Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Buoy   Listen
verb
Buoy  v. t.  (past & past part. buoyed; pres. part. buoying)  
1.
To keep from sinking in a fluid, as in water or air; to keep afloat; with up.
2.
To support or sustain; to preserve from sinking into ruin or despondency. "Those old prejudices, which buoy up the ponderous mass of his nobility, wealth, and title."
3.
To fix buoys to; to mark by a buoy or by buoys; as, to buoy an anchor; to buoy or buoy off a channel. "Not one rock near the surface was discovered which was not buoyed by this floating weed."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Buoy" Quotes from Famous Books



... though the depth was from fourteen to fifteen fathoms. As this stream was a sufficient security against any ice coming in, I determined to anchor the ships somewhere in its neighbourhood; and, having laid down a buoy in twelve fathoms, off the north point of the entrance, returned on board, when I found all the boats ahead endeavouring to tow the ships in-shore. This could be effected, however, only by getting them across the stream of the inlet to the northern shore; and here, finding some land-ice, the ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... is in a great storm cannot be far off a shipwreck; and your extreme danger will soon land you upon Death's strand. Though yet a passenger at sea, when he is got off from a shattered ship, will still buoy himself up with some little hope that he may drive his body to some shore and get out by swimming; but now the poor soul, according to these ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... cannonade, and retired again to the shelter of Fortress Monroe. The "Merrimac" steamed up and down the Roads for some hours; and finally Commodore Tatnall, in deep disgust, gave the order, "Mr. Jones, fire a gun to windward, and take the ship back to her buoy." ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... fortnight out, and the four adventurers—or, rather, the three adventurers and Nickerson—were lame in every joint, red-eyed from lack of sleep, half-starved, wholly wet and unequivocally disgusted. They had had heavy weather from the day they bade farewell to the whistling buoy off San Francisco Bay until the moment when even patient, docile, taciturn Strokher had at last—in ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris

... if on a blazing morning he should bathe. He took off his clothes, and in a moment was in the sea, striking out for the river channel and the ebbing tide, which he knew would bear him away to the ocean. He saw nothing, heard nothing, till just as he neared the buoy and the fatal eddy was before him, when there escaped from him a cry—a scream—a prayer of commitment to Him whom he believed he had so loyally served—served with such damnable, such treasonable fidelity—the God who had now turned away ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... sank deeper—slowly—steadily—surely. The hellish stuff closed about her body to the waist. If she only had something—anything—solid to hold to! She took off her hat, grasped the edges of the brim, reached her arms out and tried to use the frail disk of felt for a buoy. It held a moment then gradually settled below the surface of the shifting, elusive substance. Again and again she lifted the hat free from the sand and sought to place it so it would bear a part at least of her weight. Her efforts were vain. ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman

... Negro is another of the many sturdy qualities which declare his fitness to withstand the blows of adverse fortune. His long training in the school of mental and moral darkness wherein he had need to cultivate a sanguine temperament to buoy him up, stands proof against dark forebodings and pessimism. The grotesque and the ludicrous find in him a joyous patron. Where others count and bewail their woes, he sees only sunshine. Gloom and sorrow melt away ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... Carter, having sent away his boats, was reduced to a Carley float, an apparatus like an exaggerated life-buoy, with the floor of a grating. Upon contact with the water it ignited a calcium flare and he was adrift in the uncanny illumination with a German machine gun a few hundred yards away giving him its undivided attention. What saved him was possibly the fact that the ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... "has bounced across the room from Jones's picture and set fire to Turner's sea." Turner did not come in again for a day and a half, and then in the last moment allowed for painting, he glazed the scarlet seal he had put on his picture, and shaped it into a buoy." ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... St. Lawrence has a steamship channel four hundred and fifty feet wide and thirty feet deep from side to side. In the days when high insurance rates were established against the St. Lawrence route, there was practically not a lighthouse nor channel buoy from Tadousac to the Straits of Belle Isle. To-day between Montreal and Quebec are ninety-nine lighted buoys, one hundred and ninety-five can buoys; between Quebec and the Straits, three light ships, eighty gas buoys, one whistling buoy, seventy-five can buoys, four submarine bell ships, ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... to the 'Impregnable,' and I returned every evening to the mother-ship. The two brigs which trained her boys were the 'Nautilus' and the 'Pilot.' I was drafted to the latter for three months. Speaking generally, daily sea trips were taken—that is to say, that after making sail and slipping the buoy, we would leave Plymouth Sound for the Channel, drill all day, and return to our mooring in the evening, weary and fatigued, although, even then, we had to scrub and wash clothes. On two occasions we took longer trips, first to Dartmouth, and then to Portsmouth. ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling

... ears like thine such words as these have no meaning." But made answer the reverend man, and he smiled as he answered,— "Daughter, thy words are not idle; nor are they to me without meaning, Feeling is deep and still; and the word that floats on the surface Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor is hidden. Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions. Gabriel truly is near thee; for not far away to the southward, On the banks of the Teche, are the towns of St. Maur and St. Martin. There the long-wandering ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... congealed, though but for an instant or two. Then he threw off hat and coat, and stood alert and resolute to dive to Julius's rescue when he rose, while those who manned the yacht prepared to cast a buoy and line. Not a ripple or flash of water passed unheeded; the flood of sunshine rose fuller and fuller over the world; moments grew to minutes, and minutes swelled to hopeless hours under the doctor's ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban

... not see thy cruel nails Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs. The sea, with such a storm as his bare head In hell-black night endur'd, would have buoy'd up, And quench'd the stelled fires; yet, poor old heart, He holp the heavens to rain. If wolves had at thy gate howl'd that stern time, Thou shouldst have said, 'Good porter, turn the key.' All cruels else subscrib'd:—but I shall see The winged ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... milk and occasionally fresh meat. There are two horses (one a native of the island) to perform casual heavy work; the boat has a shed into which she is reluctantly hauled by means of a windlass to spend the rowdy months; there is a buoy in the bay to which she is greatly attached when she is not sulking in the shed or coyly submitting to the caresses ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... Rock, or Bell Rock, is a dangerous reef in the North Sea, east of the Firth of Tay, in Scotland, and twelve miles from all land. The story of the forethought of the abbot of Aberbrothok in placing the bell on the buoy as a warning to sailors is an ancient one, and one old writer thus gives the tradition made use of by ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... we were moored to a buoy in the middle of the waterway, with all sorts of shipping round us, mostly French warships, there being at least a dozen of that nationality, the only British men-of-war being the two we saw enter. The transparency and greenness of the water ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... rest being abandoned as unfit for use, owing to its twisted condition. Their work was over, but an unfortunate accident marred its conclusion. On the evening of the 2nd the first mate, while on the water unshackling a buoy, was struck in the back by a fluke of the ship's anchor as she drifted, and so severely injured that he lay for many weeks at Cagliari. Jenkin's knowledge of languages made him useful as an interpreter; but in mentioning this ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... disappointed to find that she was not nearly as large as the vessel described by the Indian; but by her appearance he judged she must have been under water many, many years. All the iron work was eaten away and the timbers badly decayed. He gave the signal, "kedge and buoy." The answer from above was "all-right," and soon after he grabbed a kedge that slowly and silently descended near him. Having fastened it to the wreck, he signaled "haul away," and was soon to the ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... upon his head, from whence it shone like a star, and the golden plumes which Vulcan had set thick about the ridge of the helmet, waved all around it. Then Achilles made trial of himself in his armour to see whether it fitted him, so that his limbs could play freely under it, and it seemed to buoy him up as ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... to one side of the mark-buoy, so fur as I was concerned. I'd cruised with cranks afore and I thought I could stand this one—ten dollars' worth of him, anyhow. Bluster and big talk may scare some folks, but to me they're like Aunt ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... sufficiently to erase the budget deficit. The release of substantial development aid from the Netherlands - which had been held up due to the government's failure to initiate economic reforms - also has helped buoy the economy. Suriname's economic prospects for the medium term will depend on continued implementation of economic restructuring. The new government elected in the fall of 1996 has sent mixed signals about ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... till the sun showed over the eastern skyline. Its fiery rays dispelled the clinging vapors, and there, before our eyes, like a picture, lay the shrimp fleet, spread out in a great half-moon, the tips of the crescent fully three miles apart, and each junk moored fast to the buoy of a shrimp-net. But there was no stir, no sign ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London

... turn in the humblest tour of duty with the meanest of them, mounting guard himself, it is said, on more than one occasion. Above all, he displayed that inflexible constancy, which enables the strong mind in the hour of darkness and peril to buoy up the sinking spirits around it. A remarkable instance of this fixedness of purpose occurred at ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... could see the flash of the revolving light on Windmill Rock, and the constant rays from the lightship on the Rips. So that by day or night you could never be lonesome, unless, perhaps, on some thick night, when you could see no light, and could only hear a grating knell from the bell-buoy, and could seem to see, through the white darkness, the waters ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin

... cursee thee, foole, despise thee, spurne thee, But thou art a thing not worthie of mine anger. A frend! a dog: a whore had byn more secreat, A common whore a closer Cabinet. Confest! upon what safety, thou trembling aspyn, Upon what hope? Is there ought left to buoy us But our owne confidence? What frends now follow us, That have the powre to strike of theis misfortunes, But our owne constant harts? Where were my eies, My understanding, when I tooke unto me A fellow ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... the thunder of two car-ronades, which, loaded with iron nuts and bolts, had been in readiness, one on the poop, the other on the topgallant forecastle—and the girl succeeded in reaching the ship's side in time to take hold of a life-buoy secured to a line which was thrown to her, and Wright, jumping overboard, helped the poor creature up over the ...
— The Adventure Of Elizabeth Morey, of New York - 1901 • Louis Becke

