Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Derrick   Listen
noun
Derrick  n.  
1.
A mast, spar, or tall frame, supported at the top by stays or guys, and usually pivoted at the base, with suitable tackle for hoisting heavy weights, such as stones in building.
2.
(Mining) The pyramidal structure or tower over a deep drill hole, such as that of an oil well (also called an oil derrick.
Derrick crane, a combination of the derrick and the crane, having facility for hoisting and also for swinging the load horizontally.






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 |





"Derrick" Quotes from Famous Books



... came to a wall of rock which was the head of it. This we scaled, how I do not know, by cracks and fissures, the stronger dragging up the weaker by means of the tow-rope which by the mercy of God we carried with us. There we lost Francis Derrick, who fell a great way and crushed his skull on a boulder. ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... of the specks that had appeared on the horizon resolved itself into a handling-machine, a thing like an oversized contragravity-tank, with a bulldozer-blade, a stubby derrick-boom instead of a gun, and jointed, claw-tipped arms to the sides. The smaller dots grew into personal armor—egg-shaped things that sprouted arms and grab-hooks and pushers in all directions. The man with the grizzled beard began talking rapidly into his ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr

... them after cooking would in such an event be an exceedingly tedious one; but an iron framework basket, of rather slender bars is made to fit the tank loosely, and is lowered and raised by means of a small derrick placed over the tank. This frame, which holds about 300 pounds, is filled with lobsters at the edge of the wharf from the floating cars, and is then carried to the tank and lowered into it after the water it contains has reached the desired temperature, that ...
— The Lobster Fishery of Maine - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Vol. 19, Pages 241-265, 1899 • John N. Cobb

... tower is built much like an oil well derrick. Inside it are two steel rails to fill grooves in the rocket. These guide the rocket much as rifling in a gun barrel guides a bullet. Prof. Goddard, when teaching at Princeton in 1912, evolved the idea of shooting a rocket to the moon by means of successive charges of explosive ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various

... Several vessels have been devoted to this nursing duty and are known as parent ships to the waterplane service. All that is requisite when the time arrives for the use of the seaplane is to lift it bodily by derrick or crane from its cradle and to lower it upon the water. It will be remembered that the American naval authorities made an experiment with a scheme for directly launching the warplane from the deck of a battleship in the orthodox, as well as ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot

... is let in—for contrast perhaps—on the huge characters composing the owner's name, mar its fair surface; and a stout, heavy mast placed well abaft the centre of the vessel, and curved at its upper end, the better to form an overhanging derrick to hoist the sail by. The sail is made of any number of cloths laced together vertically—not sewn—by which method each cloth has a bellying property and wrinkled appearance, independent of its neighbours, ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... of the Dawn, arranging some papers, when I heard a well-known voice, on deck, calling out to the stevedores and riggers, in a tone of authority—"Come, bear a hand, and lay aft; off that forecastle; to this derrick,—who ever saw a derrick standing before, after the hatches were battened down, in a first-class ship!—a regular A. No. 1? Bear a hand—bear a hand; you've got an old sea-dog ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... my bucko," Larry returned evenly. "All I need is a man who has plenty of money and a moderate willingness to listen. I've sold pictures of an oil derrick on a stock certificate, exact value nothing at all, for a masterpiece's price—so I guess I could sell a ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... (1804-1849). That comedian, the friend of the elder Booth, acted the part for the first time on May 24, 1828, at Albany. Charles B. Parsons, who afterward acted in many theatres as Rip, and ultimately became a preacher, was, on that night, the performer of Derrick. Jefferson's predecessors as Rip Van Winkle were remarkably clever men—Flynn, Parsons, Burke, Chapman, Hackett, Yates, and William Isherwood. But it remained for Jefferson to do with that character what no one else had ever thought of doing—to lift it above the level of the tipsy rustic and ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... Berner from Bernier, Bartram from Bertran, Farrant from Fernand, Terry and Terriss from Thierry, the French form of Ger. Dietrich (Theodoric), which, through Dutch, has given also Derrick. Garner, from Ger. Werner, is our Garner and Warner, though these have other origins (pp. 154, 185). Dru, from Drogo, has given Drew, with dim. Druitt (Chapter V), and Druce, though the latter may also ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... vision he saw Herr August Carl von Staden standing on the bridge, bound at ankle, knee and hand and with a rope round his neck. From the supercargo's neck the rope led aloft through a small snatch-block fastened to the end of a cargo derrick and thence to the drum of the forward winch—a device which had been known to hoist with a jerk objects several tons heavier than Herr August Carl von Staden! This picture thus conjured in ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... terrified scream Nellie sprang upon Joe and endeavored to stop his march toward the derrick in the near distance, the ponderous arm of which stretched enticingly out some nine feet above the ground. Without swerving an inch to the right or the left, Joe hurried on toward it, while with his disengaged hand, and ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith

... visit, at Easter, but Isabelle, besides admiring his unusual beauty and identifying him with the Pope fortune, had paid him small attention. She had been absorbed then in the wretched conclusion of the Foster affair. Derrick Foster had been distressing and annoying her unmercifully. After the warm and delightful friendship of several months, after luncheons and teas, opera and concerts in the greatest harmony, Derrick Foster had had the daring, the impudence, ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... Bradford, Pa., says: The machinery used in boring one of these deep oil wells, while simple enough in itself, requires nice adjustment and skill in operating. First comes the derrick, sixty feet high, crowned by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various

... the club window the steel-workers pursued their dangerous task with leisurely and indifferent competence, while over their head a great derrick served their needs with uncanny intelligence. It dropped its chain and picked a girder from the floor. As it rose into space two figures sprang astride either end of it. The long arm swung up and out; the two "bronco-busters of the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... invitation and made some interesting remarks concerning the scientific exhibit, which he felt it incumbent upon the State to make. He stated that there was no geological survey, either national or State, as valuable as that of the State of New York, and strongly advocated that a model oil well derrick be erected. ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis

... execution of morning orders at three bells, or half-past five, the decks were cleared of all loiterers and the order passed to break away the anchors. The steam gear was already in action. The derrick had hoisted aboard the running steamer before the chaser had arrived with the boys from Seacove and their companions, and it was now stowed in her proper berth amidships. There was no other craft outboard, even ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson

... a great variety of angles; every room had a particular inclination; the gable had tilted towards the garden, after the manner of a leaning tower, and one of the former proprietors had buttressed the building from that side with a great strut of wood, like the derrick of a crane. Altogether, it had many marks of ruin; it was a house for the rats to desert; and nothing but its excellent brightness—the window-glass polished and shining, the paint well scoured, the brasses radiant, the very prop all wreathed about with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Boston Towboat Company, to undertake to raise the Maine. It was agreed that they were to be paid $1,371 a day for their work, $871 a day for the use of their regular appliances, and $500 a day in addition for the use of the great floating derrick Monarch. On the delivery in New York of the hull of the wrecked vessel, $100,000 will be paid. It is, however, provided in the contract that the total cost of the work ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 10, March 10, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... DERRICK. A single spar, supported by stays and guys, to which a purchase is attached, used in loading and unloading vessels. Also, a small crane either inside or outside of ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... Derrick,' said the Mayor, who had overheard the latter part of his remarks. 'Yet methinks that a lower tone and a more backward manner would become you better when you are speaking with your master's guests. Touching ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... amused tolerance with which an Englishman regards the great gilt coach, drawn by eight cream-colored horses, in which the king goes to open Parliament, the ordinary elephant is of enormous economic value to the country, being a combination, as it were, of a motor truck, a portable derrick, and a freight car. Almost anywhere in the back country, where the only roads are trails through the jungle, one can see "elephants a-pilin' teak in the sludgy, squdgy creeks" or being loaded with merchandise for transport into the far interior. Indeed, the ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... precise spot for breaking ground is selected somewhat by experience, but more by chance,—all "oil territory" being expected to yield oil, if properly sought. An engine-house and derrick are next put up, the latter of timber in the modern wells, but in the older ones simply of slender saplings, sometimes still rooted in the earth. A steam-engine is next set up, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... the place. One of them said that the wrecking-crew would be along with a derrick in ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... before all up and down the coast, and know the pace they can put into it, and if we don't move quick they'll scoff that ship clear down to the ceilings of her holds." A winch chain rattled, and a sling load of cloth bales swung up to one of her derrick sheaves. "My faith, look at that! They've begun to broach cargo by now, and there are some of the beggars setting to lower the surf-boats to ferry ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... the disputant might urge, is all very well in the ordinary run of life, but when the great moments come conduct wants another inspiration. Such an one would consider that holiday with a thought to spare for Stella Derrick, who during its passage saw much of Henry Thresk. The actual hour when the test came happened on one of ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason

... Haworth's ranch, just to be near the fossil bone-field. They've made another plesio-something find, and Haworth telephones that the professor couldn't be dragged away with a derrick until those bones are safely out of the ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... The thing was done on a scaffold at Westminster—most likely yours will be at the Charing. There were the Sheriffs and the Marshal's men, and what not—the executioner, with his cleaver and mallet, and his man, with a pan of hot charcoal, and the irons for cautery. He was a dexterous fallow that Derrick. This man Gregory is not fit to jipper a joint with him; it might be worth your lordship's while to have the loon sent to a barber-surgeon's, to learn some needful scantling of anatomy—it may be for the benefit of yourself and other unhappy sufferers, and ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... excited, dear, I have promised not to try it," acceded Jane. "Although I have felt there might be some clue in the old derrick. Don't go ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart, Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: "It's striking, but is it Art?" The stone was dropped by the quarry-side, and the idle derrick swung, While each man talked of the aims of art, and each in ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various

... a derrick, using for its construction two of the wireless royal masts. It was thus possible to cope with the heavier packages at the landing-place. Of the last-named the air-tractor sledge was by far the most troublesome. With plenty of manual labour, under Wild's skilful ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... size, moored in position at a convenient distance from a rock-bound ocean coast, will supply the first idea of a wave-motor on this primary principle as adapted for the generation of power. On the cliff a high derrick is erected. Over a pulley or wheel on the top of this there is passed a wire-rope cable fastened on the seaward side to the buoy, and on the landward side to the machinery in the engine-house. The whole arrangement in fact is very similar in appearance to the "poppet-head" and surface ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... creak, creak, Your cappen's heart up with a derrick, This tryin' to coax a lightnin'-streak Out of a half-discouraged hayrick, This hangin' on mont' arter mont' Fer one sharp purpose 'mongst the twitter,— I tell ye, it doos kind o' stunt The peth ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... useful type of dredger made by Messrs. Rennie, of Blackfriars, England. The drawing almost explains itself. The machine consists of a double barge or pontoon, in which is erected a derrick. This derrick works a "spoon" dredge at the end of a lever. The spoon, as shown, is at its lowest position. It will make a forward stroke, through about one-sixth of a revolution, and will thus become ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various

... as he dared, but then deserted her, while, as the heat grew in intensity, the perspiration rolled from her face in little brooks and rivulets, which pattered musically upon the floor. At length, as a last resort, the employees of the place procured a lofty derrick which fortunately happened to be standing near, and erected it alongside of the Museum. A portion of the wall was then broken off on each side of the window, the strong tackle was got in readiness, the tall woman was made fast to one end and swung over the heads of the people ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... Historical, Civil, Military, Miscellaneous; he also added eighty-one pamphlets, all written before the time of James II. The largest number of additions in any one section was historical and had reference to Stafford. Among the miscellaneous tracts that he incorporated were Derrick's Image of Ireland from a copy in the Advocates' Library, and Gosson's School of Abuse. Scott's statement in the Advertisement as to why he did not omit any of the original collection shows his unpedantic attitude ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball

... I was never idle. I followed a piece of advice honest Dick Derrick gave me on this occasion: "Never let go with one hand till you've got a good gripe with the other; and if you cannot hold on with your hands, make use of your teeth and legs; and mind, clutch fast till you've picked out a soft spot ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... pin where it's most needed, or a marriage factory. Anything that calls for brains is right in their line. If I ever get into any kind of trouble at all I'll get a Stevens engineer to rig me up some kind of a derrick to pull me ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... little hill where the road dipped at the edge of the hamlet here sounded clink of steel on rock, suggesting that men labored there with trowel and drill. There was complaining creaking of cordage—the arm of a derrick sliced a slow arc across the ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... Jonah. That was a sad and lasting lesson for the whale, for not one of his kind has been seen in the Mediterranean since. All day we watched them hoist crying sheep and mild-eyed cattle, with a derrick, from row-boats, up over the deck, by the feet, and drop them down into the ship just as carelessly as a boy would drop a string of squirrels from his hand to the ground. The next morning we rode into the only harbor on the ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

... the steepest and roughest ledges in The Gore; a careless step would be sure to send so small a child rolling down the rough surface. But beyond the power-house, the ledges fell away very gradually to the lowest slopes where stood, one among many in the quarries, the new monster steel derrick which the men had erected last week. They had been testing it for several days; even now its powerful arm held suspended a block of many tons' weight. This was a part of the test for "graduated strain"—the weight being increased from ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... on walls of black-green corn, the stretches of emerald alfalfa set with its gems of amethyst bloom; orchard and meadow, grove and grassy upland, where cattle pasture; populous cities and churches and stately college halls; the whirring factory wheels, the dust of the mines, the black oil derrick and the huge reservoirs of natural gas, with the slender steel pathways of the great trains of traffic binding these together; and above all, the sheltered happy homes, where little children play never dreaming ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... thought rather an ominous pleasantry). We two said good-bye, and I squeezed myself up the gangway. Every inch of standing room aboard was already packed, but I got a commanding position by clambering high up, with some others, on to a derrick-boom. The pilot appeared on the bridge, shore-ropes were cast off, "Auld Lang Syne" was played, then "God save the Queen." Every hat on board and ashore was waving, and every voice cheering, and so we backed off, and steamed out ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers

... in charge, set to work with the American bridgemen and the constructing engineer to build a bridge out of the pieces of steel that lay in heaps along the brink of the gorge. First, the traveller, or derrick, shipped from America in sections, was put together, and its long arm extended from the end of the tracks on which it ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday

... heavy machinery erected over the old well. A mother came out of a neighboring house, and stood with a babe in her arms to see the work. A large rope was firmly placed around the pump, and made fast to the derrick. Then came the tug of war, and with a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together, the wooden pump rose up gradually from its hiding-place ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Chief Graver of the Royal Mint and Master of the Scales, holding this office through the reigns of Edward and Mary and part of that of Elizabeth. His crest and coat of arms are entered in the royal enumeration. His son Derrick was the father of Dr. Francis Anthony, born in London, 1550. According to the Biographia Britannica, he was graduated at Cambridge with the degree of Master of Arts and became a learned physician and chemist. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... together with the natural adaptability and skill of the cowboys, finally succeeded in there being evolved, and erected, on the aide of the valley rather a pretentious tower. "It must look like an oil well derrick from a distance," observed Nort, when ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker

... light grew and the newcomers to Alaska identified objects about them more clearly. Near at hand was the framework of a boring machine, or derrick. The professor began to notice a deposit of ash that lay thickly on the ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... count their ships full tale— Their corn and oil and wine, Derrick and loom and bale, And rampart's gun-flecked line; City by city they hail: "Hast aught to match ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling

... the Poet-Laureate after Dryden, assuming the wreath in 1689. We have referred to his origin; Langbaine gives 1642 as the date of his birth; so that he must have set up as author early in life, and departed from life shortly past middle-age. Derrick assures us that he was lusty, ungainly, and coarse in person,—a description answering to the full-length of Og. The commentators upon "MacFlecknoe" have not made due use of one of Shadwell's habits, in illustration of the reason why a wreath of poppies was selected for the crown of its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... swung parallel to the quay wall, and then a derrick chain was hauled out and I heard the scrape of the big gangway as it drew along the gravel, and the thud of its iron-shod heel as it fell on deck and bridged the intervening two fathoms of water. But ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... set up on a barn or shed, the staging will be sufficient to support the device. But if the stage is constructed direct from the ground, it will be necessary to use some long timbers to get the wheel up high enough to receive the benefit of the force of the wind. Proceeding on the plan of the derrick stand, as shown in Fig. 6, a stage of ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... bow-wave spread out on either hand, over-topping even the combers that came rolling in. It was being deliberately run ashore. It struck, and its fore-mast crumpled up and fell forward, carrying its derrick-booms with it. There was the squeal ...
— Morale - A Story of the War of 1941-43 • Murray Leinster

... the guidance of the writer Derrick, 'my first tutor in the ways of London, who shewed me the town in all its variety of departments, both literary and sportive,' he was now busily spelling through the pages of the Gull's Hornbook. From this course of idle dissipation he was saved by the interposition of an Ayrshire neighbour of ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... of Derrick Vaughan would be out of the question, even though he and I have been more or less thrown together since we were both in the nursery. But I have an odd sort of wish to note down roughly just a few of ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall

... the cave there was a stone which was supposed to retain the footprint of a pre-historic Indian. From what I remember of that footprint I am inclined to think that it must have been made by the foot of a derrick, and not by that of ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner

... of derrick, made like those that are used for lifting heavy guns on board ship, was brought into service, and the mass of metal was slowly lifted and lowered ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 50, October 21, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... Melford, translated the Memoirs of the Count Du Beauval from Le Mentor Cavalier, ou Les Illustres Infortunez de Notre Siecle ("Londres," 1736) by the Marquis d'Argens. Only the second paragraph of Derrick's preface came from d'Argens, but the drift of the Frenchman's ideas toward "le Naturel" is well sustained in Derrick's praise, no doubt based on Warburton's, of writers who present scenes that "are daily found ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various

... freight-cars. Here he hid and watched. The firing appeared to be all behind him, and, thus encouraged, he stole along to the end of the line of cars, and around. A bright blaze greeted his gaze. An isolated car was on fire. Kurt peered forth to make sure of his bearings, and at length found the high derrick by which he had marked the box-car ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... very same craft as we chased into harbour this blessed night, I shouldn't wonder," remarked Tom Derrick, who had been one of the cutter's crew. "It would be a real pleasure to get hold of her, to string up every one of the villains at the yard-arm, for wounding poor Mr Linton; I should be sorry, indeed, if he was to lose the ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... of Wurth, the maskerline millerner, and cost 5 thousand dollars. It was 'mported xpressley for the wife of a up town plummer, but since she sent on her messures, she's been living so high that the steem derrick, wot she bort a purpose, has utterly failed to lace her korsets tite enuf for her to get inter the dress. Wile our representertiv was present, the kostume was purchased by the wife of the milyun-hair editur, of the Sarrytoga Eagle for ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray

... opening. A few years ago (1866) the property changed hands, and the new owners, convinced that by stopping the lateral outlet they could cause the water to issue again from the mouth of the rock, employed a number of men to undermine the mound, and with a powerful hoisting derrick to lift it off and set it one side, that the ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn

... realize that at heart he was as true to freedom as they. Even Lowell, in the later Biglow Papers, which pleaded with deeper pathos and power than before for freedom—even he could write of "hoisting your captain's heart up with a derrick." Wendell Phillips on one occasion, impatient of Lincoln's attitude toward the fugitive slave law, called him "the slave-hound from Illinois." Beecher,—who did great service, especially by his speeches in England,—wrote in the Independent ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... Derrick Von Beekman, the villain of the play, who endeavors to get Rip drunk, in order to have him sign away his property; Nick Vedder, the ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... derrick-booms swung from the stumpy masts, pulleys rattled, and heavy cases rose from the holds. The boats, however, could not get abreast of the forward hatch and the cases had to be moved across slippery iron plates to the after derrick that hoisted them overboard. ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss

... Scogan, Edward the Fourth's jester, or his 'aretinisms,' from Aretin; these being probably not intended even by their authors to endure; a Roman cobbler named Pasquin has given us the 'pasquil' or 'pasquinade.' Derrick was the common hangman in the time of Charles II.; he bequeathed his name to the crane used for the lifting and moving of heavy weights. [Footnote: [But derick in the sense of 'gallows' occurs as early as 1606 in Dekker's Seven Deadly Sins of London, ed. Arber, p. 17; see Skeat's ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... herding a bunch of cattle in a valley up there once, and the bunch got into a drove of dinosauruses, and the first thing he knew a big dinosaurus reached out his neck and picked up a steer, raised it in the air about 80 feet, as easy as a derrick would pick up a dog house, and the dinosaurus swallowed the steer whole, and the other dinosauruses each swallowed a steer. The cowboy said before he knew it his whole bunch of steers was swallowed whole, and they would have swallowed him and his horse ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck

... rode at another buoy with all hands on board that could possibly be spared out of the floating light. The party of artificers and seamen which landed on the rock counted altogether forty in number. At half-past eight o'clock a derrick, or mast of thirty feet in height, was erected and properly supported with guy-ropes, for suspending the block for raising the first principal beam of the beacon; and a winch machine was also bolted down to the ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... trolley fell into the river as the log swept on. The others followed and vanished in a turmoil of muddy foam, and Festing went down to the track. Things might have been worse, for nobody was hurt, although some yards of road-bed had been carried away and a derrick he had built to put the logs on the cars was smashed. As he studied the damage a wet and ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... only had one single cargo-derrick!" Mr. Wardrop sighed. "We can take the cylinder-cover off by hand, if we sweat; but to get the rod out o' the piston's not possible unless we use steam. Well, there'll be steam the morn, if ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... it would not have been possible to find the way between the heaped-up logs. There was only a crooked, very narrow passage left between the keep and the outer gate, and they had long ago left off using the gate for the lumber, but were hoisting it over the wall with ropes. One improvised derrick squealed in the darkness, and the logs came in by twos and tens and dozens. No sooner were we out of the keep than women came and tossed in logs through the door and windows, until presently that building, ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... gear as they snatch up the rudder-chains. A big sea has got home. Her stern flies up in the lather of a freed screw, and her deck from poop to the break of the foc's'le goes under in gray-green water level as a mill-race except where it spouts up above the donkey-engine and the stored derrick-booms. Forward there is nothing but this glare; aft, the interrupted wake drives far to leeward, a cut kite-string dropped across the seas. The sole thing that has any rest in the turmoil is the jewelled, unwinking eye of an albatross, ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... on a Government derrick boat. He gets $1.25 and his board. They have the very best things to eat. He likes the work if he can stay well. He can cook pies and fancy cookin'. They like that. Say they can't hardly get somebody work long because they want to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... well remember Dr. Robson, Dr. Ephraim Evans, Rev. Mr. Pollard and Rev. Mr. Derrick. Of these I best remember Dr. Evans, as having been here so many years with his wife, daughter and son. It will be remembered by old timers the sad story of his son's death by drowning which I will in a few words relate. He was very fond of gunning, and one afternoon ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... were a slow and uncouth Lot, with an atrophied Sense of Humor, and the Prank did not Appeal to them. They asked the Joker to Explain, and before he could make it Clear to them or consult his Attorney they had him Suspended from a Derrick. He did not Hang straight enough to suit, so they brought a Keg of Nails and tied to his Feet, and then stood off and Shot at the Buttons on ...
— More Fables • George Ade

