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Paddle   Listen
verb
Paddle  v. i.  
1.
To use the hands or fingers in toying; to make caressing strokes. (Obs.)
2.
To dabble in water with hands or feet; to use a paddle, or something which serves as a paddle, in swimming, in paddling a boat, etc. "As the men were paddling for their lives." "While paddling ducks the standing lake desire."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Paddle" Quotes from Famous Books



... way across. Over this barrier there is a ripple which would offer no great obstacle to the descent of a good canoe. On the easterly sides there is no ripple, and the current is smooth and the water apparently deep. I tried with a 6 foot paddle, but could not ...
— Klondyke Nuggets - A Brief Description of the Great Gold Regions in the Northwest • Joseph Ladue

... abandoned boat, very small and remote, drifting down-stream; and throwing off the most of my sodden clothes, I went after it, gained it, and so escaped out of that destruction. There were no oars in the boat, but I contrived to paddle, as well as my parboiled hands would allow, down the river towards Halliford and Walton, going very tediously and continually looking behind me, as you may well understand. I followed the river, because I considered that the water gave me ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... landing beside the closely-locked iron gate, and the little lodge sitting among the trees behind it, belonging to the property of a Captain Wood Martin. Had the felicity, while yet some way off, of seeing the shabby little boat cast off the rope and puff herself and paddle herself slowly ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... is commenced by those who are present, while the committee run through the tribe or town, and hurry the people to assemble, by knocking on their houses. At this time the committee are naked, (wearing only a breech-clout,) and each carries a paddle, with which he takes up ashes and scatters them about the house in every direction. In the course of the ceremonies, all the fire is extinguished in every hut throughout the tribe, and new fire, struck from ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver

... Penny Paul-Pry, Penny Satirist, Flare-up, and other abominations, into your face—just as the bell has tolled, and the Jews, strangers, people-taking-leave-of their families, and blackguard-boys aforesaid, are making a rush for the narrow plank which conducts from the paddle-box of the "Emerald" steamboat unto the quay—you perceive, staggering down Thames Street, those two hackney-coaches, for the arrival of which you have been praying, trembling, hoping, despairing, swearing—sw—, I beg your pardon, I believe the word is not used in polite ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... hospitably had prepared one room for all four of us to lodge in, which did not exactly suit me, as I like to have a place where at times I may be chez moi, for the night at least. There was no suitable place outside for my tent, so I decided to paddle a few hundred kilometres up the river to a dilapidated camping-house for travellers, put up by the Dayaks under government order. Such a house is called pasang-grahan and may be found in many ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... on which they can base their belief, and while the ministers do everything in their power to encourage sinners by picturing to them the lake of fire and brimstone, where boat-riding is out of the question unless you paddle around in a cauldron kettle, it seems as though their labors would be lightened if they could point to the sun, on a hot day in August, and say to the wicked man that unless he gets down on his knees and says his "Now I lay me," and repents and is ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... boat darted from side to side, or poised in air, or alighted on the dripping blade of our paddle when it rested for a moment ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright

... instant remedy and I brought him the blotting paper, instead of smiling at the merry quality of my jest, he pursued me for two hours around my father's farm, and finally cornering me in the Discosaurus shed, larruped me for twenty full minutes with a paddle pulled from a prickly cactus plant in my mother's drawing-room, thorn side down. Indeed most of my early recollections of the old gentleman are inseparably associated with a series of chastisements which, even as he had prophesied when administering them, I have not been able to forget, although ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs

... and gamble, and race horses, and fight. We will have their wives and daughters for concubines, and sell their children in the market with horses and pigs. If they make any objection to this arrangement, we will break them into subjection with the cow-hide and the bucking-paddle. They shall not be permitted to read or write, because that would be likely to 'produce dissatisfaction in their minds.' If they attempt to run away from us, our blood-hounds shall tear the flesh from their bones, and ...
— The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9, An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts • Lydia Maria Child

