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Turf   /tərf/   Listen
Turf

noun
(pl. turfs, obs. turves)
1.
Surface layer of ground containing a mat of grass and grass roots.  Synonyms: greensward, sod, sward.
2.
The territory claimed by a juvenile gang as its own.
3.
Range of jurisdiction or influence.



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"Turf" Quotes from Famous Books



... the time he reached the Marble Arch the idea of such a course had become incongruous to him. He passed beneath that architectural effort and walked into the Park till he got upon the spreading grass. Here he continued to walk; he took his way across the elastic turf and came out by the Serpentine. He watched with a friendly eye the diversions of the London people, he bent a glance almost encouraging on the young ladies paddling their sweethearts about the lake and the guardsmen tickling tenderly with their bearskins the artificial flowers in the ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James

... to a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body, no less are thoughts of mortality cordial to ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... and away from our work to-day, For the breeze sweeps over the down; And it's hey for a game where the gorse blossoms flame, And the bracken is bronzing to brown. With the turf 'neath our tread and the blue overhead, And the song of the lark in the whin; There's the flag and the green, with the bunkers between - Now will you be ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle

... luxuriant, a small grove of cocoanuts occupying a very nearly central position, but on the western side of the island; whilst the remaining portion was pretty thickly covered with less lofty trees, the ground being clothed with deliciously fresh green turf, and ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... persons in authority, particularly ecclesiastical dignitaries, began to talk of interfering. Schwabe was haunted by the idea of the 'clearing out,' which was now close at hand. That dismal hole in the corner of the churchyard once closed and the turf laid down, the dust of Schiller would be lost for ever. He determined to proceed. His position of Burgermeister put the means in his power, and this time he was resolved to keep his secret. To find the skull was now his ...
— Shakespeare's Bones • C. M. Ingleby

... trees, a great majority of them were so crowded together that there was no chance of broad, free growth either for trees or for shrubbery. There was nothing of that exquisitely beautiful play, upon expanses of green turf, of light and shade through wide-expanded boughs and broad masses of foliage, which gives such delight in any of the finer English or American parks. Down to about half a dozen years since it had apparently been thought best not to interfere, and even when attention was called to the ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... verdure. Soft—yes, it was soft, but the way sand is soft, unyieldingly. Unlike sand, however, it did not suggest a tightlypacked foundation, but rather the firmness of a good mattress resting on a wellmade spring. It was resilient, like carefully tended turf, yet at the same time one thought, not of the solid ground beneath, but of feathers, or even more of buoyant clouds. My parachute having landed me gently on my feet, I sank naturally to my knees, and then, impelled by some other force than gravity, my body ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... and hour after hour passed away, as he paced up and down in an agony of suspense. Diana did not come. The young lady had considered her plans thoroughly and kept away. The next day he might have been again disappointed but for a lucky circumstance. Norbert was seated on the turf, awaiting with fond expectation the young girl's approach and as Diana passed the opening to the pathway Bruno scented her, and rushed forward with a joyous bark. She had then no option but to walk up to the ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... took a similar interest in animals, birds, insects, and plants; they held similar doctrines about humanity to the lower creation, and had a similar turn for minute observation on points of natural history. The nest and proceedings of some ground-bees, which had burrowed in the turf under an old cherry-tree, was one subject of interest; the haunts of certain hedge-sparrows, and the welfare of certain pearly eggs and ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... peaks are to the very summit enclosed by luxuriant woods; the whole surface of the country, excepting where cleared by man, is one impenetrable forest. How different from Wales, with its sloping hills covered with turf, and its open valleys. I was not previously aware how intimately what may be called the moral part is connected with the enjoyment of scenery. I mean such ideas, as the history of the country, the utility of the produce, and more especially ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... in which nature had piled rock, cavern, and mountain together, till the whole seemed lost and blended in one general chaos. At the foot, and a short distance before him, were seen a number of persons of venerable aspect, grouped on the turf around the vast amphitheatre of rocks, and a noise as of many hammers, greeted his ears. Attracted onwards by the now distinct glittering light, the Baron proceeded boldly to the mouth of what seemed a natural grotto. He loudly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various

... thing they had in the world. Hence their anxiety was very great when the question first arose as to whether they should yield to the plaintiff's unjust demands, or should defend themselves against him. The matter came under discussion one autumn evening, before a turf fire in the room used by the tanner and his wife. Two or three relations were invited to this family council, and among others Louis' maternal great-grandfather, an old laborer, much bent, but with a venerable ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac

