imaginations, filled the minds of the people with false alarms, and taught every man to distrust if not to hate his neighbour. There was no more chance of Reform under the existing regime than of 'a thaw in Zembla,' to borrow a famous simile. Cobbett was right in his assertion that the measures and manners of George IV.'s reign did more to shake the long-settled ideas of the people in favour of monarchical government than anything ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... with looking far, All at once appeared an island, A stretching-place for sea-legs, A quiet bed for backs grown stiff On rowing-bench on rolling sea. A place to build a red fire And thaw ...
— Viking Tales • Jennie Hall

... be a pity," answered Johnson, "for there will have to be a thaw before these masses separate, and float away into the Atlantic; besides, they are more numerous in Davis Strait, because the two stretches of land approach one another between Cape Walsingham and Holsteinborg; but above latitude ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... it to like; it touches, in a dry enough manner, upon most things under heaven, and if you like me, I think you ought to like this intellectual—no, I withdraw the word—this artistic dog of mine. Thaw—thaw—thaw, up here; and farewell skating, and farewell the clear dry air and the wide, bright, white snow-surface, and all that was so pleasant ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the whole audience lost self control. I had witnessed mistakes, blunders and accidents that would make even solemnity herself laugh, and remained serenely grave. But to see myself in the presence of that polite audience, standing at that stove, and turning from side to side, to thaw the icicles from the skirts of my coat, was too much for me. I confess it was utterly impossible to keep my face in harmony with the character of the ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller

... at lunch Sir Hugo said to her, "The thaw has gone on like magic, and it's so pleasant out of doors just now—shall we go and see the stables and the other ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... Devil you can sit opposite that stiff embodiment of all the Ten Commandments, day by day, damn it! that's wot GETS me! Why, the first day I came here on business, the old man froze me so that I couldn't thaw a deposit out of my pocket. It chills me to think ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte

... in the past, had made as remarkable provision for this necessity. A fall of snow had covered the corn which had ripened in September, but was left standing in the fields by this circumstance. Thus hidden from the enemy, a sudden thaw revealed the treasure thus mercifully laid up for these patriot warriors. In addition to the corn, strong detachments made requisitions on the valleys of Pragela and Queyras, and so obtained supplies of butter, salt, wine, and other provisions. A sad incident of the winter ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold

... labour, from the cottage door— "I'm thinking that, to-night, if not before, There'll be wild work. Dost hear old Chewton[12] roar? It's brewing up down westward; and look there, One of those sea-gulls! ay, there goes a pair; And such a sudden thaw! If rain comes on, As threats, the waters will be out anon. That path by th' ford's a nasty bit of way— Best let the young ones bide from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... and angry crimson, where the sun and wind together set a brand upon the clouds, for being guilty of such weather; and the widest open country is a long, dull streak of black; and there's hoar-frost on the finger-post, and thaw upon the track; and the ice isn't water, and the water isn't free; and you couldn't say that anything is what it ought to be; but he's coming, ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... voyageurs began that hardest of all canoe trips in America, through the forest hinterland of Ontario. Here the rivers were a stagnant marsh, with outlet hidden by dankest forest growth where the light of the sun never penetrated. There the waters swollen by spring thaw and broken by the ice jam whirled the {113} boats into rapids before the paddlers realized. There was wading to mid-waist in ice water. There were nights when camp was made on water-soaked moss. There were days when the windfall compelled the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... remained for hours without melting the ice. The paper was placed over the ice, so that the hot water could not be poured on it, which would have thawed it at once. Every man who has poured hot water into a frozen pump, hoping to thaw out the ice by this means, has arrived at the fact, if not at the theory, that ice will not melt by hot water on the top of it. If, however, a piece of lead pipe be placed in the pump, resting on ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French