... in pioneering in the following tests, or suitable equivalents: Fell a nine-inch tree or scaffolding pole neatly and quickly. Tie eight kinds of knots quickly in the dark or blindfolded. Lash spars properly together for scaffolding. Build model bridge or derrick. Make a camp kitchen. Build a hut of one kind or another suitable ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... The streets were not paved with asphalt. Some were paved with cobble stones, and some consisted of plain aboriginal mud. The dome of the Capitol was but half finished when Lincoln saw it for the first time, and the huge derrick which surmounted it was painfully suggestive of the gallows. The approach was not a well-kept lawn, but a meadow of grass, ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... the news was distributed that General Buller had gained a complete victory over the Boers, who were in full retreat. Hundreds of wagons were seen going off north towards Modder Station and Vanreenens, and at 4 p.m. a derrick was seen hoisted over the big gun on Bulwana, and the naval guns opened fire on him. The Boers dismounted him under a heavy fire from one 4.7 and two naval ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson

... Over the boiler deck was the hurricane roof, above that the officers' rooms, called the "texas." Above the texas was the pilot-house, and on either side, well forward of the pilot-house and towering abreast of each other and above all else—higher than the two soaring derrick posts at the two forward corners of the passenger and hurricane decks, higher even than the jack-staff's peak—stood the ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... the timber cross-piece of a derrick used for hoisting sacks of grain into the loft, working on an axle, and now swung inboard for the night. A double rope ran through the pulley at its end and had been hitched back over the iron winch which worked it. We pushed the derrick out over the lane and I ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the front edge of the planes, and one forward of these, attached to a cross-member. It is asserted that with these wheels the teaching of purchasers to operate the machines is much simplified, as the beginners can make short flights on their own account without using the starting derrick. ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell

... Ralph also beheld. Dimly outlined directly in their path was a flat car, and above it, skeletonized against the fading sunset sky, was the framework of a derrick. A repair or construction gondola car was ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman

... knowledge of human nature or of what might be called human engineering, its mastery of the principles of lifting over in great masses heavy spiritual bodies, like people, swinging great masses of people's minds over as on some huge national derrick up on The White House, from one ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... before the Interstellar Era, that hadn't turned out any better than Poictesme. Then he stopped trying to remember as the ship turned toward the Airport Building and a couple of tugs—Terran Federation contragravity tanks, with derrick-booms behind and push-poles where the guns had been—came ...
— Graveyard of Dreams • Henry Beam Piper

... puffs of noise and odor, from the pavements on the land. Falling from the exhausts, a round, silvery-white cascade poured into the dark lane between the wharf and the deck, and sounded a monotonous, roaring underchord to the intermingled dins. At the sun-bathed bow, a derrick gang lowered bags of flour into the open well of the hold; there were commands in French, a chugging, and a hissing of steam, and a giant's clutch of dusty, hundred-kilo flour-bags from Duluth would swing from the wharf to the Rochambeau, sink, and disappear. In some way the unfamiliar ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... on down as long as the quality continued to be so good. So, at last, they put a ladder into the pit, one man carrying the gravel up in a hod, while the other dug it; and when they had gone down so deep that this was no longer practicable, they rigged up a derrick and windlass and drew up the gravel ...
— My Terminal Moraine - 1892 • Frank E. Stockton

... was changed. Oklahoma had given up her treasure, the hidden millions that lay under her sandy stretches. Oil derricks rose thickly everywhere, and Bird that Flies by Night found that all he had to do was to sit on his back porch and look at the derrick that had been raised over the well dug where his three pigs used to root. Two hundred dollars a day that well was bringing to the old Bird and, as Lee said, ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb



Words linked to "Derrick" :   crane



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org