... OF, Archibald William Montgomerie, born at Palermo; became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; Rector of Glasgow University; was a noted sportsman and patron of the turf; is chiefly remembered in connection with a brilliant tournament given by him at Eglinton Castle in 1839, in which all the splendour and detail of a mediaeval tourney ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... pardon. It is just a way of speaking on the turf. When a favorite goes lame the morning of the race, we know some one has been tampering with him. I tell you there is some one else. She has some one else in her mind. That's ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... fields of meadow, and corn-fields, ripening for harvest, stretched far away, unbroken by hedge or fence. Slight ditches or banks of turf, covered with nests of violets, ferns, and wild flowers of every hue, separated contiguous fields. No other division seemed necessary in the mutual good neighborhood that prevailed among the colonists, whose fashion of agriculture had been brought, with many hardy virtues, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... the Battery were disposed on either side of the track. Fires were burning. Horse-lines had been laid down, and by the light of flickering flames the dim forms of tethered animals could be seen with their noses to the ground pessimistically pretending to munch what green turf had survived in the mud. Lanterns moved mysteriously to and fro. In the distance to the west more illuminations showed that another unit had camped along the track. The quartermaster of No. 2, had produced ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... the turf, and the stage, drew to the place crowds of admirers, both white and colored. Whenever one of them came in, there were awe-inspired whispers from those who knew him by sight, in which they enlightened those around them as to ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson

... and I'll put them up in the turf-loft, the way she won't know of them at all, and maybe when the tide turns she'll be going down to see would he be ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... a man unexpectedly, and hearing a name spoken in exclamation by his side, Sir John Oxon looked round and beheld ride by my lord Duke of Osmonde. The sun was shining brilliantly, and all the Park was gay with bright warmth and greenness of turf and trees. Clorinda felt the glow of the summer morning permeate her being. She kept her watch upon her beast; but he was going well, and in her soul she knew that he was beaten, and that her victory had been beheld by the one man who knew that it meant to her that which it seemed ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... more clearly than the sordidness of this horrible existence, a big palace with a terraced front and a mile long drive straight to the park gate, past great trees and turf that is always green; and long rows of stately ladies looking down on me from their frames on the lofty wall beside soldiers that have stood silent guard there three hundred years. I can see a beautiful woman courtesying ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... close of the war, when prosperous times came, Austin Dabney acquired property. In the year 18—, he removed to Madison County, carrying with him his benefactor and family. Here he became noted for his great fondness for horses and the turf. He attended all the races in the neighboring counties, and betted to the extent of his means. His courteous behavior and good temper always secured him gentlemen backers. His means were aided by a pension which he received ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... Oracle takes it into the ring to invest, half on the favourite and half on Royal Scot. He finds that the favourite is at two to one, and Royal Scot at threes, eight to one being offered against anything else. As he ploughs through the ring, a Whisperer (one of those broken-down followers of the turf who get their living in various mysterious ways, but partly by giving "tips" to backers) pulls ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... manor-house had in some way declined to be the residence of a tenant-farmer, careless alike of appearances and substantial comfort. The marks of neglect were visible on every side, in flower-bushes straggling beyond the borders, in the ill-kept turf, and in the broken windows that were incongruously patched with paper or stuffed with rags. A thicket of trees, mostly evergreen, fenced the place round and secluded it from the eyes of prying neighbours. As I came in view of it, on that melancholy winter's morning, in the deluge of ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... irrepressible pulpit gestures of the hand. The fellow traveller, albeit lavender-hued from an autumn east wind, was obediently observing the anaemic patches of oats and barley, pale and thin, like the hair of a starving baby, and the huge slants of brown heather and turf bog, and was interjecting "Just so!" at decent intervals. Now and then, as the two tall brown mares slackened for a bout of collar-work at a hill, or squeezed slowly past a cart stacked high with sods of turf, we, sitting in silence, ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... more, even in whispers. His head fell back upon the turf. He was dead. When the litter was set down in the courtyard of Las Palmas it carried only a corpse! Don Rafael had turned back for his horse, and to bid a hasty adieu to ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... to nobles and to chiefs and all the humble folk: Upon the plain they sat, and ate the meat which smoking came From layers of stone, well laid on pits half filled with charcoal flame, Where 'neath the covering roof of turf ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

... the hour of rest, Pleasant the woods' low sigh, And the gleaming of the west, And the turf whereon we lie, When the burden and the heat Of the laborer's task is o'er, And kindly voices greet The tired one ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... was no dead woman the Gentleman was standing over now; it was a chestnut mare, the sun glistening on a coat that shone like a girl's hair. She lay along the turf with lank neck, belly exposed, and shoes flashing; strangely pathetic as a horse seen ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... They are as different in their form as the owners are in their dress; and every tent is a portraiture of the temper and taste of the persons who encamp in it. Some are made of boards, and some of sailcloth. Some partly of one and partly of another. Again others are made of stone and turf, brick or brush. Some are thrown up in a hurry, others curiously wrought with doors and windows, done in wreaths and withes in the manner of a basket. Some are your proper tents and marquees, looking like the regular camp of the enemy.... However, ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French

