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Whirring   /wˈərɪŋ/  /hwˈərɪŋ/   Listen
Whirring

noun
1.
Sound of something in rapid motion.  Synonyms: birr, whir, whirr.  "The whir of the propellers"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Whirring" Quotes from Famous Books



... sapientiae consultus," and strikes from his careless lyre the notes that attest a god! Some proud shadow chases another from the throne of Cyrus, and Horace hears in the thunder the rush of Diespiter, and identifies Providence with the Fortune that snatches off the diadem in her whirring swoop. But fronts discrowned take a new majesty to generous natures: in all sleek prosperity there is something commonplace; in ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... were alive,—and so they were,—and drew up, as if in order of battle, just before the mouth of the cave; and then a silver trumpet sounded on the shore, and a swarm of hornets appeared, whizzing and whirring all about the cave; and then there was another trumpet, and another, about as loud as you may hear from a caged blue-bottle, and compliments were interchanged, and a salute fired, which frightened the little lady-fairies into ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... de airy space ob de zeneth am extremely discommodatiousness to a pusson what ain't used to it," remarked Washington with a broad grin as he oiled a whirring motor. ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood

... They gathered half a dozen sparks from the fire to light them on their way, and brought cool odours with them from the deepest recesses of the trees—perfumes no sunlight ever finds. And just behind them came a big white moth, booming and whirring softly. It darted to and fro to find the trail, then vanished, so swiftly that ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... blue above my head, The prairie green below, And flickering o'er the tufted grass The shifting shadows go, Vague-sailing, where the feathery clouds Fleck white the tranquil skies, Black javelins darting where aloft The whirring pheasant flies. ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... last village, he saw a knife-grinder with his barrow; and his wheel went whirring round, and ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

... their spears as it were for war. Nevertheless when they perceived that that war for which they watched was not now come upon them, they lowered their spears and suffered him to enter, and he passed whirring through the earthward gateway. Even so he came, as foretold, to the City of Never perched upon Toldenarba, and saw late twilight on those pinnacles that know no other light. All the domes were of copper, but the spires on their summits ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany

... afflictions are described by the double chorus. The tenors and basses in powerful unison declare, "He spake the Word," and the reply comes at once from the sopranos and altos, "And there came all Manner of Flies," set to a shrill, buzzing, whirring accompaniment, which increases in volume and energy as the locusts appear, but bound together solidly with the phrase of the tenors and basses frequently repeated, and presenting a sonorous background to this fancy of the composer in insect ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... note of its coloring and marking, making sure that if we heard or saw another we would recognize it at once. While we were eating our breakfast, there was a dash of white, yellow, and grayish-brown, a whirring sound and, as the bird lighted upon the low bushes nearby, a clear, piercing whistle came from its throat. Our "gun" revealed to us a meadow lark. By this time the boys were as much excited over the bird hunt as over ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson

... to take care of the family. They never come near us until their children are able to take care of themselves. I've taught these youngsters of mine what to eat and where to find it. They have learned to fly pretty well, and taken some lessons in whirring, so that they can frighten their enemies. I wouldn't be surprised to see Father Mit-chee any day. Why, there he is now! I can tell ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix

... you to believe me that, as I did so, the whirring of wheels within the contrivance stopped, and at that moment I heard a human throat inhale a long breath with a frightened gasp! It was as if the balanced glass eyes of the figure had recognized me or seen in my coming an ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... happened as far as Lennard could see or hear. At the second, a soft, whirring sound filled the air, growing swiftly in intensity. At the third, the mist which enveloped Whernside began, as it seemed to him, to flow downwards from the sky in long wreaths of smoke-mingled steam which in a few moments fell away ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... whirring sound from the road on his right, and the flash of moving lamps. He saw that a small motor was approaching, and ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... undefended side of the valley, and beheld the Serpent of Eve coming softly among the grass and flowers, occasionally turning its head, and licking its polished back. Before he could take off his eyes from the evil thing, the two angels had come down like falcons, and at the whirring of their pinions the serpent fled. The angels returned as swiftly to ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... could dimly discern the shape of two huge mountain engines, while the rails trembled beside him, and a wall of rock flung back the din of whirring wheels. The fast freight had started from the head of Atlantic navigation at Montreal, and would not stop until the huge cars rolled alongside the Empress liner at Vancouver, for part of their burden was being hurried West from England around half the world to China ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... reluctant story—the story of the murder that had stained with its red strands the relations of each of their lives to both the others. He felt against his heart the faint trembling of her frail body. So, when a boy, he had held in his hand a fluttering bird and felt the whirring beat of its frightened heart ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... the lid a very little, just to peep inside. All at once there was a whirring, rustling sound, and before she could shut it down again, out flew ten thousand strange creatures with death-like faces and gaunt and dreadful forms, such as nobody in all the world had ever seen. They fluttered for a little while about the room, and then flew away to find dwelling-places ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin

... not this day next year! At the Green Chapel by the Murmuring Mere I will await you when the sun sinks low, And pay you back full measure, blow for blow!" He wheeled about, the doors flew wide once more, The mare's hoofs struck green sparkles from the floor, And with a whirring flash of emerald light Both horse and rider vanished ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis

... of plovers circled over his head, rapidly whirring their wings, then sailing easily higher and higher into the blue of the evening sky. He ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... upon a valley where rock ptarmigan rose on whirring wings from the ledges and muskegs. Ker—ker—ker was the cry they made. He threw stones at them, but could not hit them. He placed his pack on the ground and stalked them as a cat stalks a sparrow. The sharp rocks cut through his pants' legs till his knees left a trail of blood; but the hurt ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London

... barn, the cavernous dark doors, the hoofs of the horses thundering on the floor, the smell of cattle from below, the pigeons in the loft whirring startled from their perches. Then the hot, scented, dusty "pitching off" and "mowing in"—a fine process, an honest process: men sweating for ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson

... nose against a box that certainly spoke with a human tongue, but in no sort of human accent. It seemed to end in a tin trumpet and to be joined by wires to a smaller box on the floor—so far, at least, as he could judge by touch. And the voice, very hard and whirring, came out of the trumpet. Kim rubbed his nose and grew furious, thinking, as ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... he spoke there was a report; a pistol in the hand of the first teamster smoked, and a poor little squirrel, that had been whirring on the limb of a basswood, dropped to the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... important to learn the useful products of the island. Presently he burst through some brushwood into a swampy bottom surrounded by low trees, and instantly a dozen large birds of the osprey kind rose flapping into the air like windmills rising. He was quite startled by the whirring and flapping, and not a little amazed at the appearance of the place. Here was a very charnel-house; so thick lay the shells, skeletons and loose bones of fish. Here too he found three terrapin killed but not eaten, and also some fish, more or ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... still whirring up and down Stoney Island Avenue when Sommers left the cottage, but he did not think to stop one. Instead, he walked on heedlessly, mechanically, toward the city. Frequently he stumbled and with difficulty saved himself from falling over the dislocated planks of the wooden walk. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... it—the forests of belts, whirring and twisting like live things, the orderly lines of machine tools, each doing its work with more than human ingenuity and precision, the enormous presses reminding her of elephants stamping out pieces of metal, ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston

... noticed, in that end of the hut which stood over the stream, a gap, or window hole. The sound issued through this like the whirring of a dozen looms. "He must be an astonishing fellow," thought I, "that can snore in this fashion. I'll have a peep before I wake him." I waded down till I stood under the sill, put both hands upon it, and pulling myself up quiet as a mouse, stuck my face in at the window—and ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... piece of cloth." On the west coast of Africa the little black-weavers (Ploceus?) congregate in a small party on the bushes round a small open space, and sing and glide through the air with quivering wings, "which make a rapid whirring sound like a child's rattle." One bird after another thus performs for hours together, but only during the courting-season. At this season, and at no other time, the males of certain night-jars (Caprimulgus) make a strange booming noise with their wings. The various species of woodpeckers ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... I can't ... it's gone ... and even if it weren't...." He dropped back in his chair and took his head between his hands. He had forgotten what he wanted the money for. He made a great effort to regain hold of the idea, but all the whirring, shuttling, flying had abruptly ceased in his brain, and he sat with his eyes shut, staring straight into darkness.... The clock struck, and he remembered that he had said he would go down to the dining-room. "If I don't she'll come up—" He raised his head and ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... whole night stalking the deer or setting traps for game. Now it happened one night that he was watching in a clump of bushes near the lake for some wild ducks that he wished to trap. Suddenly he heard, high up in the air, a whirring of wings and thought the ducks were coming; and he strung his bow and got ready his arrows. But instead of ducks there appeared seven maidens all clad in robes made of feathers, and they alighted on the banks of the lake, and taking off their robes plunged into ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs

... and one shot rang out after another quickly. There was a mad whirring and fluttering from the ruffed grouse. Two dropped like lead, while two others flew around in a circle, badly wounded. Then the boys discharged their guns again, and wounded two more birds. As the game came down they ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill

... a trumpet. The barrel-organ accompanying the wooden horses sent through the air its shrill jerky notes. The lottery-wheel made a whirring sound like that of cloth being torn, and every moment the crack of the rifle could be heard. And the slowly moving throng passed on quietly in front of the booths after the fashion of paste in a fluid condition, with the motions of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... house of mine by the marsh, there comes a silence at this hour which is exhilarating. Out of these winter midnights come strange sounds, whirring flights of sea-fowl whistle over my roof, in late for a lodging on the marsh. A heavy peasant's cart goes by, groaning in agony under the brake. When the wind is from the sea, it is like a bevy of witches ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith

... minutes after this answer had been received by the captain of the Adamant, two shells went whirring and shrieking through the air toward Repeller No. 7, and after that the cannonading from the bow, the stern, the starboard, and the port guns of the great battle-ship went on whenever there was a visible object on the ocean which looked in the ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton

... nest I discovered in a dense forest on the side of a mountain. The sitting bird was disturbed as I passed beneath her. The whirring of her wings arrested my attention, when, after a short pause, I had the good luck to see, through an opening in the leaves, the bird return to her nest, which appeared like a mere wart or excrescence on a small branch. The humming-bird, unlike all others, does not alight upon the nest, but ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... coolness, looking in the direction Tresten had taken, his forehead shining and eyes charged with the electrical activity of the mind, reading intensely all who passed him, without a thought upon any of these objects in their passage. The people were read, penetrated, and flung off as from a whirring of wheels; to cut their place in memory sharp as in steel when imagination shall by and by renew the throbbing of that hour, if the wheels be not stilled. The world created by the furnaces of vitality inside him absorbed his mind; and strangely, while receiving ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... different place Paterson was from the fertile valley they had left behind them! There were the great blackened factories—a city in themselves—with their tall chimneys and whirring wheels, which one came to hear almost in one's sleep. And there were the homes huddled closely together into which humanity was herded. Even the blue of the sky was dimmed by a veil of heavy smoke. What wonder that it took all the Brettons' courage to be cheerful under such conditions; or what ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett

... wherein are bright-eyed English girls, Irish colleens and Scots lassies by the ten thousand, whose dexterous fingers flash nimbly to and fro, slender fingers, yet fingers contriving death. I have wandered through a wilderness of whirring driving-belts and humming wheels where men and women, with the same feverish activity, bend above machines whose very hum sang to me of death, while I have watched a cartridge grow from a disc of metal to the hellish contrivance ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol

... morass lay in white and sinister tangle under the wild spring moon, when the dark and dreadful swamps were rife with horrible croaks and snaps, the whirring of the wings of waterfowl or the noise of a disturbed puff adder, Philip stretched himself upon the seat of the music-machine and slept through the twilight and the early evening. When the camp ahead, glimmering brightly through the live oaks, was silent, Philip ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... summer lay over all things. But, though the heat was broiling, the walk was lovely. All about me was alive with voice or perfume. Clouds of linnets fluttered among the branches, golden beetles crawled upon the grass, thousands of tiny whirring wings beat the air—flies, gnats, gadflies, bees—all chorusing the life—giving warmth of the day and the sunshine that bathed and penetrated all nature. I halted from time to time in the parched glades ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin

... and Robert the Devil went well. The long streets rolled behind us, and were lost in the rain; then with a rhythmic drumming of hoofs and a constant splashing from under the whirring wheels, we swept out into the blackness of a treeless plain. I knew the road and did not take the shortest one; and it was rapture to draw the rugs and apron round Grace's waist, and feel the soft furs she wore brushing against me. The ten miles passed in what seemed to be scarcely as ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... there came to the ears of all a sudden hammering and crashing, together with the whirring sound of a buzzer. Instantly the entire place ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish

... to read behind a veil, acuteness of suffering sharpened the General's intelligence to a degree that sustained him in animated dialogue with each succeeding sketch, or poisoned arrow whirring at him from the moment his eyes rested on it; and here are a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... strange indeed to see so many nations assembled and represented on one spot of British ground. In short, it is one great theatre, with thousands of performers, each playing his own part. England is there, with her mighty engines toiling and whirring, indefatigable in her enterprises to shorten labour. India spreads her glitter and paint. France, refined and fastidious, is there every day, giving the last touch to her picturesque group; and the other countries, each in their turn, doing what they can to show off. The ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown

... him where. The car motor was whirring smoothly now, the chauffeur was sliding into his seat behind the pilot-wheel, and the old gentleman in the tonneau ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... the fragrance of the wild-brier and the mock-orange. The birds are carolling in the trees, and their shadows flit across the window as they dart to and fro in the sunshine; while the murmur of the bee, the cooing of doves from the eaves, and the whirring of a little humming-bird that has its nest in the honeysuckle, send up a sound of joy to ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... seats, heard a shouting and the whirring rattle of weapons, struggled up and was knocked back again, perceived that a number of black-badged men were all about him firing at the rebels below, leaping from seat to seat, crouching among the seats to reload. Instinctively he crouched amidst the seats, as stray ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... and began to dress, choosing his clothes carefully. Gordon stretched out his arms and clenched the edges of the bed, fighting back a desire to cry out. His head was splitting and whirring, his mouth was dry and bitter and he could feel the fever in his blood resolving itself into innumerable regular counts like a slow ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... to beat the air with the whirring sound of a swarm of gigantic locusts in full flight, and after a short run the great aeroplane took the air in a long graceful rising arc. Half an hour later, to the watchers in the camp, she was little more than a speck ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... bee hums past, a brilliant butterfly flashes across the path, or a humming-bird hangs in the air over a flower like, as St. Pierre says, an emerald set in coral, but "how weak it is to say that that exquisite little being, whirring and fluttering in the air, has a head of ruby, a throat of emerald, and wings of sapphire, as if any triumph of the jeweller's art could ever vie with that sparkling epitome of life ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... the two leaders began circling and swooping more and more rapidly until those below felt the whirring rush of air as the two planes swept by so low that one imagined that an arm ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry

... Deringham could see with untrained eyes that there was no waste of effort here. The great logs that slid in at one end passed straight forward over the rattling rollers, and made no deviation until they went out as planking. Silent men and whirring saws, whose strident scream changed to a deeper humming as they rent into the great redwood trunks, alike did their work with swift efficiency, and once more the girl glanced with a little wonder at the man who had ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... being, the higher animal to violate some of the most blessed laws of his Creator. Gradually the sun rose and dispelled the mists, while it warmed everything into strong vitality. As they passed up, clouds of water-fowl rose whirring from their lairs, and luxuriant growth of weeds threatened to obstruct ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne

... through the hole in the spool, and held the notched rims of the spool against the window pane by pressing on the pencil axle. He gave the cord a quick jerk; a rattle, a wail, and a shriek were successively produced by the notches whirring on the glass. The company within doors screamed. Everyone knew it was Piggy, but no one ever lived with nerves strong enough to withstand the shock of a tick-tack. At the first shock those in-doors decided to ignore the disturbance. But it occurred twice afterwards, and a third ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White

... with no harvest sheaves to offer as witnesses for his toiling, suddenly back of him he heard a marvellous, many-toned, soft whirring, as of innumerable light wings, and over his head flew a countless crowd of silver-white birds, and floated in the air beyond. And as he gazed, surprised, at their loveliness, without speech again it was ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... whirring noise, that made Mr. Winkle start back as if he had been shot himself. Bang, bang, went a couple of guns—the smoke swept quickly away over the field, and curled into ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... were put on what was called a "carriage," to be sawed. This carriage moved slowly along on a little track, and the Bobbsey twins were allowed to ride on the end of the log farthest from the saw. When the end came too close to the big, whirring teeth that ripped through the hard knots with such a screeching sound, Bert and Nan and Flossie and Freddie were lifted ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope

... he straightened there came a dull report, a lurid flash of light, and with a sharp whirring sound a model torpedo about half the regulation size, leaped through the darkness and with a clear parting of the waters disappeared. A green Very star cleaved the night. Intense silence followed. One second, two seconds, elapsed and then from the practice ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... and after the night the day, Fool and philosopher stirring With the day dawning, Stretching and yawning, While in each wine-throbbing, desolated brain is the Wheeling and whirring Of thousands of bats, that the slaking Of throats will not hinder from aching, No wine for the brow that is beating to bursting, But water at morning is ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE

... went off with a furious bur-r-r that brought him on his feet through sheer astonishment. He had not been wakened in such summary fashion since his last hunting trip, years and years ago. After staring at the still whirring clock for a moment as he sat on the edge of his bed stupid with astonishment, he collected himself and began a hasty toilet. He experienced something of a boy's glee as he donned his clothes, and when he crept softly downstairs and ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... It was my grand-aunt (whose portrait we still have in the family) who got into the clock-case at the Royal Rosicrucian Lodge at Bungay, Suffolk, to spy the proceedings of the Society, of which her husband was a member, and being frightened by the sudden whirring and striking eleven of the clock (just as the Deputy-Grand-Master was bringing in the mystic gridiron for the reception of a neophyte), rushed out into the midst of the lodge assembled; and was elected, ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... back-seat, and in a moment the buggy swerved by the bullock-dray that was drawn up a little further down the road, and the excited horses galloped past the nineteen public houses and the zinc-roofed shanties, past the new quarter of tents and whirring machinery, past the deserted shafts and desolate mullock heaps, then way out along the sandy ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... drums pounding, And the small drums steady whirring; And every blow of the great convulsive drums Strikes ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... were speaking, back came Mr. and Mrs. Robin, whirring through the green shadows of the apple tree; and thereupon all the five little red mouths flew open, and the ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... into the next room, where Jean became so fascinated by the whirring wheels and the men whose steady hands guided them that it was with difficulty she could be persuaded to leave and ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett

... A whirring sound. The plane whirled around as though it were twirled on the end of a string. To the five other pilots it must have seemed that the plane had struck some invisible obstruction, been smashed, and now was whirling away to destruction after a strange, ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks

... vines, and under a leaning cliff over on the left the mulberry grove had planted itself, proclaiming the spring which the party were seeking. And thither the guide conducted them, careless of whistling partridges and lesser birds of brighter hues roused whirring from the reedy coverts. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... the scent of rockets and phlox and ragged pinks and candy-tuft. Through the sweet-scented dusky silence some small and very wakeful bird was trilling. Great misty-winged moths came whirring and hovering among the blossoms, pale blurs in the darkness, and everywhere the drifting lamps of fireflies lighted and died out against ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... for those whistling heralds of death, how he waited for the approach of those whirring missiles to whom the transportation of a man to another world in a moment is nothing! They knew him well already ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... a dark brown colour, marked with a white patch on the wings, were seen, and some specimens shot. They made a whirring sound in flight, like the partridge, and appeared to haunt the rocks; a habit which all ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... followed. Sounds of traffic from the Embankment penetrated dimly to the room of the Assistant Commissioner; ringing of tram bells and that vague sustained noise which is created by the whirring of countless wheels along ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer

... the west some warm morning when the wind is south, and extending from a hundred feet in the air to ten thousand, all moved by a common impulse like myself and my fellow-migrants, pressing northward though, instead of westward, with the piping of a thousand organs, their wings whirring, their eyes glistening as if with some mysterious hope, their black webbed feet folded and stretched out behind, their necks strained out eagerly to the north, and held a little high I thought as if to peer over the horizon to catch a glimpse of their promised land of blue lakes, ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... dressmaker, amid the constant whirring of sewing-machines, the Babel of workpeople. Harmony, seeking not a home but a hiding-place, took the room at once. She was asked for no reference. In a sort of agony lest this haven fail her she paid for a week in advance. ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... in the case of Slim, he did not finish what he started to say, for there came an interruption, in its way almost as sinister as the whirring of the ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker

... of these words Winterton gave a loup, as if he had tramped on something no canny, syne a whirring sort of triumphant whistle, and then ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... evening, and they have moved on three hundred yards, and are resting again. In the daytime hens peck and cackle in every street; at nightfall the bordering veldt hums with crickets and bullfrogs. At morn come a flight of locusts—first, yellow-white scouts whirring down every street, then a pelting snowstorm of them high up over the houses, spangling the blue heaven. But Burghersdorp cared nothing. "There is nothing for them," said a farmer, with cosy satisfaction; "the frost killed everything ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens

... leading from the road through a field to Asa Levens's farmhouse; it lay upon its face, with arms outstretched, very still and very peaceful, with the morning sun shining down upon it, and the robins singing from shadowing trees, and insects buzzing and whirring cheerfully in the fields, and the fields themselves peaceful and beautiful in their golden embellishments, ready for the harvest. Scattergood looked about him at the trappings of the day, and the thought came unbidden that it was a pleasant spot in ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland

... the morning mist, and that rest-time was nearly over; while the sudden rattle of a machine gun close by him, indulging in a little indirect fire at a well-known Hun gathering place a thousand yards or so behind their lines, disturbed a covey of partridges, which rose with an angry whirring of wings. Then came four of those unmistakable faint muffled bursts from high above his head, which betokened an aeroplane's morning gallop; and even as he automatically jerked his head skywards, with a swishing noise something buried itself in the ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... drowsy. They decided to take turns watching the cattle and napping. The cattle also seemed to feel the heat and were hunting patches of shade, lying down to chew their cuds contentedly. The air seemed palpitating with the incessant humming and whirring of insects. Bees, and white and yellow butterflies flittered in a mat of weeds and wild blackberry vines, which had entirely covered an angle of the old ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... But in a while Jurgen and the Hamadryad were speaking again, just as inconsequently, and the locusts were whirring just as obstinately. Later the moon rose, and ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... winter, when the snow was melted on my south hillside and about my wood-pile, the partridges came out of the woods morning and evening to feed there. Whichever side you walk in the woods the partridge bursts away on whirring wings, jarring the snow from the dry leaves and twigs on high, which comes sifting down in the sunbeams like golden dust, for this brave bird is not to be scared by winter. It is frequently covered up by drifts, and, it is ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... below a door closed with a cushioned soft definiteness. The inside of the rocket suddenly seemed extraordinarily still. The silence was oppressive. It was dead. Then there came the whirring of very many electric fans, stirring ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... Again I sank under the weight of my prolonged nervous excitement. The hollow whirring in my head made itself felt anew. I stared straight ahead, kept my eyes fixed, and gazed at the chemist's under the sign of the elephant. Hunger was waging a fierce battle in me at this moment, and I was suffering greatly. Whilst I sit thus ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun

... garden, while they had so good an opportunity. Before it was all put in order, and the entire stock of autumn cabbages set, there came a breezy day; and the children were left to finish the cabbage patch by themselves. While they were at work, it made them merry to hear the mill-sails whirring through the air, and to see, at intervals, the trees above the quarry bowing their heads, and the reeds waving in the swamp, and the water of the meadow-ponds dimpling and rippling, as the wind swept over ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau

... present position unnoticed. It was doubtful now that he could make his own escape, for a gray dawn was breaking in the east. But the thought of his own danger troubled the boy little. He was thinking of a peculiar whirring sound that he and the master had once practiced together. A sound like an insect. "'Twould be a good signal," the teacher had said. Would he ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock

... the life, for instance, of yonder mysterious, almost voiceless, Humming-Bird, smallest of feathery things, and loneliest, whirring among birds, insect-like, and among insects, bird-like, his path untraceable, his home unseen? An image of airy motion, yet it sometimes seems as if there were nothing joyous in him. He seems like some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... the steel delivery roller which drew the thin, sad-looking stuff with increased speed downward. And here at its moment of most shivering tenuity, when the perfected and purified material seemed reduced to an extremity of weakness, came the magic change. Unseen in the whirring complexity of the spinner, it received the momentous gift that translates fibre to yarn. In a moment it changed from stuff a baby's finger could break to thread capable of supporting fifteen pounds of pressure. For now came the twist—that ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... third day, just at dawn, came a new sound, a great whirring like a thousand racing automobiles, and then two loud explosions, one after the other, different from the roar of cannon or the shots from the field guns that night at El Paso. The whole building shook as if it must fall, and wounded men who had slept restlessly ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... if this was not the false courage of association with a crowd. Before this enterprise at hand she could not remember anything she had undertaken alone. Her thrills seemed to be in abeyance to the end of her journey. That night her sleep was permeated with the steady low whirring of the wheels. Once, roused by a jerk, she lay awake in the darkness while the thought came to her that she and all her fellow passengers were really at the mercy of the engineer. Who was he, and did he stand at his throttle keen and vigilant, thinking of the lives intrusted to him? Such thoughts ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... wool-wheel, one arm extended, the other holding the thread, her head thrown back to take in all the scope of her occupation; or if it is the lesser spinning-wheel for flax—and it was this that Sylvia moved forwards to-night—the pretty sound of the buzzing, whirring motion, the attitude of the spinner, foot and hand alike engaged in the business—the bunch of gay coloured ribbon that ties the bundle of flax on the rock—all make it into a picturesque piece of domestic business that may rival harp-playing any day for the amount of softness ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... young chap and took him into his pay. But what the new apprentice heard about the mill and his predecessors was not encouraging; so the first night when it was his duty to watch in the mill he took care to provide himself with an axe and a prayer-book, and while he kept one eye on the whirring, humming wheels he kept the other on the good book, which he read by the flickering light of a candle set on a table. So the hours at first passed quietly with nothing to disturb him but the monotonous ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... only one. He and Harry jumped about and snapped and barked, and Harry was thinking with joy that he was the last, when the clock in the hall gave that whirring sound which clocks do before they strike, as if it were clearing ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... price at first, but you will find it to be good economy afterward. In silks that are to be sold cheap, a kind of camel's hair is frequently introduced. This may be detected by pulling a piece of the suspected silk cross ways, and if camel's hair be mixed with it, it will spring with a kind of whirring sound. This should ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous

... the door open, shrieking, and suddenly the Toy, released, was darting a small whirring droning horror, straight at Rakhal's eyes. I yelled. But there was no time even to warn him. I bent and butted him in the stomach. He grunted, doubled up in agony and fell out of the path of the diving Toy. ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... two short years ago there had not been in all the wide land a more contented man than himself, a man with a conscience freer. God! Even yet he could hear the rolling, whirring ivory ball as it spun the circle that fatal night at Monte Carlo. Man does not recall the intermediate steps of his fall, only the first step and the last. In his waking hours the colonel always heard the sound of it, and it rattled through his troubled ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... of the Sawmill Country in Western Washington. Redolent of fir, cedar, and hemlock as the whirring saws let loose the stored perfume ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... men, over twenty miles of hilly, woody country, was like one of Dante's excursions into the Shades. In the awful stillness of the dark pines, their screams frightened the hooting owls, and the whirring insects in the leaves and tree-tops quieted their songs. They heard the gurgle of the rills, and called aloud for water to quench their insatiate thirst. One of them sang a shrill, fierce, fiendish ballad, in an interval of relief, but plunged, at a sudden relapse, in prayers ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... levelled at them. He laid down the right one, keeping the left one aimed, and moved some knobs on a dial and threw over a big switch. A muffled rumbling and whirring began somewhere; and then, slowly, a block of tables and apparatus ten feet square rose upward toward the ceiling. A section of the floor on which they stood came up, supported by columns, and now formed the roof of a room that had risen out of the floor. ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer

... the meantime signals were pulsing and flashing on land and sea, and the U-boat had hardly dipped when, over the smooth green swell, a great sea hawk came whirring up to join the hunt, a hawk with light yellow wings and a body of service grey—the latest type of seaplane. It was one of those oily seas in which a watcher from the air may follow a submarine for miles, as an olive ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... breaths of a thousand belching furnaces. A white, burning glare had spread itself from horizon to horizon, and the earth wrinkled and cracked beneath it. From every corner of this parched wilderness came an ominous whirring, like the last wheezing gasp of an alarm-clock before striking the hour. This menacing orchestration was nothing more or less than millions of grasshoppers rasping legs and wings together in hoarse appreciation of the heat and glare; but it had a sound ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... our descent, as only now I knew by its cessation—a hissing sound as of wire whirring from a draw-plate. In the profound enormous silence that, at last, enwrapped us, the bliss of freedom from that metallic accompaniment fell on me like a balm. My eyelids closed. ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... wall-paper design above the plate-rack and a gilded radiator that hissed loudest at mealtime, when Simon Binswanger and his family relaxed round their after-dinner table, the invisible cricket on the visible hearth fell to whirring. ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... Leavened as the sea whose fire was mixt with glass In John's transcendent vision,—launch once more That lustre? Dante, pacer of the shore Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom, Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume— Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope Into a darkness quieted by hope; Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God's eye In gracious twilights where his chosen lie, I would do this! If I ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... the cricket, and drawing the feeler from his pocket, thrust it into the fire. And immediately there was a whirring noise in the air, and a great flight of crickets alighted beside him, and amongst them the cricket whose ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs

... reptiles in his distant home not to understand their nature. Whirlwind, like all of his kind, had a mortal dread of every species of serpents, and he showed his timidity the moment the locust-like whirring sounded from the bush at the side of the path the two ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... violent commotion and a whirring noise among the weights and ropes below him had quite subsided that this terrified Hay-maker became himself again. Nor was he startled without reason; for these rattling, bony skeletons of clocks ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... within which the Company transacted its mercantile business, has gone; but elsewhere in its stead there are big offices of numerous commercial firms; and, moreover, there are large 'factories' of the modern kind, such as are denoted by tall chimneys and the perpetual roar of whirring wheels. ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow

... was not at home. The door to the Little House was wide open, as it always is when cold or rain does not close it, and huge old Tabby with one eye purred on the doorstep in the sun. A bird was nesting in the wisteria vine above the door and her soft whirring bespoke an interesting domestic event as near at hand. It did not in the least disturb Tab, and I wondered at the harmony between traditional enemies that I met on Mother Spurlock's very doorstep. I went in and drew myself a drink of fresh ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... roughness at the extremity of the recess. He was aware instantly that there was some secret spring; he pressed with some force on the spot, and he felt the board give way; he pushed it back towards him, and it slid suddenly with a whirring noise, and left a cavity below exposed to his sight. He peered in, and drew forth a paper; he opened it at first carelessly, for he was still trying to listen to Fanny. His eye ran rapidly over a few preliminary lines till it rested on ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the deer start from the thicket, Saw the rabbit in his burrow, Heard the pheasant, Bena, drumming, Heard the squirrel, Adjidaumo, Rattling in his hoard of acorns, Saw the pigeon, the Omeme, Building nests among the pinetrees, And in flocks the wild-goose, Wawa, Flying to the fen-lands northward, Whirring, wailing far above him. "Master of Life!" he cried, desponding, "Must our lives depend ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow

... in numerous hutches, Ambrose's owl, a jackdaw, a squirrel, and a wonderfully large family of white mice. Besides those captives there were bats which lived free but retired lives high up in the rafters, flapping and whirring about when dusk came on. Pigeons also flew in and out, and pecked at the various morsels of food left about on the ground, so that the barn was a thickly-peopled place, with plenty of noise and flutter, and much coming and going through ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton

... there was a whirring noise in the immediate neighbourhood, and Mr Rossiter buzzed out from his den with the esprit and animation ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... time, but the new clock struck with such a loud overbearing ring that the old one was quite overpowered. The latter had the advantage, however, of getting the first two strokes before the other began, besides which it prefaced its remarks every hour with a mysterious hissing and whirring sound that the new clock could not have got ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... of the storm the motor chugged. Grim and silent, the man at the wheel, ungoggled and tense, sent the whirring thing swiftly over the trackless village street and out upon the open country road. The woman ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... stimulating to simians. Boys envy the fellow. On the other hand whenever we are told about factory life, we instinctively shudder to think of enduring such evils. We see some old workman, filling cans with a whirring machine; and we hear the humanitarians telling us, indignant and grieving, that he actually must stand in that nice, warm, dry room every day, safe from storms and wild beasts, and with nothing to do but fill cans; and at once we groan: "How deadly! What monotonous toil! Shorten his hours!" ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day

... depended the result of the expedition. Towering above his fellows, his long spear in hand, he seemed to lead a charmed existence, swaying to and fro among whistling bullets, whizzing arrows, flashing swords and whirring spears. His own weapon he dyed in the blood of his adversaries times without number, for where he struck he never failed to kill. His aim was unerring, and his courage that of a lion ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... pool, just mad with the joy of life; the midges dancing over the water in the still sunshine, and the trout jumping for them—oh, it's the bonny, bonny place. You would think so too. You would like it, tramping knee-deep in the heather, to see the moorcock rise whirring at your feet; you would like to set sail with the fisher folk after the silver herring. It would make you feel good to see the calm faces of the shepherds, the peace in the eyes of the women. Ay, that was the best of it all, the Rest ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... stillest evening, may the presence of the night-jar be detected, except by its coarse call, while the sprightly little sun-bird flits hither and thither, prodigal of its vivid colours and joying with machine-like whirring. The sun-bird exemplifies the brightness of the day. All its activities are bold and conspicuous. Aptly named, it has nothing to hide, no deeds which will not withstand the scrutiny of ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... bright, frosty and star-light, with a nice, crisp breeze, which, the river being there about two miles wide, raised quite a sea. Thousands of wildfowl, all on their way south, were flying, whistling and whirring about in every direction, and rising from the water quite close to the boat. My dog "Snipe" and I crept into the cabin out of the cutting wind, which was dead ahead, and proceeded to discuss our impromptu Christmas fare, which, after all, was not so bad, and reflected great ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... kitchen and into an adjoining room used partly as a wood-house and also as a wash room. Each place was brilliantly lighted by means of several electric lamps. He stopped at last before a cream-separator which was new and recently installed. Touching a switch, there was a sudden whirring sound, and the machine began to revolve, slowly at first, but gaining rapidly in speed until it was fairly spinning. After it had been running for a few minutes Jasper turned off the current, and then stood watching the ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... Levin still more. The snipe were floating continually in the air over the reeds. Their whirring wings close to the earth, and their harsh cries high in the air, could be heard on all sides; the snipe that had risen first and flown up into the air, settled again before the sportsmen. Instead of two hawks there were now dozens of them hovering with shrill cries over ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... room to a door. The Speaker pushed it open. Technicians looked up. Conger saw machinery, whirring and turning; benches and retorts. In the center of the room was a ...
— The Skull • Philip K. Dick