... way," said the man; and as the order was given to slip the anchor, with a small buoy left to mark its place, the informer secured his boat to one of the ringbolts astern, and then drew close in; and mounted over the bulwark to stand beside ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... anything that was not fine," returned Enoch sadly. "But I cannot bear to have you buoy ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... Within two minutes after, there was a special stir and movement on the pier, a corresponding stir and movement on board the trim craft, a swishing of great ropes, and a tooting of whistles. White foam churned astern of her. A comic-supplement-looking pelican on a buoy off to port flapped her a fantastic farewell. The blockade-defying yacht Polly was off for blue waters and the ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... as unfavourable as ever and I take a hobbling morning walk upon the rampart, where I am edified by a good-natured officer who shows me the place, marked by a buoy, where the Royal George went down "with twice four hundred men."[482] Its hull forms a shoal which is still in existence, a neglect scarcely reconcilable with the splendour of our proceedings where our ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... he was sitting Griswold could see the trim little catboat, resplendent in polished brass and mahogany, riding at its buoy beyond the lawn landing-stage. He cared little for the water, but the invitation pointed to a delightful prolongation of the basking process which had come to be one of the chief luxuries of the ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... in a tone indicative of a breaking heart, "why couldst thou have thus abandoned me? Didst thou quit the old man to follow some youthful lover, who will buoy thee up with bright hopes, and then deceive thee? O Agnes—my darling! hast thou left me to perish without a soul ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... rode in the breeches-buoy, Samuel insisted on playing the sole survivor of a shipwreck, too, and went climbing stiffly and lumberingly up ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund

... a buoy to be fastened to the rock. The buoy floated back and forth in the shallow water. A strong chain kept it ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin

... stomach of the whale, and as it is a great object of trade, the people contrive to take the whales with barbed iron darts, which, once they are fixed in the body, cannot come out again. A long cord is attached to this end, to that a small buoy which floats on the surface, so that when the whale dies they know where to find it. They then draw the body ashore and extract the ambergris from the stomach and the oil from the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... so wild it was impossible to send out the life-savers' boats, so the guards were making ready the breeches buoy. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope

... accustomed chug of the engines had fallen to quarter speed, leaving an uncanny stillness throughout the ship. Silently we slipped between the long piers, drew up on the waterside town, seized the buoy, and came to rest. All around us lay other ships of all sizes, motionless on the inky water. The reflections from their lights seemed to be thrust into the depths, like stilts; and the few lights from the town reflected shiveringly across. ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... expected she would have been overset or split in pieces; but, by the blessing of God, she got out of this bay, to which they gave the name of Unfortunate Bay. Next day they cast anchor towards evening in the channel of the straits, but finding the anchor had no buoy attached, and the weather being too violent to allow of supplying one, they had again to weigh, and put before the wind, and at length got into the bay of Cordes, fourteen or fifteen leagues farther ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... Sub-Lieut. R. A. F. Montgomerie, R.A., jumped overboard from the bridge, a height of twenty-five feet, to his assistance, swam to him, got hold of the man, and hauled him on to his back, then swam with him to where he supposed the life-buoy would be; but, seeing no relief, he states that after keeping him afloat some time, he told the man to keep himself afloat whilst he took his clothes off. He had got his coat and shirt off, and was in the act of taking off his trousers when Hocken, in sinking, caught him ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... Abbot of Aberbrothok Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock; On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung, And over the waves its ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... striking of the clock; and have found myself able to wake at the proposed time, almost without one failure in twenty instances where I have made the trial. But my sleep was obviously unsound, and certainly unsatisfying. The desire to awake at a certain moment or period, seemed to buoy me above the usual state of healthy sleep, and render me liable to awake at the slightest disturbance. Were it not for sacrificing the ease of others, it would be far better, in such cases, to rely upon ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott

... mass of green of various degrees of intensity. As we approached we began to make out more distinctly the sugar plantations, the groves of coconut trees and casuarinas, the features of the town, and the dense mass of shipping in the harbour. We hove to off the Bell Buoy (denoting the outer anchorage) for the steamer which towed us to our berth ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... out as they go down with the tide. 'Who's that?' says one. 'That! Why, that's John Silver. I knowed him well,' says another. And you can hear the chains a-jangle as you go about and reach for the other buoy. Now, that's about where we are, every mother's son of us, thanks to him, and Hands, and Anderson, and other ruination fools of you. And if you want to know about number four, and that boy, why, shiver my timbers! isn't he a hostage? Are we a-going to waste a hostage? No, not ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... wondered at after this that poor Jeffreys felt the weight upon him heavier than ever. As long as he had known where Forrester was, and had the hope of hearing from time to time how he fared, he had been able to buoy himself up with the hope of some day making up to his victim for the injury he had inflicted; but when, suddenly, Forrester dropped hopelessly out of his life, the burden of his conscience ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... rode at a furious pace upon the waves, which filled one with an indescribable sense of pride and exultation. As she plunged into a foaming valley, how I loved to see the green waves, bordered deep with white, come rushing on astern, to buoy her upward at their pleasure, and curl about her as she stooped again, but always own her for their haughty mistress still! On, on we flew, with changing lights upon the water, being now in the blessed region of fleecy skies; a bright sun lighting us ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... grating to the break of the poop, to the great benefit of her complexion. She was the only lady who ventured on deck that day—for the weather was so thick that there was nothing to see, beyond an occasional buoy marking out the position of a sandbank, a grimy Geordie, loaded down to her covering-board, driving along up the river under a brace of patched and sooty topsails, or an inward-bound south-spainer in tow of a tug; but this ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... steel shot, steamed on ahead of the Brooklyn to attack the Tennessee; but Craven, thinking he saw a movement on the part of the ram to get out of the way, together with the seemingly too narrow space between the fatal buoy and the shore for manoeuvre in case of need, gave the order to starboard the helm, and head directly for the watchful Tennessee, waiting with lock-strings in hand to salute the monitor as she closed—gallant foeman worthy of her steel! So near and yet so far, for hardly ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various