... west-central district, and in whose society, and the society of the subscription-ground in the Farringdon Road, he found the summum bonum in the way of social intercourse. He did a little speculation upon the turf, and discounted the bills of needy bookmakers, or bought up their bad debts, and thereby gained introductions to the noble patrons of the humble "scums," and pushed his business into new grooves. He had no idea that such an existence was in any ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... knoll close to the water was Chris flat on his back, his mouth open, fast asleep. A half dozen fine bass lay on the grass beside him, the end of his fishing line was tied to one ebony leg, and a coil of slack line lay upon the turf. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... a sprig of the May-bloom that the cavalier wore in his button-hole; Constans had only time to recognize it when the blood-bay broke into full gallop. The lad flung himself at full length upon the turf, face ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... face again!" said the hermit, in a tone of angry vehemence, bringing his heavy sandalled foot down upon the wooden sill with a violence that made Edgar start from his lounging posture on the turf, and gaze with amazement upon the fierce workings of a face he had never seen flushed by an angry emotion before. He feared his uncle had suddenly gone mad, and stood indeterminate what course to pursue, when ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... been wrought Upon the dark materials of the storm Now pacified; on them, and on the coves And mountain-steeps and summits, whereunto The vapours had receded, taking there Their station under a cerulean sky. Oh, 'twas an unimaginable sight! Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks and emerald turf, Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky, Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed, Molten together, and composing thus, Each lost in each, that marvellous array Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge Fantastic pomp of structure ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... because their commander treated them like soldiers, knew how to render their work glorious, and never allowed them to be killed if he could help it. It should have been seen with what eagerness the marshy glebes of Holland were turned over. Those turf-heaps, mounds of potter's clay, melted at the word of the soldiers like butter in the frying-pans ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... nothin',' he said awkwardly, digging his heel into the turf, all aglow with novel emotions. Never had he felt quite ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... its works. For this reason, an index or mercury of intellectual proficiency is the perception of identity. We talk with accomplished persons who appear to be strangers in nature. The cloud, the tree, the turf, the bird are not theirs, have nothing of them; the world is only their lodging and table. But the poet, whose verses are to be spheral and complete, is one whom Nature cannot deceive, whatsoever face of strangeness she may put on. He feels ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... interchange Of river, valley, mountain, woods, and plains, How gladsome once he ranged your native turf, Your simple scenes how raptured! ere EXPENSE Had lavish'd thousand ornaments, and taught Convenience to perplex him, Art to pall, Pomp to deject, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... into San Luis d'Apra. The Rainbow had made many important discoveries in Australian waters, more particularly on the northern coast, but the name of her gallant commander will probably be longer remembered as Admiral Rous, the famous turf patron, than as Captain Rous ...
— The South Seaman - An Incident In The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke

... she heard the fall of a footstep on the soft turf behind her, and, turning, looked into the face of a man whose eyes were filled ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper

... vitriol in it to wash the people's faces. Mother Soren did not let that disturb her; she threw her cloak around her, and drew her hood over her head. Early in the afternoon—it was already dark in the house—she laid wood and turf on the hearth, and then she sat down to darn her stockings, for there was no one to do it for her. Towards evening she spoke more words to the student than it was customary with her to use; she spoke of ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... hungry nor thirsty, moving round and round to the slow measures of the concertina, he felt as if his soul were in a swing which was being kept going by his eyes and ears, and his right foot beat time gently on the springy turf. ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... with all the pleasure in life," answered Dan, "though it may be a hard matter to keep our eyes open to-night, seeing we were waking Pat Casey till a late hour this morning, and then, after seeing him laid dacently under the turf, had to drink long life and success to his sperrit and a short stay in purgatory, where the praste told us he had gone—though, being a kind-hearted man, he'd do his best to pray him out ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... and he is animated by a sense of injury and a desire of revenge. Another reason for the disproportionate increase of Catholics is that the Catholics will marry upon means which the Protestant considers as insufficient for marriage. A few potatoes and a shed of turf are all that Luther has left for the Romanist; and, when the latter gets these, he instantly begins upon the great Irish manufacture of children. But a Protestant belongs to the sect that eats the fine flour and heaves the bran to others; he must ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... She could swim very well. They waded instead. Ben walked up to a little bank that, having lain in the sun all day, was warm and dry, and stretched himself out. Ann was too big to go "larking" about with the girls, so she and Hanny, and one or two others, sat down on the soft, sunburned turf. ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... been drilling all the morning, and had spent the whole of the afternoon squirming face downwards on the moist turf of Richmond Park in an endeavour to advance, as commanded, in extended order. In the morning—that is during compressed drill—I had been twice wounded. Owing to lack of education a famous novelist had confused his left ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various