... its sweet call. And another had answered from the depth of the wood, and then another, while the little canoe had slipped noiselessly past into strange lands,—a country altogether new and mysterious.... To-night that old boyhood thrill came over him, as when kneeling in the canoe with suspended paddle, in the half light of dawn, he had heard the thrushes calling from the woods. Then it had seemed that life was like this adventurous journey through the gray meadows, past the silent woods, on into the river below, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... buy him a quart of Ruinart but he said his thirst wasn't working, so I had to paddle ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh

... down to breakfast, and the morning was occupied in getting their kit and packages together. At noon the steamer was berthed at a pier, and their packages were transferred to a paddle-wheeler, which was to take them over three hundred miles up the wide estuary to a Belgian station. Thence, perhaps, they would proceed hundreds of miles further by another river steamer before they took to ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... craft, holding it against the side of the disguised sub until his partner joined him. The day, misty and drizzling, made the shore they aimed for a half-seen line across the water. With a shiver born of more than cold, Ross dipped his paddle and helped Ashe send their crude boat toward ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... expressed intense satisfaction. He sat bolt upright in the stern of the canoe, steering with his paddle, his keen bullet eyes dancing from side to side examining every object as they passed ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... Meanwhile, the party remained stationary in the centre to watch his movements. He travelled around, till at last he came to the place from whence he started. Then he commenced drinking up the water, and they saw the current fast setting in towards his open mouth. The leader encouraged them to paddle hard for the opposite shore. When only a short distance from land, the current had increased so much, that they were drawn back by it, and all their efforts to ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... prow, so that it could be lifted up when needed to attract the fish or better to light the canoe. Red Chicken, in a scarlet pareu fastened tightly about his loins, stood at the prow when we had reached his favorite spot off a point of land, while I, with a paddle, noiselessly kept the canoe ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... murmur of voices in the boat, the sound of a paddle gurgling as it dipped, and the dugout shot out towards the middle of the pond and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... have looked for them every day for a long time, and begin to weary. My thought is now to launch my kayak when we come to open water, load it with meat, take four spears and more lines than a strong hunter needs for a whole season; then paddle away south to discover the land of the Kablunets. They must be poor; they may be starving. I will guide them to our home, and show them this ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... fairly regular broad features, coal-black hair and eyes, and a bronze complexion. They have generally—both men and women—finely developed breasts and fore-arms, caused by their almost daily use of the canoe paddle from infancy. A few have well-formed legs, though the greater number are defective in this respect, resulting from much sitting, or rather squatting in their, canoes, in and around their lodges, with but comparatively little walking. Their feet are so short, ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden

... nation and the rearing of orphans are alike delegated to the background while we paddle about among the lily pads of this delectable lake. I look forward with reluctance to 7:56 next Monday morning, when I turn my back on the mountains. The awful thing about a vacation is that the moment it begins your happiness is already clouded ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... bowl-like wicker-work covered with hide, and their way of dipping the paddle from the front instead of from the rear, were exactly the ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin

... said, "Were you ever on the moors? Did you ever wade? Do you care about water-weeds? Did you ever eat bilberries, or carberries?—but they're not ripe yet. Shall we go and get some Batrachosperma, and paddle a bit, and give the ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... time of coming the boat was due on or about August the first. She failed to come on the first, but on the second, early in the morning, she came nosing into the lagoon. In a canoe with a brown man to paddle him Pratt put off for her. He was alongside by the time her anchor chains had rattled out, and the skipper with his own hands passed down to him a mail bag. He brought it ashore and from it took out his packet ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... business, and she's perfectly happy. But you'd go to work and get up a sensation about her, and say that your 'heart bleeds for her,' and that she's born to trouble, and has sad eyes. If she gets into trouble it'll be because some one else makes it for her. You take my advice, and let her paddle her own canoe. She's got the head to do it; don't you worry about that. By the way—" Cressler interrupted himself, seizing the opportunity to change the subject. "By the way, Carrie, Curtis has been speculating again. ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... the early sun, hundreds of Nile boats are waiting in readiness for the time appointed for its opening. On both banks steady streams of people pass to and fro to fill their water-skins or jars, while children paddle in the stream or make mud-pies upon the bank as they will ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly

... proved; for as soon as the tide made to the westward, I saw them all take boat, and row (or paddle, as we call it) away. I should have observed, that for an hour or more before they went off, they went a dancing; and I could easily discern their postures and gestures by my glass. I could not perceive, by my nicest observation, but that they were ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... and splashing, with her crew walloping about, and grinning and yelling like incarnate fiends, and as naked as the day they were born, and the old Don himself, so staid and sedate, and drawley as he was a minute before, now all alive, shouting, "Tira, diablitos, tira,"[13] flourishing a small paddle, with which he steered, about his head like a wheel, and dancing and jumping about in his seat, as if his bottom had been a haggis with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various

... And that night the wind shifted so suddenly that from Tappan to Tarrytown was but a jack-snipe's twist, and we lay snug in Haverstraw Bay, under the lee of the Heights of North Castle, scarce an hour's canoe-paddle from the wharf where we had ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... mother-hen's great content. They grew up into fat and respectable ducks—five white ones and three gray ones—waddling about, very content, though they never saw water, except the tank which was placed for them to paddle in. They lived a lazy, peaceful, pleasant life for a long time, and were at last killed and eaten with green peas, one after the other, to the family's great satisfaction, if ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock

... at the period now under consideration, however, the paddle-wheel was the recognized instrument of marine propulsion. Since the beginning of the century it had been growing in use with the gradual growth in the application of steam, and at this time it held the field alone. Some years earlier it appears that some of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... later a pleasant-looking but dignified lady came out from among the tea-drinkers and bore down directly on me. "I hear," she said, "you've been talking to my little girl, and I want you to know I was very sorry I couldn't let her paddle. She was just recovering from whooping-cough when I took her to the seaside, and I was afraid to let her go ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... the Thames bank, not far from Woolwich, I came upon some masses of rusted metal, long lying there. There were the huge cranks of paddle-wheels, a cylinder, and some boiler metal. These, I was informed, were the fragments of the unlucky steamship that was to abolish sea-sickness! As I now walked to the end of the solitary pier—the ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald

... tents, and often alight on the bow of a canoe, where the paddle at every stroke comes within eighteen inches of them. I know nothing which can be eaten that they will not take, and I had one steal all my candles, pulling them out endwise, one by one, from a piece of birch bark in which they were rolled, and another peck a large hole ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... disembarked from the first four canoes of the half-moon which closed in with scarce a paddle dip, so deft were the braves with their slender, shining blades of white ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... their passage, which, under the circumstances, you could not refuse—for the rest of the voyage. Your friends will make their appearance at the most inopportune moments, and from the most unexpected places,—dangling from hawsers, climbing up paddle-boxes, and crawling through cabin windows at the imminent peril of their lives. You are nervous and crushed by this added weight of responsibility. Should you be a stranger, you will find any number of people on board, who will cheerfully and at a venture take leave of you on the slightest advances ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte

... toward the first big wave. The rocky shore went by us like a dream; we could feel the motion of the earth whirling around with us. The crest of the billow in front curled above the bow of the canoe. "Arret', arret', doucement!" A swift stroke of the paddle checked the canoe, quivering and prancing like a horse suddenly reined in. The wave ahead, as if surprised, sank and flattened for a second. The canoe leaped through the edge of it, swerved to one side, and ran ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... is very stupid," she said. "Let's talk about"—here she paused and her eyes followed the big night boat which was churning its way down the river—"about paddle-wheels, or port lights, ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster

... ever clumsy at the paddle," she maundered reminiscently, shading the sun from her eyes and staring across the silver-spilled water. "Nam-Bok was ever clumsy. ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London

... sets camped thar on my lodged tree, an' the catamount is planted on the bank, I hears the lippin' splash of a paddle, an' then a voice which sounds like a chime of bells floats across to ask, "Dick Stallins, you ornery runnigate, ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis

... together, and at times they landed, so that their leaders could go ahead and spy out the water around the bend. In making these landings with heavy boats, as the boys observed, the men would always let the stern swing around and then paddle up-stream, so that the landing was made with the bow up-stream. The force of the river would very likely have capsized the boat if a landing were attempted with the bow down-stream. "Just ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough

... started, and had about half a mile to go before she got into the lake, and, on the way, the captain came down to me, and cautiously asked me if I could swim—I answered I could, when he told me to stand close by a window, which he pointed out, and when the paddle wheels ceased I must jump out. I stood ready, and as soon as the wheels ceased I made a spring and jumped into the water, and after going a short distance, I looked up and saw the captain standing on the promenade deck, ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green

... personality. He is intensely and persistently aware of himself. Similarly, the exertion of power in the face of opposition increases the sense of one's own power and helps to consolidate it. One derives from it the same exhilaration that one has in feeling a canoe under the impulsion of one's paddle overcome the resistance of the water. In the same way, the exertion of social power in the face of obstacles makes half the exhilaration of politics and business for some types of men in business and political life. One admires the ruthlessness ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... steamboat that plied between the Portland Ferry and Weymouth the convict dress attracted much attention. The day was some sort of chapel festival, and great numbers of chapel people in holiday costume crowded the decks and climbed the paddle-boxes; the weather was brilliant; the sun danced on the waters like countless fairies on a floor of glass; a brass band played ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... alarmed them both, and they called aloud, announcing the discovery to their friends on shore. The latter instantly returned, and Andrews, seeing himself observed, dropped from the tree, ran to the lower end of the island, took a small log, with a limb for a paddle, and shoved into the stream, hoping to reach the opposite shore before he could be overtaken. But there was another party with a skiff, lower down the river, who saw him, and rowed out to meet him. Thus enclosed, there was no hope, and ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger

... responded old Glasgow; "Ye're just daft on thae points, Duncan M'Nab: why, man alive! yer' nae people at hame, much less here, where you are as the least plash flung from the paddle-wheel below us to the braid stream on which it drops to mingle with its waters; a lesson ye may tak profit by. Ye've neither country, nor laws, nor government that owns yer tongue on the whole face o' God's airth, if ever ye had either; whilst the laws and language o' England ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... developed by her white-man training so that the shy Indian girl had given place to the alert, resourceful world-woman, at home equally in the salons of the rich and learned or in the stern of the birch canoe, where, with paddle poised, she was in absolute and fearless control, watching, warring and winning against the grim rocks that grinned out of the white rapids to tear the frail craft and ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... steadily before it, was drawing nearer to the beleaguered city. As one circle after another was passed, the besieging army found itself compressed within a constantly contracting field. The "Ark of Delft," an enormous vessel, with shot-proof bulwarks, and moved by paddle-wheels turned by a crank, now arrived at Zoetermeer, and was soon followed by the whole fleet. After a brief delay, sufficient to allow the few remaining villagers to escape, both Zoetermeer and Benthuyzen, with the fortifications, were set ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... exiles good-by, the party in the boat moved from the shore—at first by paddle-power; but on reaching the outlet of Volcano Bay the sails of their boat were spread for the ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... top or bottom. Now work begins. It is fortunate that it can be done in the open air, and that the man can sit on the windward side, for the smoke rises through the smaller hole thick and black and suffocating. The man takes a stick shaped like a paddle, dips it into the bowl, and holds it in the smoke and heat, turning it rapidly over and over till the water is nearly dried out of the rubber and it is no longer milky, but dark-colored. Then he dips this ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan

... a thicket of bushes drew forth a birch canoe, which had been cunningly hidden. It took them but a few minutes to carry it to the water, step lightly aboard, and push away from the shore. Each seized a paddle, and soon the canoe was headed for the open, with Dane squatting forward, and the ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody

... therefore, for a considerable time on board these boats—more so than such a journey may generally make necessary, as we were delayed at first by the soldiers, and afterward by accidents, such as the breaking of a paddle-wheel, and other causes, to which navigation on the Upper Mississippi seems to be liable. On the whole, we slept on board four nights, and lived on board as many days. I cannot say that the life was comfortable, though I do not know that it could be made more so by any care on the part ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... comprehended the situation. It seemed that he was afflicted with a peculiar mental or nervous disease, which forced him to imitate everything suddenly presented to his senses. Thus, when the captain slapped the paddle-box suddenly in the presence of the steward, the latter instantly gave it a similar thump; or, if any noise were made suddenly, he seemed compelled against his will to imitate it instantly, and with remarkable accuracy. To annoy him, some of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various