... the lead at 5 A.M. on Saturday morning. But a sad casualty occurred; we lost a poor fellow overboard, one of the seamen. He ought not to have been lost, and I blame myself. He was under the davits of the boat doing something, and the rope by which he was holding parted; the life-buoy almost knocked him as he passed the quarter of the vessel, and I, instead of jumping overboard, and shouting to the Melanesians to do the same, rushed to the falls. The boat was on the spot where his cap was floating ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... unusually quiet. They kept to themselves and had little to say. Miriam and her three particular friends were carefully avoided by their classmates. Miriam, herself, felt the snub at once. Had she, after all, made a mistake, and was she losing ground in the class? But her vanity was like a life buoy to her sinking hopes. She refused to see that the other girls ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... because the particles of the gas with which it is inflated are not acted upon by the earth's attraction, but because the air outside being bulk for bulk heavier than the air inside, its particles press in below the balloon and buoy it up, until it reaches a stratum of the atmosphere where, the pressure being less, the air outside is no heavier than the air within—a fact which rather proves than disproves the universal action ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness

... dragged onto the upturned boat," said the fireman. "He had a life-buoy and a life-preserver. He clung there for a moment and then he slid off again. For a second time he was dragged from the icy water. Then he took off his life-preserver, tossed the life-buoy on the inky waters, and slipped into the water again ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... buoy up the sorely-tried loyalists appeared, when Canadians who had been domiciled in all parts of the States returned to defend their native land on hearing of the great danger she was undoubtedly in. Having lived many years under the shadow of the Stars and Stripes, they ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius

... After one the captain let off a rocket, also one of Holmes's patent "flare-ups." This is a contrivance for saving life during the dark. It consists of a box filled with potassium, which is pierced at both ends and thrown into the sea fastened to a life-buoy. In contact with the water the metal ignites, and for about half-an-hour sheds a radiance for a long way. It is visible for miles off. If a man falls overboard he knows then where to ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton

... waves that came tumbling one over the other, she saw something that was neither boat nor buoy nor seal. It was a queer-looking thing, with a wild head, a long waving tail, and something like arms that seemed to paddle it along. The waves tumbled it about, so Fancy could not see very well: but, the longer she looked, the surer she was ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... were now nearly worn out with the severe cold and fatigue, but we pulled hard, keeping as close inshore as we could. It was necessary, at the end of one reach, to cross over to the other side of the river; and, in so doing, we were driven by the tide against a large buoy, when the wherry filled and upset in an instant. We both contrived to cling on to her, as she was turned bottom up; and away we were swept down among the drifting ice, the snowstorm still continuing to beat down on our heads. I was nearly ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... lunch at noon under wind-beaten oaks on the edge of a low bluff, or among the wild plum bushes on a spit of white sand, while the sails of the coasting schooners gleam in the sunlight, and the tolling of the bell-buoy comes landward ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... explanation, a great black wall rose out of the deep on the port bow. It was a pinnacle rock, high as the ship's masts, but only a few feet wide at sea level, and the Kansas sped past this ugly monitor as though it were a buoy ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... of rude regional anatomy. I have seen a manikin of Japanese make traced all over with lines, and points marking their intersection. By this their doctors are guided in the performance of acupuncture, marking the safe places to thrust in needles, as we buoy out our ship-channels, and doubtless indicating to learned eyes the spots where incautious meddling had led to those little accidents of shipwreck to which ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... the package, as though she were drowning and grasping at a life buoy. Even the surprise at his hasty departure could not prevent her, however, from literally tearing the wrapper off, and in the sheltering shadow of the table cloth pouring forth the little white pellets in her lap, counting them as a miser counts ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... events related in the last chapter a little scene took place on board a fishing lugger, lying swinging to a buoy in one of the rocky coves of the Cornish coast. A small boat hung behind, in which, dimly seen in the gloom of a soft dark night, sat a sturdy-looking man, four others being seated in the lugger, ready to cast ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... time previous retarded the steamer's progress towards her destination, was just on the turn. The vessel, according to the statement of two of the seamen and one of the firemen saved, had got round the buoy on the north end of the Dutchman's Bank, and had proceeded up the river as far as the tower on Puffin Island; when suddenly the steam got so low that the engine would not keep her on her proper course. When asked, why there was not steam on, the fireman said that a deal ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... upper part of the buoy there is affixed a firmly supported tube carrying at its extremity the lantern, c. The gas compressed to 6 or 7 atmospheres in the body of the buoy passes, before reaching the burner, into a regulator analogous ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various