... upon this wild, is gorse and ling: The vegetation upon the road and the adjacent lands, seem equal: The pits are all covered with a tolerable turf. ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... The dew-drenched turf that bordered the paths muffled her footsteps as effectually as could be wished, and keeping circumspectly in shadow, the better to escape observation from any of the windows, she gained at length that corner of the terrace ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... become too shallow to suit their tastes. These dwellings are often constructed on the banks of rivers, but the Canadian beaver is particularly fond of building lodges in the centre of large expanses of fairly shallow water. These are made of turf, tree-trunks, and other materials, and are often used as store houses for food reserves, as well as for ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole

... who would stop to pity me? Mrs. Villars told me that this day should be mine; she little thought how it would end!" Saying these words, Cecilia threw herself down upon the ground; her arm leaned upon a heap of turf which she had raised in the morning, and which in the pride and gayety of her heart, she had called ...
— The Bracelets • Maria Edgeworth

... parcha, at Caracas; and the pine-apple at Esmeralda, or in the island of Cuba. The pine-apple forms the ornament of the fields near the Havannah, where it is planted in parallel rows; on the sides of the Duida it embellishes the turf of the savannahs, lifting its yellow fruit, crowned with a tuft of silvery leaves, above the setaria, the paspalum, and a few cyperaceae. This plant, which the Indians of the Orinoco call ana-curua, has been propagated since the sixteenth century in the interior of China,* and some ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... the better of his father. My brother has been on the turf since he rode over to it from Cambridge. If you play at cards with him—and he will if you will let him—he will beat you ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... a loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend in a postchaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with, and vary the same stale topics over again, for once let me have a truce with impertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner—and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. From the point of yonder rolling cloud I plunge into my past being, and revel there, as ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... to be modest by living on a poultry farm, for there are constant expositions of the most deplorable vanity among the cocks. We have a couple of pea-fowl who certainly are an addition to the landscape, as they step mincingly along the square of turf we dignify by the name of lawn. The head of the house has a most languid and self-conscious strut, and his microscopic mind is fixed entirely on his splendid trailing tail. If I could only master his language sufficiently to ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... the earth will become instinct with life, from the charnels of battle fields alone more than a thousand millions of human beings starting forth and crowding upwards to the judgment seat." On the resurrection morning, at the first tip of light over acres of opening monument and heaving turf, "Each member jogs the other, And ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... probably been a garden from the time the white-robed Templars first came from Holborn and settled by the river-side." It covers an expanse of three acres, and its gay flower-beds, umbrageous trees, and emerald turf make it a veritable oasis to the inhabitants, and especially to the children, of that corner of the great metropolis. A pillar sundial in the centre of the grass bears the date 1770, and the iron gate, surmounted by a winged horse, which guards the entrance from the terrace, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... with delight, and passed his arm around Diana's waist. But this latter action, in all probability, completely overwhelmed the already troubled senses of the prince, for his knees trembled under him, and he was obliged to seat himself on a bank of green turf, beside which ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... enlighten me on one of their most singular relics of paganism. It is the custom at sunset on that evening to kindle numerous immense fires throughout the country, built like our bonfires to a great height, the pile being composed of turf, bog-wood, and such other combustibles as they can gather. The turf yields a steady, substantial body of fire, the bog-wood a most brilliant flame; and the effect of these great beacons blazing on every hill, sending up volumes of smoke from every point ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... distance from the summit, his ear caught the tinkle of falling water; and guided by its gentle music he came to where a tiny spring gushed out of the hillside, and went leaping on its way, gleaming like a thread of silver. Fox knelt down upon the soft turf, and dipping his hand, cup-wise, into the water, he carried with difficulty a few shining drops to his parched lips. The cool freshness of even this scanty draught revived him. He looked round, his glance roaming over the wide ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... the double ranks of stabled kine to where the great fire of turf and wood burned at the head of the hall, and ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard

... fugitive years are all hasting away, And I must ere long lie as lowly as they, With a turf on my breast and a stone at my head Ere another such grove shall arise in ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various

... contents of my Essay could not be true. The more, however, I reflected upon them, or rather upon the authorities on which they were founded, the more I gave them credit. Coming in sight of Wade's Mill, in Hertfordshire, I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the road-side, and held my horse. Here a thought came into my mind, that if the contents of the Essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end. Agitated in this manner, I reached home. This was in the summer ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher

... narrow terrace at the rear of the building, which was sodded with turf and starred with pansies and ox-eyed daisies, and on the wide, stone window sills sat boxes and vases filled with maiden-hair ferns and oxalis, with heliotrope and double white violets. Three lines of tables ran down this bright pretty room, and in the centre rose a spiral stair to a cushioned seat, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... deep play, and no want of amorous intrigues. As soon as the evening comes, every one quits his little palace to assemble at the bowling-green, where, in the open air, those who choose, dance upon a turf more soft and smooth than the finest carpet in ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... ever the profession of artistic advisers. If any of the three was discovered engaging again in that business, those who employed them should promptly be advised of their antecedents. They were, in fact, to consider themselves warned off the turf. There was also to be a paragraph about them in ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... the numerous objects of interest in the "ancient city" are the beautiful gardens belonging to several of the houses in the High Street, particularly those of Mr. Syms and Mr. Wildish. The fresh green turf, the profusion of flowers, and the rich growth of foliage and fruit, quite surprise and delight the stranger. Mr. Stephen T. Aveling's garden is a marvel of beauty to be seen in a town. "The Cloisterham ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... views respecting the conduct of the Pall Mall Gazette. In a masterly manner he had pointed out what should be the sub-editorial arrangements of the paper: what should be the type for the various articles: who should report the markets; who the turf and ring; who the Church intelligence; and who the fashionable chit-chat. He was acquainted with gentlemen engaged in cultivating these various departments of knowledge, and in communicating them afterwards to the public—in fine, Jack Finucane was, as Shandon ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the king pondered what would be the worst and most lingering death he could mete out to them; and when morning came he ordered a great hollow mound of stones and turf to be made, with a large flat stone, extending from wall to wall, in the midst; and he ordered the prisoners to be buried alive, one on each side of this stone, so that they could hear each other speak but might in nowise pass through to ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton

... laid bare, and vast heaps of sand covered the chain of meadows, and choked up Virginia's bath. The two cocoa trees, however, were still erect, and still retained their freshness: but they were no longer surrounded by turf, or arbours, or birds, except a few amadavid birds, who, upon the points of the neighbouring rocks, lamented, in plaintive notes, ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... the Red Mill for a time; but then the workmen had not completed Ruth's new nest. And although Wonota had been born in a wigwam on the plains and had spent her childhood in a log cabin with a turf roof, she could appreciate "pretty things" quite as keenly as any ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson

... a moment, to watch her stately form, as she made a pathway for herself amidst the tangled shrubs. The walk, once a smooth-shaven turf, kept green by trenches of water, was now overgrown with the vegetation which encroached on either hand. As the dark beauty forced her way, the maypole-aloe shook its yellow crown of flowers, many feet above her head; the lilac jessamine ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... read). Wherein also Ely, the famous isle, standeth, which is seven miles every way, and whereunto there is no access but by three causies, whose inhabitants in like sort by an old privilege may take wood, sedge turf, etc., to burn, likewise hay for their cattle and thatch for their houses of custom, and each occupier in his appointed quantity throughout the isle; albeit that covetousness hath now begun somewhat to abridge this large benevolence ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... favours knights of old laid down their lives. (He chuckles) My boys will be no end charmed to see you so ladylike, the colonel, above all, when they come here the night before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. First I'll have a go at you myself. A man I know on the turf named Charles Alberta Marsh (I was in bed with him just now and another gentleman out of the Hanaper and Petty Bag office) is on the lookout for a maid of all work at a short knock. Swell the bust. Smile. Droop shoulders. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... strew the bed of the torrent above and below have been carefully removed, and the unwilling stream, as it runs into the pool, has been coerced into a long straight channel, bordered on either side by bedded turf, and planed off at measured intervals so as to produce a series of eminently regular and classical cascades. Even Lord Exmoor himself, who was a hunting man, without any pretence to that stupid rubbish about ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... On the soft turf her footsteps gave forth no sound. She gained the doorway as silently as a shadow. Roaring Bill faced the end of the long room, but he did not see her, for he was slumped in the big chair before the fireplace, his chin ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... The leaves were still young, and too soft to rustle in the gently moving air; the laburnums and honey-locusts were in blossom, and the bees came and went, heavy-laden. The sombre, trailing branches of the great Norway spruces touched the smooth green turf, starred here and there with English daisies. Farther back, the tulip-trees towered stately, and the elm branches swept the crest of ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards

... sinking at those parts where the bog was softest. In ordinary cases, where a bank subsides, the sleepers are packed up with ballast or gravel; but in this case the ballast was dug away and removed in order to lighten the road, and the sleepers were packed instead with cakes of dry turf or bundles of heath. By these expedients the subsided parts were again floated up to the level, and an approach was made towards a satisfactory road. But the most formidable difficulties were encountered at the centre and towards the edges of the Moss; and it required no small degree of ingenuity ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... when I went to the classical seminary ov Firdramore! when I'd bring my sod o' turf undher my arm, and sit down on my shnug boss o' straw, wid my back to the masther and my shins to the fire, and score my sum in Dives's denominations ov the double rule o' three, or play fox and geese wid purty Jane Cruise that ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... brilliant green. We descended, and pursued our way through the forest glades with that feeling of enjoyment which the entrance into an unknown region, pleasant companionship, and fine weather, inspire. When we issued from the woods which clothe the sides of Melibocus, we sate down on the heathy turf, and gazed with a feeling of ever-youthful delight on the scene around us. Above us, and over its woods, rose the square white tower of Melibocus; below, lay green valleys, from among whose orchards issued the smoke of peaceful ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... some time in this attitude, but was finally aroused from it by a singular sense that, although he had heard nothing, some one had approached him. He looked up and saw Roderick standing before him on the turf. His mood made the spectacle unwelcome, and for a moment he felt like uttering an uncivil speech. Roderick stood looking at him with an expression of countenance which had of late become rare. There was an unfamiliar spark in his ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... it as he spoke, and laid his hand gently on the green turf. I would have risen, but he would not ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... and murders which daily took place among them. In a few more years, if the course they then pursued had been continued, the whole tribe must have become utterly extinct; their name existing but in the recollection of the story-teller, and the green turf alone marking the lands they once inhabited. It fortunately happened, however, at the period alluded to, that the prophets, together with a few of the elder chiefs, who had stood aloof from the contaminating influence of the white ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... of six bushels to the acre. Grass seed can be sown in the fall any time from the first of October to the first of December. If the seed be sound, a good sward may be expected the following summer, and a good turf may be expected from spring sown seeds if the season is not too dry. The dryer the ground is when the seeds are sown, the better. To keep the lawn in a flourishing condition, fresh and green all summer, it will need a top-dressing of well-rotted ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan

... a couple of matches, and put his head down close to the soft turf, as if he was going ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... Merrywell; "though Capt. S——, although never made a Commander in Chief, has been an exalted character, having once been made 61inspector of the pavement,{1} or in other words knapp'd the stoop; and, if report says true, he has also figured away in other situations equally honourable—a flash turf man—a naval character, and a smuggler. But come, I have given you a sort of index by which you may read, mark, and learn more, when we are more at leisure. It is now half past three o'clock, and punctuality ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... the flower-garden with Mrs. Costell. He had been reading up a little on flowers and gardening, and he was glad to swap his theoretical for her practical knowledge. Candor compels the statement that he enjoyed the long hours stretched on the turf, or sitting idly on the veranda, puffing Mr. ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... there the Patriarch Japhet, a majestic dark-complexioned old man, surrounded by immense flocks and herds and a numerous posterity: his children as well as himself had dwellings excavated in the ground, and covered with turf roofs, on which herbs and flowers were growing. There were vines all around, and a new method of making wine was being tried on Calvary, in the presence of Japhet. I saw also the ancient method of preparing wine, but ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... exaggeration, that you are often disappointed in going out on what you consider trustworthy and certain information. They often remind me of the story of the Laird of Logan. He was riding slowly along a country road one day, when another equestrian joined him. Logan's eye fixed itself on a hole in the turf bank bounding the road, and with great gravity, and in trust-inspiring accents, he said, 'I saw a tod (or ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... decree of silence. The day wore on to noon, and in the unbroken stillness the boys ventured out of the grimy tree and lay at full length on the turf. The great redwoods towered in endless corridors, their straight columns unbroken by branch or twig for a hundred and fifty feet. Through the green close arbours above came an occasional rift of sunshine, but the aisles were full of cold green light. The boys shivered ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton

... any glaring vices, Tancred," he said. "You are no gambler either on the turf or at cards. You are not over addicted to expensive ladies. You are cultivated, for a sportsman, and you have made one or two decent speeches in the House of Lords. You are, in fact, rather a fine specimen of your class. It seems ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... along the beach is a circular redoubt, connected with the spit battery by a covered way. This work, built of stone, and riveted with turf, is open, and said to be the most substantial of the three; it has eleven cannon, and within is ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... there before her, evidently, for the turf was worn around the log, and there were even hints of footprints here and there. "Some rural trysting place, probably," she thought, then a gleam of scarlet caught her attention. A small red book had fallen into the crevice between the log and the other tree. "The House of Life," she ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... are now given up to a few attendants and an occasional visitor, and like all the monuments around Delhi are most carefully conserved under the Act for that purpose, which was not the least of Lord Curzon's Viceregal achievements. Among the buildings which still stand, rising from the turf, is Humayun's library. It was here that he met his end—one tradition relating that he fell in the dark on his way to fetch a book, and another that his purpose had been ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... Mademoiselle had conducted her visitor to a grassy terrace which ran along the south side of the house, and was screened from the forest by an alley of apple trees, and from the east wind by a hedge of yew. Here, where the last rays of the sun threw sinuous shadows on the turf, and Paris seemed a million miles away, they were walking up and down, the sound of their laughter breaking the woodland silence. Mademoiselle had a fan, with which and an air of convent coquetry she occasionally shaded her ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... vigorously with its hind-legs, and made an attempt to bite; but its teeth were too feeble to inflict more than a painless pinch. It seemed to me rather a pretty little creature; and as Montgomery stated that it never destroyed the turf by burrowing, and was very cleanly in its habits, I should imagine it might prove a convenient substitute for the common ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... tea out of doors. Bring the tea-things. It is very pleasant. But here is no table. What must we do? Oh, here is a large round stump of a tree! it will do very well for a table. But we have no chairs. Here is a seat of turf, and a bank almost covered with violets: we shall sit here, and Harry may lie on the ...
— Harry's Ladder to Learning - Horn-Book, Picture-Book, Nursery Songs, Nursery Tales, - Harry's Simple Stories, Country Walks • Anonymous