... astray, Expecting to Kill something to eate, the Indians weare soe Kind as to bring him downe to us. thiss afternoone wee fixes our Armes and cattoch[11] Boxes, Dryes our Poweder. now 20 leagues farther wee come to a Place called Santa Maria,[12] to which place wee rowe and paddle very hard alday. this place made all with Stockados, no greate gunns, but onely a place to keepe the Indians out of the river, itt being a river wheir thay take much golde. about one aclock att night wee wear gotten close under the Stockadose, ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... whisper. "You go out there by the paddle box and wait a moment, till my mother begins to look on her book again, and then ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott

... dozens rushed forth paper-laden, but they were disappointed boys; they had thought to ride in gilt chariots, not to paddle in mud. And almost the first thing they saw in Crown Square was the car of Jupiter in its glory, flying all the Signal colours; and other cars behind. They did not rush now; they sprang, as from a catapult; and alighted like flies on the vehicles. Men insisted on taking their ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... "I'll paddle across in less than no time," he said, "and if the swans do not interfere, I'll soon bring him ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler

... lovely day, in early November of 1867 we embarked at Dublin on a small paddle-steamer called the Lady Eglinton. Our immediate destination was Falmouth; there we had to join the S.S. Asia, one of the old "Diamond Line." Memory is a curious thing; although I can recall minute details of most of my uneventful ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... windward for once that he glances over the lee rail. And my efforts during the last hour have convinced me of the impossibility of driving this ungainly structure to windward by merely swimming. If I only had an oar, or a paddle of some sort, I might be able to do something; but then, you see, I haven't, so it is of no use to think further of that. The wind is dropping, which is a point in our favour, inasmuch as it will lessen the speed of yonder craft in coming down toward us, and so give us more time in which ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... said to be poisonous. In a glass case was the complete shell of a lobster, out of which the crustacean had crawled; and beside this were some South Sea bows and arrows, pieces of coral from all parts of the world, a New Zealand paddle on the wall, opposite to a couple of Australian spears. Hanks of sea-weed hung from nails. There was a caulking hammer that had been fished up from the bottom of some dock, all covered with acorn barnacles, and an old bottle incrusted with oyster-shells, the glass having ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... with as beloved hair, — To plunge the lustful, crawling fingers down, Arms elbow deep, and draw them out again, And watch the glinting metal trickle off, Even as at night some fisherman, home bound With speckled cargo in his hollow keel Caught off Campeche or the Isle of Pines, Dips in his paddle, lifts it forth again, And laughs to see the luminous white drops Fall back in flakes of fire. . . . Gold was the dream That cheered that desperate enterprise. And now? . . . Victory waited on the arms of Spain, Fallen was the ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger

... suppose they were debating whether or no to keep her head to the gale, or to edge away a point or two, and run for that bay. But with a head sea and a Mediterranean gale howling down from the gorges of the Ligurian Alps, that thing wasn't so easy. The boat would plunge into a sea and bury to her paddle-boxes, then pitch upward as if she were going to jump bodily out of water, and slap down into it again, while her guards would spring and quiver like card-board. The engine began to complain, as they will when a boat is laboring heavily. You could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... that direction. Let us start with canoeing. Canoeing is a sport fraught with constant surprises. A canoeing trip is rarely the same thing twice in succession; and particularly is this true in streams where the temperature of the water is subject to change. It is comparatively easy to paddle a canoe if you only remember to scoop toward you. You merely reverse the process by which truly refined people imbibe soup. Even if you never master the art of paddling you may still get along fairly well if you know how to swim. On the whole I would ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... with a perspective, cried out it was an army. I could not imagine what he meant by an army, and thwarted him a little hastily. "Nay, sir," says he, "don't be angry, for 'tis an army, and a fleet too: for I believe there are a thousand canoes, and you may see them paddle along, for they ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... islands where they caught vast quantities of fish, some of which they used to manure their land. Moreover, besides the oars, they rigged a square cotton sail upon the balsas which enabled them to run before the wind without labour, steering the craft by means of a paddle ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... angareps upon the sand, with the raw oxhides as coverlets, we lay down in the rain. It was too hot to sleep in the boat, especially as the temporary cabin was a perfect mosquito nest. That night I considered the best plan to be adopted, and resolved to adapt a paddle as a rudder on the following morning. It rained without ceasing the whole night; and, at break of day, the scene was sufficiently miserable. The men lay on the wet sand, covered up with their raw hides, soaked completely through, but still fast asleep, from which nothing would arouse them. ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... and each leading its whole earthly career on this floating island of perishable verdure. The "beautiful blue damsel-flies" alight also in multitudes among them, so fearless that they perch with equal readiness on our boat or paddle, and so various that two adjacent ponds will sometimes be haunted by two distinct sets of species. In the water, among the leaves, little shining whirlwigs wheel round and round, fifty joining in the dance, till, at the slightest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various