... their toy boats. Finally Mr. Merryweather declared that there should be no more delay. The boats were carefully placed in the Ark, a great white rowboat manned by the Chief and Phil, who proceeded to row out leisurely to a white-flagged buoy at some distance from the shore. Gerald and Jack in one canoe, Gertrude and Peggy in another, were stationed at either side of the course; while Margaret and Claud Belleville, in a Rangeley boat, were so placed as ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards

... was overboard, fast enough—I heard a sort of gurgle as he came to the surface, and some sort of attempt at a cry. Before he went under again, the tide drifted his head like a little black buoy across the ray of our ridin' light. So overboard I jumped, ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the fair widow were nevertheless occasionally interrupted by others not quite so agreeable. Strange to say, he fully believed what Smallbones had asserted about his being carried out by the tide to the Nab buoy and he canvassed the question in his mind, whether there was not something supernatural in the affair, a sort of interposition of Providence in behalf of the lad, which was to be considered as a warning to himself not to attempt anything further. He was frightened, although his feeling ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... falling off there, as the impassive man touched the tiller, obeying an instinct, seeing into the dark beyond. Now a bit of cliff loomed in the fog, again a shingled roof or a cluster of firs, and the whistling buoy at the harbor's mouth began to bellow sadly,—reminders all of the shell of that world towards which they sailed. And at last the harbor, with its echoing bells and fog-whistles, the protesting shrieks of its man-machines; suddenly the colossal hull of a schooner at anchor. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... our little vessel through her paces that night, and chose the more ignominious, but also more comfortable course of putting into a harbor. Consequently after plunging through the rips off Bass Head, and cutting inside the big bell buoy off its entrance, we ran into Southwest Harbor and came to anchor. In the evening many of the party thought it wise to improve the last opportunity for several months, as we then supposed, to attend church, ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley

... water, breeches buoy and all that sort of thing," said Stover, remembering something in Dickens. "I was the only one saved, me and ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... with despatches from the Earl to Her Majesty's Council, and am lodging at Westminster in a house that faces the abbey. It is one of my cousin Edward's houses, and you will see the Vere cognizance over the door. Call there at one hour after noon, and I will have a talk with you; but do not buoy yourselves up with hopes as to your going with me." So saying, with a friendly nod of his head Francis Vere continued his ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... her surprise she heard his voice, deep and sonorous as the bell-buoy that was moored ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... to render you dissatisfied with the affairs of everyday life, as the latter are useful and necessary for you, and you must never shirk a lesson, however disagreeable to you it may be. Let the joy arising from the unfolding consciousness buoy you up and nerve you for the trials of life, and not make you dissatisfied and disgusted. All is good, and everything has its place. Many of the students who practice these exercises will in time wish to know more. Rest assured that when the time comes we will see that you do ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka

... religion are the dynamic and the motives that bear men on and buoy them up to do the toil, bear the burdens, stand in the fight of daily living; here are the visions that lift our eyes from the desk and the machine, from profits and discounts, and help us to see the worthy prizes ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope

... spirit. There are no public buildings of note, or respectable architectural designs; no harbor improvements, except a lighthouse each on the beautiful summit rock-peaks of Cape Messurado and Cape Palmas—not even a buoy to indicate the shoal; no pier, except a little one at Palmas; nor an attempt at a respectable wharfage for canoes and lighters (the large keels owned by every trading vessel, home and foreign, which touches there.) And, with ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany

... the backstays, to feel if they bore an equal strain: all at once the ship gave a heavy weather lurch, the captain lost his footing, and was overboard in a moment. I instantly sprang aft, cut away the life-buoy, and knowing that he was but an indifferent swimmer, jumped overboard after him. As I said before, the sea was running high, and a few minutes elapsed before I caught sight of him, rising on the crest ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... and the ship flew up in the wind, "Mind, skipper, or you will run down Old Betty." I was astonished at the insinuation against my noble captain that he was likely to behave rude to a lady, but my suspicions were soon removed, when I saw Old Betty was a buoy, floating on the waters, adorned with a furze bush. Old Betty danced merrily on the rippling wave with her furze bush by way of a feather, with shreds of dried sea weed hanging to it forming ribbons to complete the head dress of the lady buoy. The nearer we approached, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various

... Buoy'd on a sea of fancy, Genius rises, And like the rare Leviathan surprises; But the small fry of scribblers!—tiny souls! They wriggle thro' ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger

... sloop's jib and mainsail and started on his journey eight miles seaward, with orders to make fast on arrival to the spar buoy which lay within a few hundred yards of the Ledge, and there wait until the tide turned, when she could drop into position to unload. The tug with all of us on board would follow when we had taken ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... very nearly gone. She had even begun to have a very few things charged again at Anderson's. Sometimes her father brought home a little money, but she understood well enough that their financial circumstances were wellnigh desperate. However, she had an enormous faith in her father that went far to buoy her up. While she felt the most intense compassion for him that he should be so hard pressed, it never occurred to her that it could be due to any fault or lack of ability in him, and she had, in reality, no doubt whatever of ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... un, poor buoy—our Harry, as you used to play wi' when you was little—'twas they as aggravated un so he couldn't abear it, afore ever ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... they walked to the diving chamber. Their progress would be easier in the water, which would buoy them up in a measure. Now they were ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton

... bell-buoy ringing— How long ago it seems! (Oh, it's weary, weary waiting, love.) And ever still, its knelling Crashes in upon my dreams. The banns were read, my frock was sewn; Since then two seasons' winds have blown— And ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... from Rose Beacon they passed in sight of another beacon, and of a village which they call Newworke, in which is a small castle like unto that at Rose Beacon. Here the sea began to expatiate, and about three leagues from hence was the lowest buoy of the river. And now Whitelocke was got forth into the open German Ocean, a sea wide and large, oft-times highly rough and boisterous and full of danger, especially in these parts of it, and as Whitelocke shortly found it to be. Suddenly the wind grew ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... cursed dark spell. When I came below, two or three minutes before, we were heading into The Race, west-nor'west, having left Cerberus Shoal whistling buoy to port about fifteen minutes earlier. Get her back on that course, if you please, Mr. Swain, and proceed at half-speed. Don't neglect your soundings. I'll join you as ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... from the humble wherry to the ostentatious puffy little steamers who collect the cargoes of the North Sea fleet and rush them to market against all competitors. The market opens at five A. M., summer and winter. Moored to a buoy, a short distance from the shore, are always to be found one or more Dutch fishing-boats, certain inalienable rights permitting "no more than three" to be at any or all times tied up here. There is among the native watermen themselves a guarded jealousy and contempt for these "furriners," and should ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun

... still another singular apparatus—the use of which has not been determined by the naturalist. It is a sort of vesicular appendage, capable of being inflated with air; and supposed to serve as an atmospheric buoy to assist in sustaining the bird in its flight. The inflation has been observed to take place under exposure to a hot sun; and, therefore, it is natural to infer, that the rarefaction of the air has something to do in causing [the bird to use this organ]. As the adjutant often ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... weakness wraps itself up, and it is a sure sign of infirmity to have many wants. We live, just as we swim, all the better for being but lightly burdened. For in this stormy life as on the stormy ocean heavy things sink us and light things buoy us up. It is in this respect, I find, that the gods more especially surpass men, namely that they lack nothing: wherefore he of mankind whose needs are smallest is most like ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... stern-faced aristocrat on the box to drive us to Dulwich. We will then collect a few of your things in a bag, have the rest off by train, come back in the taxi, and go and bite a chop at the Carlton. This is a momentous day in our careers, Comrade Jackson. We must buoy ourselves up.' ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... out of there, they pointed her nose nor'west by nor' as though Iceland were only a buoy in a yacht-race.... And the wind held.... The summer nights of the North were on them, the unearthly beauty of the light.... There was no world.... They were sailing on the Milky Way.... Only the gurgle of the water at the bows, the whush ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... to be calm, yet he found his voice shaking a little as he spoke. The time was not yet ripe for his outbreak. The climactic moment was still some distance away. But he could feel it emerging from the mist just as a pilot sights the bell-buoy that marks his ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... Noah?" asked Captain Zeb of the lightkeeper. "That her off back of the spar buoy? Let me have a squint through that glass; my eyes ain't what they used to be, when I could see a whale spout two miles t'other side of the sky line and tell how many barrels of ile he'd try out, fust look. Takes practice to keep your eyesight so's you can ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... but his chivalrous aim would have been accomplished. Adrian's honour would have been safe. But this simple way out never occurred to him. Apparently he thought it wiser to sacrifice his career and remain in London so as to buoy Doria up with false hope, all the time praying God to burn down St. Quentin's Mansions (where he lived) and Adrian's portmanteau of rubbish and himself ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... of the death-bell is often supposed to be heard at sea before a wreck, and this idea may be either associated with the bell-buoy which marks many sunken, dangerous rocks, or with the religious ceremonies ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... but the strain was awful. A mass of ice, hundreds of tons weight, was tearing down towards the bow. There was no hope of resisting it. Time was not even afforded to attach a buoy or log to the cable, so it was let slip, and thus the Dolphin's best bower was ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... to his knees. When he went through the loose sand, his great bony hands on his thighs, he looked as if he were walking on all fours. His misshapen body was like a pair of bellows, his head resting between his broad shoulders, moved up and down like a buoy; every breath sounded like a steam-whistle, and could be heard from afar. Heavens, how ugly he looked! He was like a crouching goblin, who could make himself as big as he pleased, and see over all the ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... steady, in a short time the Stella was near enough to enable Murray to distinguish Terence Adair and another person, in addition to those who had gone away in the yacht. As the jib and foresail were taken off her, she shot up to the buoy. Murray hastened down to the landing-place, in time to meet Adair and the stranger, whom Archie pulled on shore in ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... he whooped. "It's the life-savers! Mother, I'm going down. Maybe there's something I can do. I want to do something again! Maybe some poor devil coming ashore in the breeches buoy—help him ashore— ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... tones, his face set, his heart tortured with the thought of the long months and years of this that might be before him. The world seemed most unfriendly to him these days. Not that it had ever been over kind, yet always before his native wit and happy temperament had been able to buoy him up and carry him through hopefully. Now, however, hope seemed gone. This war might last till he was too old to carry out any of his dreams and pull himself out of the place where fortune had dropped him. Gradually one thought had been shaping itself clearly ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill

... I met the then Premier, Count Romanones, a man of great talent and impressive personality. He told me of the finding of a quantity of high explosives, marked by a little buoy, in one of the secluded bays of the coast. And that day a German had been arrested who had mysteriously appeared at a Spanish port dressed as a workman. The workman took a first class passage to Madrid, went to the best hotel and bought a complete outfit of fine clothes. Undoubtedly ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... the remora to the head of the canoe by a strong line of considerable length. When the remora perceives a fish, which he can do at a considerable distance, he darts away with astonishing rapidity, and fastens upon it. The Indian lets go the line, to which a buoy is attached to mark the course the remora has taken, and follows in his canoe until he thinks the game is exhausted; he then draws it gradually in, the remora still adhering to his prey. Oviedo says, "I have known a turtle caught by this method, of a bulk and weight ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... ruminated, "I'll have the old ship wrecked, and the lifesavers will put out the life buoy; and we'll bring the passengers ashore. Crickey! that'll be just the thing. I'll save 'em all ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill

... floated out to the Nab buoy and back again, when I—" Here Mr Vanslyperken stopped short, and he felt a dread of supernatural powers in the lad, when he thought of what had passed ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... height they liked, from four feet to thirty. Except with leave, no boy was permitted to swim beyond the harbour mouth into the open. But leave was constantly being applied for, and as constantly granted; and perhaps every boy, at some time or other, cast wistful glances at the black buoy bobbing a mile out at sea, and wondered when he, like Pontifex and Mansfield, and other of the Sixth, should be able to wear the image of it on his belt, and call ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... the "pearl oysters" belong. The name is apt, for the expanded valves are not unlike the form of a bird in flight. The illustration shows a rare species, several specimens of which were found attached to the mooring-chain of a buoy by what is known as the "byssus," a bunch of tough fibres which passes through an hiatus in the margins of the valves. Like the king's daughter of the Psalmist, PTERIA PEASEI is "all glorious within," the nacreous surface, margined with lustrous black, shining ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... the first volume, was published the second volume of my History, containing the period from the death of Charles I. till the Revolution. This performance happened to give less displeasure to the whigs, and was better received. It not only rose itself, but helped to buoy up ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... and the glory and gloss of Summer were now lavished over the happy earth. In some measure the usual calmness of his demeanour had returned to Aram; he had mastered those moody fits we have referred to, which had so afflicted his affectionate visitors; and he now seemed to prepare and buoy himself up against that awful ordeal of life and death, which he was about so soon to pass. Yet he,—the ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... ship from her position I respectfully suggest that Mr. I. Hanscom be sent down with suitable material for ways, ready for laying down, and india-rubber camels to buoy her up. I think there is no insuperable obstacle to her being put afloat, providing a gang of ten or twelve good ship carpenters be sent down with the Naval Constructor, as her boilers and engines appear to have sustained no injury. A valuable ship may thus be saved ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... "Don't try to buoy me up with false hopes. It is kind of you, dear; but I see things clearly now.... You came back to me, and I am content. I want ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... into Plymouth by stress of weather. She had been out seven weeks, and had many sick on board. The gale increasing in the afternoon, it was determined to run for greater safety to Catwater; but the buoy at the extremity of the reef off Mount Batten having broke adrift, of which the pilots were not aware, she touched on the shoal, and carried away her rudder. Thus rendered unmanageable, she fell off, and grounded under the citadel, ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... in all the great rivers of the world." Then he added, "the water of the sluggish Ouse is the sweetest of them all." Oddly enough his name was "ZINCKE," though evidently he must be a first-rate "Zwimmer." With genuine love for his old school, he might have added that he wished he was a Buoy again. But he seems to have got ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various