... 1915 comparative calm reigned over the Austro-Russian theatre of war, so far as actual hostilities were concerned. But it was not altogether the variable climatic conditions of alternate frost and thaw—the latter converting road and valley into impassable quagmires—that caused the lull. It was a short winter pause during which the opposing forces—on one side at least—were preparing and gathering the requisite momentum ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... ten Wounds The River-Dragon tamed at length submits To let his Sojourners depart, and oft Humbles his stubborn Heart; but still as Ice More harden'd after Thaw, till in his Rage Pursuing whom he late dismissed, the Sea Swallows him with his Host, but them lets pass As on dry Land between two Chrystal Walls, Aw'd by the Rod of Moses so ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... country, far below. Gradually down, by zig-zag roads, lying between an upward and a downward precipice, into warmer weather, calmer air, and softer scenery, until there lay before us, glittering like gold or silver in the thaw and sunshine, the metal-covered, red, green, yellow, domes and church-spires ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... man all over ever after. We cannot neglect any conviction of what we ought to do, without lowering the whole tone of our characters and laying ourselves open to assaults of evil from which we would once have turned shuddering and disgusted. A partial thaw is generally followed by intenser frost. An abortive insurrection is sure to issue in a more grinding tyranny. A soul half melted and then cooled off is less easy to melt than it was before. And so, dear brethren, remember this, that if you do not swiftly and fully carry out in life and conduct ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... restoration of the foot coverings there came a thaw and then a sudden cold snap. Ice began to form on the river, and soon it was thick enough for skating, much to the joy of the students, for nearly all of them loved to skate. Some of the boys had ice-boats, and these were also brought ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer

... Dec. 28—A thaw, much needed to settle the snow, which was getting too deep. Youngsters shovelled a strip on the pond ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar

... first fine afternoon to walk over to Brail. It was more than three miles by the road, but she was a famous walker. The lanes were still impassable on account of the thaw; February had set in with unusual mildness: the snow had melted, the little lake at Woodcote was no longer a sheet of blue ice, and Eiderdown and Snowflake were dabbling joyously with their yellow bills in the water and their ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... I rode up with Simms' party, we met two old trappers who were coming down. They had passed Old Grizzly Slide yesterday, and they said there must have been an awful thaw going on under the surface-ice of the Slide, as the yawning chasm where you discovered the crevice the other day was frightful. It made even their courageous spirits tremble at sight of it. But they turned again and rode up with us, as ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... aspect more drear and desolate than that of a burnt prairie. The ocean when its waves are grey—a blighted heath—a flat fenny country under a rapid thaw—all these impress the beholder with a feeling of chill monotony; but the water has motion, the heath, colour, and the half-thawed flat exhibits variety in its mottling of white ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... train had reached the top of the altitude. Ralph had walked over the more rugged parts of the pass, and had satisfied himself that there was no danger to be apprehended on this score. The ghyll was swollen by the thaw. The waters fell heavily over the great stones, and sent up clouds of spray, which were quickly dissipated by the wind. Huge hillocks of yellow foam gathered in every sheltered covelet. The roar of the cataract in the ravine silenced the voice ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... sets people laughing, and makes them forget that they are waiting, may alter the whole complexion of the party, may make the silent and distant people feel themselves drawn into the sympathy of common merriment, and thaw the iciness which so often fetters Anglo-Saxon society. But as this faculty is not given to many, so the average man may content himself with having something ready to tell, and this, if possible, in answer ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin

... in an earthen-pot, and in frosty weather, shewing it a little to the fire, the intire clod will come out with them, which are to be reserved, and set in the naked earth, in convenient and fit holes prepar'd beforehand, or so soon as the thaw is universal: Some commend the strewing a few oats at the bottom of the fosses or pits in which you transplant the naked roots, for a great promotement of their taking, and that it will cause them to shoot more in one year than in three: But ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... suddenly broke down. His work had been almost incessant. The cold in the tent had, at night, been extreme; and, having been wetted to the skin one day, when a sudden thaw came on, his clothes had been frozen stiff when, at nightfall, the frost returned with even greater severity than before. In spite of the cloaks and blankets that Karl heaped upon his bed, he shivered all night, and in the morning hot fits came on. The king's surgeon, coming ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty

... Hazy returned. With her was a bright-faced little woman whose smile seemed to thaw out the frozen places in Lovey Mary's heart and make her burst into tears on the ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice

... stick. The cattle are fed upon these fish during the winter months. But it has been proved, which is very strange, that if, after they have been frozen for twenty-four hours or more, you put these fish into water and gradually thaw them as you do the meat, they will recover and swim about again as well as ever. To ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... burying, for then she had to go with Abel to help in carrying the coffin to the house of mourning. They set out on the second day after her return. The steep road down to the plain—called the Monkey's Ladder—was a river, for a thaw had set in. But Hazel did not mind that, though her boots let in the water, as she minded the atmosphere of gloom at old Samson's blind house. She would never, as Abel always did, 'view the corpse,' and this was always taken ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... it that night until their eyes ached, it seemed that it was visibly approaching. And that night, too, the weather changed, and the frost that had gripped all Central Europe and France and England softened towards a thaw. ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... every morning, to my residence at Headingley, and the police suggested that I should be accompanied by an officer; but I did not believe in my danger, and desired no such protection. In the depths of one winter's night, when a thaw was dissolving a heavy fall of snow, I had a great fright. I had left my cab, which had driven away, and was mounting the steps leading to the porch of my house, when I suddenly saw, lying on the half-melted snow against the door itself, a large bundle wrapped in sacking. I drew near it ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... Amsterdam, and imagined they were on the eve of dictating to all Europe: the churches were ordered to toll their only bell, and the gasconades of the bulletin were uncommonly pompous—but the novelty of the event has now subsided, and the conquest of Holland excites less interest than the thaw. Public spirit is absorbed by private necessities or afflictions; people who cannot procure bread or firing, even though they have money to purchase it, are little gratified by reading that a pair of their Deputies lodged in the Stadtholder's palace; and the triumphs ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... by our forest-rangers who help the timber jacks build these roads. You see, while frost holds good the heaviest tree trunks can be readily moved over icy swamp bottoms, but in the spring, when thaw and freshets begin, the bottoms are more like a marsh, or shallow lake, than anything else I know of. Then these corduroy roads are a make-shift for hard ground," explained Polly, while Noddy started to clip-clop ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens

... of a man, they thought, as Dan led him to the fire to thaw himself out. He was scarcely more than five and a half feet in height, with tiny hands and feet almost out of proportion even to his diminutive size. He was an old man, they would have said, though his movements were quick and agile as if he were set up on springs. His face, small, sharp-featured ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold

... Tom Gerrard, whose equanimity was now quite restored, took his seat opposite his sister with a smiling face, and in a few minutes, under the sunshine of his genial manner, Mrs Westonley, much against her own inclination, began to thaw, and presently found herself ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke

... pull out an eye, and bid it go, And t'other should not weep. Oh, Dolabella, How many deaths are in this word, depart! I dare not trust my tongue to tell her so: One look of hers would thaw me into tears, And I should melt, till I ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... bring about some crisis," replied Van Swieten, thoughtfully. "We must awake both the empress and the mother. The one must have work—the other, tears. This frozen sea of grief must thaw, or her ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... proceeded to pour out his soul, stating the miners' grievances and their rights as men. How they were always put off with promises, and defeated in dialectics and the game of wits. As he spoke he felt the assembly gradually thaw, then become liquid, finally it seemed to join the torrent of his eloquence, and sweep ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... wide up-town street the human tide flowed fast and as if thaw had set in, releasing it from the bondage of winter. Girls in light wraps and without hats loitered in the white flare of drugstore lights. Here and there a brown stoop bloomed with a boarder or two. In front of Seligman's florist ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... the bone, and thought I never should thaw. But the huge fires and bright and cosy atmosphere of the rooms—for the interior of Glamis was modernised throughout—soon set me right, and by tea time I felt nicely ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell

... sincere Romantic; he had no petty jealousy in matters literary; and, above all, he had, as Scott recognised, but as has not been always recognised since, a really remarkable and then novel command of flowing but fairly strict lyrical measures, the very things needed to thaw the frost of the eighteenth-century couplet. Erskine offered, and Lewis gladly accepted, contributions from Scott, and though Tales of Wonder were much delayed, and did not appear till 1801, the project directly caused the production of Scott's first original work in ballad, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... more off from the sun, and so are more cold and senseless; but was a man in a mountain of ice, yet if the Sun of Righteousness will arise upon him, his frozen heart shall feel a thaw; and thus it hath been ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... evening in winter, when the weather seemed inclined to thaw, Charlotte and Albert were returning home together. The former looked from time to time about her, as if she missed Werther's company. Albert began to speak of him, and censured him for his prejudices. He alluded ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe

... briskly towards Hill's grocery store. A dozen or more young men and as many older ones were lounging about the platform that ran the whole length of the store, for it was a very mild day in January, and the snow was rapidly leaving under the influence of what might be called a January thaw. ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... and Wee Willie Winkie was a very particular child. Once he accepted an acquaintance, he was graciously pleased to thaw. He accepted Brandis, a subaltern of the 195th, on sight. Brandis was having tea at the Colonel's, and Wee Willie Winkie entered strong in the possession of a good-conduct badge won for not chasing the hens round the compound. He regarded Brandis ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... enough, for they saw he was in earnest. He could thaw out and be genial and pleasant when he chose, and this was an occasion when he had no difficulty in thawing. He called Joe and gave orders about supper, and soon the delightful odor of cooking fish ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish

... misericordiam [Lat.], quarter, grace, locus paenitentiae [Lat.]. sympathizer; advocate, friend, partisan, patron, wellwisher. V. pity; have pity, show pity, take pity &c n.; commiserate, compassionate; condole &c 915; sympathize; feel for, be sorry for, yearn for; weep, melt, thaw, enter into the feelings of. forbear, relent, relax, give quarter, wipe the tears, parcere subjectis [Lat.], give a coup de grace, put out of one's misery. raise pity, excite pity &c n.; touch, soften; melt, melt the heart; propitiate, disarm. ask for ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... pound. The year befaw latht he horthed the wegiment at an immenthe expenthe, and we're called the Queen'th Own Pyebalds from that day. Ever theen uth on pawade? The Empewar Nicolath burtht into tearth of envy when he thaw uth at Windthor. And you see,' continued my young friend, 'I brought Gules down with me, as the Governor is very sulky about shelling out, just to talk my mother over, who can do anything with him. Gules told her that I ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... strong to the weak, saved him from the sin, and he schooled himself to the endurance of middle aged arrogance. For the learning of the lesson he had practice enough: they rode every day, and Griffith did not thaw; but the one thundering gallop he had every morning along the sands with Kelpie, whom * no ordinary day's work was enough to save from the heart burning ferment of repressed activity, was both preparation and amends ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... had been his comforting and cheering friend. Immediately the crock of gold had been taken from its ambush in the thatch, it seemed as if the chill which had frozen up her heart had been melted by a sudden thaw. Roger Acton was no longer the selfish prodigal, but the guiltless, persecuted penitent; her care was now to soothe his griefs, not to scold him for excesses; and indignation at the false and bloody charge made him appear a martyr in her eyes. As to his accuser, Jennings, Mary had ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... temperature, brought on by cold south-east winds; if these are accompanied with rain in winter, which, however, rarely happens, it would sometimes turn to sleet or even snow, or else to hard freezing at night. The snow would, however, thaw with the warmth of the sun, and so restore the temperature as before. The bracing quality of the climate mostly consists just in those variations of cool nights and warm days, and the occasional days of comparatively cold, boisterous weather. The latter must indeed ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... thaw, as you know, and there isn't enough ice in Lake Metoka on which to sail the Bird. I guess Tommy'll have to wait until you get back there, Bert. We'll ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City • Laura Lee Hope

... for his chemical powers: the moment he enters a room the very walls grow damp; as for me, I dissolve; I should flow into a fountain, like Arethusa, if happily his lordship did not freeze one again into substance as fast as he dampens one into thaw." ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... her ears as warm thaw-rain on frozen sward; and slowly into the pallor of her face, the whiteness of her closed eyelids, crept a tender blush. Strange that for a few brief moments they were happy; strange, proof marvellous of the dominance of the inner life over the ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... of the oldest person, or that they ever heard of. I understand the road is ten feet deep with snow from this to Hamilton. I have had it cut through once, but this third fall makes an attempt impossible. Heaven only knows when the road will be open, nothing but a thaw can do it—it is ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde

... is, I tell you: A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin, A fire to thaw our thumbs (poor fellow, The paw he holds up there has been frozen), Plenty of catgut for my fiddle, (This outdoor business is bad for strings), Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddle, And Roger and I set up ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... fierce resistance to it, one reads few things like this of Colberg. 'The snow lies ell-deep,' says Archenholtz; 'snow-tempests, sleet, frost: a country wasted and hungered out; wants fuel-wood; has not even salt. The soldier's bread is a block of ice; impracticable to human teeth till you thaw it,—which is only possible by night.' The Russian ships disappear (17th October); November 2d, Butturlin, leaving reinforcements without stint, vanishes towards Poland. The day before Butturlin went, there had been solemn summons upon Eugen, 'Surrender honorably, we once more bid ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... origin in the Southern States. "Doggone it," "that beats the Dutch," "you bet," "you bet your boots," sprang from New York. "Step down and out" originated in the Beecher trial, just as "brain-storm" originated in the Thaw trial. ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... particle, and who became hysterically jubilant when they saw it. Forty-eight hours! Deeper and deeper went the imprints of milder weather upon the high-piled serrations of white, at last to cease. The sun had faded on the afternoon of the second day. The thaw stopped. The snowshoes soon carried a new crunching sound that gradually became softer, more muffled. For the clouds had come again, the wind had risen with a fiercer bite than ever in it; again the snow was falling. But the grim little army of rescuers, plodding from one ranchhouse ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... across it. Then, suddenly, they felt its warm touch upon their backs, and there were hard black shadows upon the sand in front of them. The Dervishes loosened their cloaks and proceeded to talk cheerily among themselves. The prisoners also began to thaw, and eagerly ate the doora which was served out for their breakfasts. A short halt had been called, and a cup of water handed ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle

... Galatea! At that word, Which seemed to shake my marble to the core, That which was dim before, came evident. Sounds, that had hummed around me, indistinct, Vague, meaningless—seemed to resolve themselves Into a language I could understand; I felt my frame pervaded by a glow That seemed to thaw my marble into flesh; Its cold, hard substance throbbed with active life, My limbs grew supple, and I moved—I lived! Lived in the ecstasy of a new-born life! Lived in the love of him that fashioned me! Lived in a ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa

... cold—which I had only fully felt when I got off the car and found my legs cramped—to come to the rescue as interpreter. The Spanish Friar was accustomed to these little embarrassments, and he had a manner of meeting them with a smile. The misunderstanding and the embarrassment seemed to thaw the formality of the reception. The women looked relieved. They were obviously not expected to say anything, and they had no fear now that they would be put to the ordeal of meeting a possibly superior person, ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly

... themselves and separated. Harry and his lady strolled off to secluded byways in the forest, so that they might discourse of their loves and digest their dinner. Tom had all the morning been waiting for this happy moment; he had counted on the expansive effect of a full stomach to thaw his Liza's coldness, and he had pictured himself sitting on the grass with his back against the trunk of a spreading chestnut-tree, with his arm round his Liza's waist, and her head resting affectionately on his manly bosom. Liza, too, had ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham

... thaw, came a situation that soon proved intolerable. The "stench arising from dead ponies, about two hundred of which were in the stream and throughout the camp,"[181] unburied, ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel

... being able to agree upon a verdict. Some, who were originally in favor of the defendant, became weary of their long confinement, and consented to go over to the slaveholder's side; but one of them, named Benjamin Thaw, declared that he would eat his Christmas dinner in the jury-room, before he would consent to such a flagrant ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... All this, for a while, however, produced no very visible effects on the general face of nature; for the melting snow was many hours in becoming saturated with its own and water from above. Nor had our travellers, for the greater part of the day, been much incommoded by the rain, or the thaw, that was in silent, but rapid progress around and beneath them; as their vehicle was a covered one, and as the hard-trodden paths of the road were the last to be affected. But, during the last hour, a great change in the face of the landscape had become ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... to the door again, her sister, a pretty, delicate child of fewer years, stood still, and adroitly slipped her feet out of the snowy shoes she had brought in, which she put in the corner of the fireplace to thaw and dry off; the little stocking feet standing comfortably on the rug before the blaze. It was so neatly done, the mother and elder sisters looked on and could not chide. Neatness suited the place. The room ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner

... was filled, appeared. The climate was such this year that it froze hard twelve or fourteen hours every day, while from eleven o'clock in 'the morning till nearly four, the sun shone as brightly as possible, and it was too hot about mid-day for walking! Yet in the shade it did not thaw for an instant. This cold weather was all the more sharp because the air was purer and clearer, and the sky continually ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... as was common in our latitude, though there had been more snow along the coast than was usual. Salt air and snow do not agree well together; but I had driven in a sleigh over the Neck, most of the month of February, though there were symptoms of a thaw, and of a southerly wind, the day we left home. My father observed this, and he advised me to take the road through the centre of the county, and get among the hills, as soon as possible. Not only was there always more snow in that part of the country, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... of being ill at ease: He hated that He cannot change His cold, Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived, And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid, A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave; Only, she ever sickened, found repulse At the other kind of water, not ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning



Words linked to "Thaw" :   defrost, weather condition, phase transition, heating, liquefy, flux, de-ice, atmospheric condition, slackening, loosening, deliquesce, liquify, phase change, state change, conditions, weather, relaxation, deice, physical change



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