... thought. Not often did he speak at length, even to me, unless, as it came to be, he was moved by some hap or mishap of camp or trail to tell of the doings of that arch rascal, Yaeethl, the raven, God, Bird, and Scamp. And when, sitting over the fire, or with steering paddle in hand, he did open the gates that lead to the land of legend, he seemed but to listen and repeat the words of Kahn, the fire spirit, who stands between the Northland and death, or of Klingat-on-ootke, God of the Waters, whose words seemed to ...
— In the Time That Was • James Frederic Thorne

... did not have so many slaves and was not so mean as some other slave-holders about him, still, the treatment which his slaves received was shockingly cruel. I remember very distinctly the paddling block, the paddle, and the great whip used upon that place. There comes very vividly before my mind the whipping of a hired man. I know just how every rag of clothes was taken off, and how he was tied down in the front yard between the gate and the house, so ...
— The American Missionary—Volume 39, No. 07, July, 1885 • Various

... 'e was just as nice a carpse as ever I see, and I was a'most minded to put his paddle [thistle-spud] beside him in his coffin, for he was always a-diggin' and a-delvin' about ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... a word formed by adding the Turkish affix ji to the Arabic kewarib, plural of carib, a small boat. The common form of the word is caribji. Burton reads it, "Kewariji, one who uses the paddle."] ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne

... toss it aloft and fling it into the deep trough. They are far superior to the boats with weather-boards in the fore which formerly bore us to land. The crew scoop up the water as if digging with the paddle; they vary the exercise by highly eccentric movements, and they sing savage barcarolles ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... like a freed bird as, with long, steady strokes, hour after hour, he glided smoothly up the low, green shore. He was some distance from any human habitation when the steady dip, dip of his paddle echoed farther inland than usual. He paused and peered into the woods. He was on the edge of a forest whose tangled fringe of birch and elm hung over the greening water. But just behind this fringe was a little clearing, all smothered in riotous undergrowth. Scotty ran his canoe up on the ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... sure about that," said Mr. Quinby dubiously. "I'll admit that 'Bull' Hendricks is a finished workman when it comes to the use of pet names, after he's been stirred up by some bonehead play. But, after all, he doesn't use the paddle." ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield

... Laughing Bill took less interest in his part of the work and more in Denny Slevin's. When the riffles were washed, and the loose gravel had been worked down into yellow piles of rich concentrates, Slevin, armed with whisk broom, paddle, and scoop, climbed into the sluices. Bill watched him out of a corner of his eye, and it was not long before his vigilance was rewarded. The hold-up man turned away with a feeling of genuine admiration, for he had seen Slevin, under ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... three o'clock in the afternoon, being very near the island that was first discovered, we brought-to, and I sent Mr Furneaux, my second lieutenant, my first lieutenant being very ill, with the boats manned and armed, to the shore. As he approached it, we saw two canoes put off, and paddle away with great expedition towards the island that lay to leeward. At seven in the evening the boats returned, and brought with them several cocoa-nuts, and a considerable quantity of scurvy-grass; they brought also some fishhooks, that were made of oyster-shells, and some of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... and don't want a man if a butter-paddle goes along with him," said Bud, with a laugh that was echoed from ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess

... and saw some of the exciting times of the Taiping Rebellion in that part of China. By the end of 1862 the steamers "Huquang" and "Firecracker" had come from New York round the Cape of Good Hope, and later the "Chekiang," "Kiu-kiang," and other paddle steamers were put on the river, and the freights were reduced to taels 4 1/2 per ton. Then we had to ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights

... bow paddle set the chorus, which was taken up by boat after boat. John, stretched at the bottom of a canoe with two wounded Highlanders, wondered where he had heard the voice before. His wits were not very clear yet. The canoe's gunwale hid all the landscape but a mountain-ridge high ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... after or sternmost end a sort of high poop-deck passes from side to side, on which the steersman takes his post. He holds in his hand an oar or paddle, which consists of a pole ten or twelve feet long, carrying at its extremity a circular disc of wood about a foot or a foot and a-half in diameter. The oars used by the six hands who pull the masullah boat are similar to ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... path of silver upon the water, a soft wind whispered drowsily through the trees, and far off in the depths of the woodland, an owl hooted plaintively. Ordinarily, the romantic paddle back to the island would have been filled with delight for the Outdoor Girls and their four boy friends, but tonight the profuse beauty all ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope

... a few remarks to make. Every morning of the year I wish to come and see you. As soon as I take up my paddle I fall sick. It is now two years since I began to be sick. Sometimes I am better—sometimes worse. I am pained in mind that I am not to see you ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... profound and natural wisdom, let him crawl about stark naked, dressed in ozone and sunlight. Taking him out on the reef, she would let him paddle in the shallow pools, holding him under the armpits whilst he splashed the diamond-bright water into spray with his feet, and laughed ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... however, for the LUCY BELLE to hang up indefinitely on some one of the numerous shifting sand bars. For that reason she carried more imperishable freight than passengers. In appearance she was two-storied, with twin smokestacks, an iron Indian on her top, and a "splutter-behind" paddle-wheel. ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... of want, they took up part of the floor of the cabin, and patched up a sort of tray with rope-yarns, to paddle on shore to get a little water to preserve their lives. When their patience was almost exhausted, the boat returned, but instead of provisions, brought the unpleasing information, that the lieutenant, one Kennedy, had run ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... the seas of the Japanese Archipelago are speckled with thousands of round white jelly-fish, that swim a few feet below the surface. One can see the great steamer go ploughing through them as through a field of frosted cakes. The huge paddle-wheels make a perfect pudding of thousands of them, as they are dashed against the paddle-box and whipped into a froth like white of eggs or churned into a thick cream by the propeller blades. Sometimes the shoals are of great breadth, and then it veritably looks as though a crockery shop ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... bricklayers' labourers, and carry loads of stones upon their shoulders and up ladders. Besides this, it is a monopoly of theirs to row a sort of boat, which is impelled by machinery imitating that of a steamer, but worked by hand. These are tolerably large vessels, having paddle-wheels fitted to them, which are turned from within. Each wheel is worked by two young Dalecarlian girls, who perform this severe labour with the utmost cheerfulness, while an old woman steers. They pass their lives upon the water, plying from earliest dawn till late in the night, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... human things which are ever both new and old. It is not that Stevenson has not seen the other side of life. He has seen it and he has suffered from it deeply, both in himself and in others; yet still indomitably he "clings to his paddle." "I believe," he says, "in an ultimate decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... and could swing the clapper against the side of the great bell with a boom that could be heard across rivers, and far into the peaceful country, on quiet nights. His eyes were so sharp, that, without the aid of a glass, he could read names on the paddle boxes of steamboats, where the unassisted vision of most persons descried nothing but a blur. He had done duty on that tower during the six years since it was built; and he knew the section of the city which lay spread out beneath him as a man knows his own ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... the white hulk of the steam-boat looming upon the water to the north. Her side paddle-wheels churned the flood. A strong purpose took possession of Susannah; she knew what she was ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... a day or two later when Alton returned to the topic of Mrs. Jimmy, and he was then kneeling in the stern of a canoe which slid with a swift smoothness down the placid lake as he dipped the glistening paddle. Miss Deringham was seated forward on a pile of cedar-twigs, with a wet line in her fingers, and in no way disturbed by the fact that she had caught nothing. Such expeditions had become somewhat frequent of late, and though the girl sometimes wondered what she found to please ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... too heavy, nothing too hard. Betty and Hope could have skipped over every inch of the trail, and they were quite sure that they could have done all the paddling, too. And Betty did learn, in after years, not only to paddle, but also to carry her own canoe, for she grew to be a big, strong, athletic girl, with rosy cheeks and a quick, ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody

... made an effort to get away. In the midst of a heavy snow-storm we embarked in a canoe, taking our saddles aboard and towing our horses after us by their halters. The Prussian, Ollendorff, was in the bow, with a paddle, Ballou paddled in the middle, and I sat in the stern holding the halters. When the horses lost their footing and began to swim, Ollendorff got frightened, for there was great danger that the horses would make our aim uncertain, and it was plain that if ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... in the hole. That was sure good eating. The 'lasses wouldn't spill till we done et it up. He'd fix us up another one. He give us biscuits oftener than the grown folks got them. We had plenty wheat bread till the old war come on. My mother beat biscuits with a paddle. She cooked over at Strum's. I lived over at Jenkins. Grandma Kizzy done my cooking. Master's girl cooked us biscuits. Master Jenkins loose his hat, his stick, his specks, and call us to find 'em. He could see. He called us to keep us outer badness. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... blow of their war-clubs, Fell a drowsiness on Kwasind; At the second blow they smote him, Motionless his paddle rested; At the third, before his vision Reeled the landscape Into darkness, Very ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow

... are not very flattering. Shanks says they are likely to get the better of me if I am not careful. I feel so irritable that I can scarcely bear with any one." Maroney was more than ever desirous of talking with him, but White said: "I don't want to talk; let every man paddle his own canoe. If I were out of trouble, it would be a different thing, but my lawyer at present gives ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton

... to their leader's order, Marcel, the taciturn, and Domingo, from whose lips the Britons had scarce heard a syllable, squatted on the catamaran. Marcel wielded a short paddle, and an almost imperceptible dip of its broad blade sent the strangely-built craft across the pool. Once in the shadow, it disappeared completely. There was no visible outlet. The rocks thrust their stark ridge against the ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... she saw the hen mother watching the little ducks paddle about, "Oh, Bunny, I know ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope

... visible about four miles from land; they consisted of three gunboats and an ugly paddle steamer, also ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... Victoria's domain. I called on them to see what was needed for their Northern march, and found them filled with fear lest they should be overtaken. As there was a prospect before them of being taken down the river, they concluded to "paddle their own canoe." They had with them their five little folks, that seemed as full of fear as were their trembling parents. A little girl of five years raised the window-shade to look out. When her mother discovered her she exclaimed, in a half-smothered voice, "Why, Em! you'll have ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... clothed either bank, fell directly upon the figure in the boat, as a hidden light illuminates a great picture, while the rest is left in shadow. It was no common forest runner who sat in the middle of the red beam. Yet a boy, in nothing but years, he swung the great paddle with an ease and vigor that the strongest man in the West might have envied. His rifle, with the stock carved beautifully, and the long, slender blue barrel of the border, lay by his side. He could bring the paddle into the ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler

... his dignity would allow, and then turned off into a by-lane end dropped on a bench and looked gloomily at the Lohengrin swans with the paddle-wheel attachment that circle around the lake. They struck him as the most idiotic inventions he had ever seen, and he pitied, with the pity of a man who contemplates crossing the ocean to be measured for his fall clothes, the people who could find delight in having ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... police sent out to go round a garrison, or camp, or town, to keep watch; or, again, it may mean a small body of troops sent on before an advancing army to "reconnoitre"—that is, to spy out the land, the position of the enemy, etc. The word patrol literally means to "paddle in mud," for the French word, patrouille, from which it came into English in the seventeenth century, came from an ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill



Words linked to "Paddle" :   paddle-shaped, spank, larrup, waddle, millwheel, coggle, walk, bat, aquatics, pingpong paddle, swim, blade, water sport, work over, paddlewheel, paddle steamer, table-tennis bat, sport, stir, play, beat, paddle box, boat, paddle wheel, paddler, table-tennis racquet, oar, totter, boat paddle, toddle, dog paddle, paddle-wheeler



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