... Strike—strike—the wind will never change again.' And Gareth hearing ever stronglier smote, And hewed great pieces of his armour off him, But lashed in vain against the hardened skin, And could not wholly bring him under, more Than loud Southwesterns, rolling ridge on ridge, The buoy that rides at sea, and dips and springs For ever; till at length Sir Gareth's brand Clashed his, and brake it utterly to the hilt. 'I have thee now;' but forth that other sprang, And, all unknightlike, writhed his wiry arms Around him, till he felt, despite his mail, Strangled, but straining even ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... reading "The Bell Buoy" and "The Old Man" over and over again-my custom with Kipling's work—and saving up the rest for other leisurely and luxurious meals. A bell-buoy is a deeply impressive fellow-being. In these many recent trips up and down the Sound in the Kanawha he has talked to me ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... and Ted tried to get interested in a game of chess, but with little success. Bill Witt sought with mouth organ and banjo to buoy up the spirits of his downcast mates and succeeded poorly. Noon mess was served at eleven forty-five and even Jean Cartier, as he dispensed canned beans, brown bread, stewed fruit and tea, forgot to smile as ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll

... was threatening them with a club. They merely flashed on the screen of the mist and were out of sight. It was evident that Mr. Wagg had determined to grab a couple of straws, at any rate, in a desperate attempt to buoy himself officially in the ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... holds our men we passed through divers warlike and sentimental enterprises which lay across our path, and while we relate the story of these adventures, the reader must wait a few moments before we disclose the American flag. But the promise of its coming may buoy him up while the preliminary episodes ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White

... hatch with him. At first we think nothing of the incident, as he is a good swimmer and the current is with him. As soon as the startled people realise what has happened the steamer's engines are reversed and a boat is lowered. We call out to De-deed to swim to the buoy, but he doesn't see it or doesn't understand. The black head gets smaller in the distance; it disappears, and comes up again. Down it goes for the second time. A strange, constricted feeling comes into our throats ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... we have a law on which we can rely, and find at last, that this law shall inflict a punishment precedent to the promulgation, and try us by maxims unheard of till the very moment of the prosecution. If I sail on the Thames, and split my vessel on an anchor, in case there be no buoy to give warning, the party shall pay me damages: but if the anchor be marked out, then is the striking on it at my own peril. Where is the mark set upon this crime? where the token by which I should discover it? It has lain ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... a noble and vertuous part, to take a falling man to your protection, and buoy him up again to ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont

... Portsmouth Lodge. They had dined comfortably, and their pipes were lit. For a time neither of them spoke. Below them, beyond the wall which bounded the lawn, lay the waters of the bay, where the Spindrift, Major Kent's yacht, hung motionless over her mooring-buoy. The eyes of both men ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... to sheer across to her, but no sooner did we get into the current again than it mercilessly drove us back. Beaten again! And again we tried the same manoeuvre with the same result. Now we saw them lowering a buoy from the ship—if we could only reach it we were saved; but we did not reach it. They were not exactly blessings that we poured on those on board. Why the deuce could they not bear down to us when they saw the ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... one for my father!—my poor, hungry father!" cried little Baptiste, and drew up his last hook. It came full baited, and the line was out of the water clear away to his outer buoy! ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson

... quarter of a mile, he found a basin of four fathoms of water, large enough to take a ship in, and, fortunately, it was in close proximity to a portion of the reef that was always bare, when a heavy sea was not beating over it. Here he dropped a buoy, for he had come provided with several fragments of spars for this purpose; and, on his return, the channel was similarly marked off, at all the critical points. On the flat rock, in the inlet, one of the men was left, standing ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... raging main for lo! these many years, are now favoring me with their advice concerning the navigation of ice-yachts. Archie, if you're willing to enter against such a handicap of brains and barnacles, I'll race you on a beat up to the point yonder, then on the ten mile run afore the wind to the buoy opposite the Club, and back to the cove by Dillaway's. And we'll make it a case of ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... A strong buoy, reinforced by a couple of spars, was thrown out on to the surface of the ocean. The end of the line was solidly struck beneath, and only submitted to the ebb and flow of the surges, so that it would ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... twenty feet in length, duly entered before the time. All were to sail in the same class; the first prize was a silver vase, and the second a marine glass. The course was to be from the judge's boat, in Belfast harbor, by Turtle Head, around the buoy on Stubb's Point Ledge, leaving it on the port hand, and back to the starting-point. The sailing regulations already adopted by the club were to be in full force. The report was accepted, and the members looked forward with eager ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic

... them," Jack answered, throwing the ring buoy with true aim. "Stand by to help them aboard. ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson

... friendly to Sir Wm. and he to me, and complies much with me, but I know he envies me, and I do not value him. To the office again, and in the evening walked to Deptford (Cooper with me talking of mathematiques), to send a fellow to prison for cutting of buoy ropes, and to see the difference between the flags sent in now-a-days, and I find the old ones, which were much cheaper, to be wholly as good. So I took one of a sort with me, and Mr. Wayth accompanying of me a good way, talking of the faults of the Navy, I walked ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... is now to enclose the entire shoal. The leads sink one end of the net perpendicularly to the ground; the corks buoy up the other to the surface of the water. When it has been taken all round the fish, the two extremities are made fast, and the shoal is then imprisoned within an oblong barrier of network surrounding ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins



Words linked to "Buoy" :   conical buoy, spar buoy, buoyant, whistle buoy, sustain, support, buoy up, breeches buoy, reference, point of reference, hold, bell buoy, nun



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org