... near the Black Pond, between Kensington Palace and the Mount Gate, and on several persons running to the spot twenty-five limes were found tumbled to the earth by a single blast, their roots reaching high into the air, with a great quantity of earth and turf adhering, while deep chasms of several yards in diameter showed the force with which they had been torn up.... On the Palace Green, Kensington, near the forcing-garden, two large elms and a very fine sycamore were ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... you, Reynolds. My compliments to Miss Effingham, and say I shall be most happy to be her escort on the occasion," and hurriedly dressing, was soon by her side, laughing and chatting merrily as they cantered over the green turf on their way to the Bartons. Yet Arthur could not altogether dispel the feelings that arose within him, produced, doubtless, by the strange dreams that haunted his pillow during the night, or ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... sweeter than elsewhere, and borne fruit till the grass beneath them has become thick and soft from human contact, and who have nourished robins and finches in their branches till they have a tender, brooding look. The ground, the turf, the atmosphere of an old orchard, seem several stages nearer to man than that of the adjoining field, as if the trees had given back to the soil more than they had taken from it; as if they had tempered the elements and attracted all ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... turn, and stirred the fire with the staff, when, behold! the flames rose, the snow melted, the earth grew green, the trees were covered with leaves, the birds sang and the flowers opened—it was summer. Thousands of little white stars enameled the turf, then turned to red strawberries, looking, in their green cups, ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various

... time-keeper, and, catching up the chair as Dam rose, Trooper Bear dropped down from the boards of the ring to the turf, where already crouched Hawker and Goate, looking like men ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... gregarious as the living; well-to-do and poor appeared to want company; hence, the graves were all huddled together. There were exceptions. Now and again, one little outpost of death had invaded a level spread of turf, much in the manner of human beings who dislike, and live remote ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... of softish water. Stout brown arms were roped with curd, and wedding rings looked slippery things, and thumb-nails bordered with inveterate black, like broad beans ripe for planting, shone through a hubbub of snowy froth; while sluicing and wringing and rinsing went on over the bubbled and lathery turf; and every handy bush or stub, and every tump of wiry grass, was sheeted with white, like a ship in full sail, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... London Lawn. A Band in a costume half-way between the uniforms of a stage hussar and a circus groom, is performing under a tree. Guests discovered slowly pacing the turf, or standing and sitting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various

... windows. The grounds were large and well-kept—almost too spick and span, for one expects twenty-six children to leave behind them such marks of good times as paper dolls and picture-books, croquet-mallets and tennis balls on trampled turf. ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin

... this country is very favourable to grass, and the pastures are extremely fine. When the timber is destroyed, a beautiful turf takes immediate possession of ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley

... thirty members, and to have spent eighty thousand pounds upon the maintenance of his political position. He was apt, by his manners, to make friends of the young men of influence. He spent money freely also on the turf, and upon his seat of Winchenden, in Wilts. Queen Anne, on her accession, struck his name with her own hand from the list of Privy Councillors, but he won his way not only to restoration of that rank, but also in December, 1706, at the age of 67, to his title of Viscount Winchendon ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... under cultivation at Stape. It was about half a mile north of the little inn and just to the west of Mauley Cross. The stones were all thrown out of their original positions and a pile of them had been taken outside the turf wall for road-mending and to finish the walls against the gate posts, but the broad track of the roadway, composed of large odd-shaped stones, averaging about a foot in width, was still strikingly in evidence—a mottled band passing straight through ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home

... rose as he walked. It was an ideal spring morning, cool and sunny. The short turf by the side of the road was fragrant under his heel, and a light wind stirred the blueness of the sea. On the beach below two grizzled men of restful habit were endeavouring to make an old boat waterproof ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... other influences that I daresay contributed to the boy's education. I think his imagination was stimulated by a band of gypsies who used to come every summer and pitch a tent on a little roadside patch of green turf by the river-bank not far from his house. It was shaded by elms and butternut-trees, and a long spit of sand and pebbles ran out from it into the brawling stream. Probably they were not a very good kind of gypsy, although the story was that the men drank and beat the women. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... indoors or on the turf, the game may be played by the owner being blindfolded and taking a position on hands and knees—"all fours." The dialogue is the same as given above, and the gathering in of the sheep by Jacky Lingo the same, except that the players do not line up behind him. They simply stray over ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft

... each bore with all his strength and then closed with his adversary. Each had an under hold with one arm, the other hooked around a shoulder. Samson lifted Abe from his feet but the latter with tremendous efforts loosened the hold of the Vermonter, and regained the turf. They struggled across the dooryard, the ground trembling beneath their feet. They went against the side of the house shaking it with the force of their impact. Samson had broken the grip of one of Abe's hands and now had his feet in the ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... there was neither the Canadian pine, nor cypress, to be seen. But there were a few which appeared to be the alder, that were but small, and had not yet shot forth their leaves. Upon the edges of the cliffs, and on some sloping ground, the surface was covered with a kind of turf, about half a foot thick, which seemed composed of the common moss; and the top, or upper part of the island, had almost the same appearance as to colour; but whatever covered it seemed to be thicker. I found amongst the trees some currant and hawberry bushes; a small ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... or chine, looking over the Berkshire woods, and commanding a view of the many-turreted city itself. Over its broad summit once stretched a chestnut forest; and now it is covered with the roots of trees, or furze, or soft turf. The red sand which lies underneath contrasts with the green, and adds to its brilliancy; it drinks in, too, the rain greedily, so that the wide common is nearly always fit for walking; and the air, unlike the heavy atmosphere of the University beneath it, is fresh ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... soon dissolve the mountain host, Nor would we that the vulgar feel For their Chief's crimes, avenging steel. Bear Mar our message, Braco; fly!" 870 He turned his steed—"My liege, I hie, Yet, ere I cross this lily lawn, I fear the broadswords will be drawn." The turf the flying courser spurned, And to his ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... The terrible torture!" he shrieked aloud, and ran swiftly from the clutches of the men who had held him. Between the path and the verge of the cliff from which he was suffered to cast himself there stretched some thirty or forty yards of fine green turf. The old man ran as though at a village fair for some wager of slippery pig's tail, but all the time the face of him was like Death and ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... favored land, we may without trespass be permitted to gather a single spray or two to decorate the sacred places where beneath the cypresses and the magnolias of the lowlands of Louisiana, or under the green turf among the mountains of Virginia, reposes all that was mortal of so many thousands of ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... the short soft turf, and Will pulled out a pocket-book, took the pencil from its loop, and, spreading the book wide, began after a fashion to draw what learned people call a diagram, but which we may more simply speak of as a sketch or figure of ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... greatest charm of this particular park lies in its evident old age—trees, turf, and the disused mansion all bear witness that it is no newly planted recreation ground, but a noble relic of the days of old, with a stately dignity all ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... evening, "we must have a regular picnic for Bessie; she has never been at a large one in her life. We will go to Ardley, and Florence shall take her violin, and Dr. Merton his cornet, and we will have a dance on the turf; ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... Rospigliosi seems to have all mediaeval Rome shut in it, as you go up the winding stairs with all their lichens and water-plants and broken marbles, into the garden itself, with its smooth emerald turf and spreading magnolias, and broad fish-ponds, and orange and citron trees, and the frescoed building at the end where Guido's Aurora floats in unchanging youth, and the buoyant Hours run before ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... grasses and wild balm; their flayed bodies, hacked grossly out of shape, and flung into the defiled water until the moment when, the slaughter and dishonour and profanation being complete, the dealers' carts will come cutting up the turf and sprouting reeds, and carry them off to the station or timber-yard. The very stumps and roots will be dragged out for sale; the earthy banks, raw and torn, will fall in, muddying and clogging that pure mountain brook; and the hillside, turning into sliding shale, ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... continued to rage without intermission; and though there were now several ghastly evidences of its fury, in the shape of wounded men and slaughtered or disabled horses, whose gaping wounds flooded the turf with gore, it was still difficult to see upon which side victory would eventually declare herself. The gipsies, though by far the greater sufferers of the two, firmly maintained their ground. Drenched in the blood of the horses they had wounded, and brandishing their long ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... the lofty, sombre room at the rear of the house, overlooking a patch of turf between the house and the stable. Above the massive sideboard hung an oil portrait of the Colonel, a youthful painting but vigorous, where something of the old man's sweetness and gentle wisdom had been caught. This dining room had been done over the year before Isabelle ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... the turf that crept with its white clover to the edge of the precipice, and gazed dreamily upon the fall, filling their vision with its exquisite color and form. Being wiser than I, they did not try to utter its loveliness; they were content to feel it, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... a hundred thousand men. A great battle took place at Bannockburn, where Bruce, with a greatly inferior force of foot-soldiers, totally defeated the English. He had dug pits in front of his army, which he had covered with turf resting on sticks. The effect was to throw the English cavalry into confusion. Against the Despencers, father and son, the next favorites of Edward, the barons were not at first successful; but in 1326 Edward's queen, Isabel, who had joined his enemies, returned ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher



Words linked to "Turf" :   divot, ground, land, soil, cover, colloquialism, jurisdiction, city district



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