... hand and examined it. It was slightly concave in shape, and among the wheels was a strong spring. Adolph wound up this spring, but so loosely was the machinery put together that when he let go the key, the spring quickly uncoiled itself with a whirring ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... human kind, and appeared among young or old, the knowledge of the true, the good, and the beautiful beamed into their hearts. Whether she entered the study of the artist, or the festive, decorated hall, or the crowded factory, with its whirring wheels, it seemed as though a sunbeam were stealing in—as if the sweet string sounded, the flower exhaled its perfume, and a living dew-drop fell upon the ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... I, with the Springfield, sat down at the head of the ravine. Soon I could hear the shrieks, rattles, shouts, and whistles of the line of men as they beat through the grass. Small grass bucks and hares bounded past me; birds came whirring by. I sat on a little ant hill spying as hard as I could in all directions. Suddenly the beaters fell to dead silence. Guessing this as a signal to me that the beast had been seen, I ran to climb a higher ant hill to the left. From there I discerned the animal plainly, sneaking along belly ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... of a second, the air was filled with birds, thicker than autumn leaves, and rang with one universal, clanging shriek. A second shot, followed by a second outcry and an answering discharge from the other caverns, almost darkened the sky. The whirring, rustling and screaming, as the birds circled overhead, or dropped like thick scurries of snow-flakes on the water, was truly awful. There could not have been less than fifty thousand in the air at one time, while as many more clung to the face of the rock, or screamed from ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... them pause and circle slowly over us, as if to ascertain whether we are dead or not. A small piece of the kopje jerked at them by the most energetic member of our party, usually assures them of the negative, and with a few flaps of their wings they go whirring on. Ugh! I forgot to mention for the edification of any of our lady friends that at night rats emerge from beneath the various rocks and sportively run over one's recumbent form. So, for guarding kopjes, ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... side, took her hand reverently as though its preciousness made him fear the harm his heavy grip might do. And there, under the network of apple branches interwoven with the patches of a deep, blue sky, with now and then the sound of an apple tumbling heavily to the ground, or a flight of starlings whirring overhead, and in the distance the hollow monotonous beating on the tin drums of the boy who scared the birds, he told her roughly, unevenly, in words cut out of the solid vein of his emotion, what kind of a woman ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... to be full of whirring looms, and the noise was, as Patty described it afterward, like the buzzing of a billion bees! But, asking no further directions, she ascended the next staircase and the next, until she found herself on the ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells

... upon me and pinning me down? Would there be another upheaval in a moment; more steely-blue stars and another flight, and then—the end? If so, I wished it would come quickly and not leave me in suspense, and, oh! if only the horrible whirring noise at my ear would only stop for a minute. My head ached as though it would burst. I opened my eyes, but could see nothing but the stalks of yellow grass in which my ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... smoking, dreaming, and when at length he drove away, wine and dreams fumed in his brain. The dance of lamps, the cream-cheese moon, the rays of clean wet light on his horse's harness, the jingling of the cab bell, the whirring wheels, the night air and the branches—it was all so good! He threw back the hansom doors to feel the touch of the warm breeze. The crowds on the pavement gave him strange delight; they were like shadows, in some great illusion, happy shadows, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... continuous roar of artillery reverberating through the surrounding hills; the constant ping; pinging and singing of rifle bullets; the rattling discharge of platoon firing; the whirring of heavy shot and shell through the air above the ranks and the bursting every now and then of some huge bomb in their midst, knocking down the men like ninepins and sending up a pyramid of dust and stones, mingled with particles of their arms and clothing, as well as fragments of the torn flesh ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... children of his own, and the best wife in the world? Did he not pray every day to be delivered from the Satan Mekatrig? Had he not meant it for the best when he took her into his workshop? It was only when, at the age of sixteen, Gittel Goldstein left the whirring machine-room for the more lucrative and laurelled position of heroine of Goldwater's London Yiddish Theatre that he had discovered how this whimsical, coquettish creature had insinuated ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... the dessert, and two at least of the party were congratulating themselves on the happy termination of the meal, when, just as the Duke was speaking, there was a heavy lurch, and a tremendous sea broke over their heads. Then came a fearful whirring sound that shook through every plate and timber and bulkhead, like the sudden running down of mammoth clock-work, lasting some twenty seconds; then everything was quiet again save the sea, and the yacht rolled heavily to ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford

... an hour—by which time the sun, magnified to twice his size by the evening vapours through which he glowed, palpitating like a ball of white-hot steel, hung upon the very edge of the horizon—when a whirring of wings warned them to be on the alert, and a moment later a flock of some fifty teal, which must have been feeding on some far-off marsh during the day, settled down upon the surface of the water, with much splashing and loud quacks of satisfaction at having once more reached what they doubtless ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood

... were even more disturbing. All day long it would seem that the birds were coming thicker from all quarters. Doubtless many were going as well as coming, but the mass seemed never to get less. Each bird seemed to sound some note of fear or anger or seeking, and the whirring of wings never ceased nor lessened. The air was full of a muttered throb. No window or barrier could shut out the sound, till the ears of any listener became dulled by the ceaseless murmur. So monotonous it was, so cheerless, so disheartening, so melancholy, that all longed, but in ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker

... natterjacks were whirring like the nightjar. Strange birds screamed and rushed out of the trees as she sped along. White moths, ghostlike, wavered about her, mosquitoes piped. ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould



Words linked to "Whirring" :   birr, noisy, sound



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