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Paraffine   Listen
noun
Paraffine, Paraffin  n.  (Chem.) A white waxy substance, resembling spermaceti, tasteless and odorless, and obtained from coal tar, wood tar, petroleum, etc., by distillation. It is used in candles, as a sealing agent (such as in canning of preserves), as a waterproofing agent, as an illuminant and as a lubricant. It is very inert, not being acted upon by most of the strong chemical reagents. It was formerly regarded as a definite compound, but is now known to be a complex mixture of several higher hydrocarbons of the methane or marsh-gas series; hence, by extension, any substance, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous, of the same chemical series; thus gasoline, coal gas and kerosene consist largely of paraffins. Note: In the present chemical usage this word is spelled paraffin, but in commerce it is commonly spelled paraffine.
Native paraffin. See Ozocerite.
Paraffin series. See Methane series, under Methane.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Paraffine" Quotes from Famous Books



... and Rosher decided to remain, and so kept their seats until the end of the performance. It was quite dark when they emerged from the tent, and every part of the fair was lit up with flaring paraffin lamps. They had not gone very far when, as ill-luck would have it, a shrill cry of "Hallo! Thatches!" showed that they had been sighted by some ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... Neilson revived the subject of paraffin. I notice that he always wound up with a plea that someone invent an apparatus to apply the paraffin. What I have here is an answer to the plea. This apparatus consists of a two and one-half inch pipe with a spray ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... tranquil atmosphere settled down on the warm room; the brass lamp burned brightly with a faint and reassuring smell of paraffin; the fire presented a radiant cavern of red coals fringed by dancing flames; and Mr. Parker leaned forwards to shake off the ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... kerosene obtained on redistilling the tailings brings up the total yield of this product to about 42 per cent. of the crude oil. The gas oil is sold for the manufacture of illuminating gas. The residue is distilled for lubricating oils and paraffin. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various

... may be certain similar or corresponding qualities or powers in the combinations of each. I suppose we have all noticed some time or other that the light of colza oil is not quite the same as that of paraffin, or that the flames of coal gas and whale oil are different. They find it so in the light-houses! All at once it occurred to me that there might be some special virtue in the oil which had been found in the jars when Queen Tera's tomb was opened. These had not been used to preserve the intestines ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker

... were deliberately arranged, the paraffin in my little lamp ran out, and the lamp smoked and guttered, and the old hooks in the wall looked ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... 1898, after the deal had been completed, the owners of these residences and estates were privately approached with the information that the coolie location, consisting of shelters built of scraps of iron, paraffin tins, and old pieces of wood, was to be removed to this site (probably to facilitate the transference of the present location site, which is also very valuable, to some other favourite), but that if sufficient inducement ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... stay all night at that great height overlooking the vast city of London. Sometimes a fire breaks out in some of the great warehouses down by the river, and then there is a magnificent sight. One such warehouse was full of paraffin oil, and you know paraffin burns more readily than anything else. As the barrels were caught by the flames the oil streamed out on to the water, and, floating on the top, seemed like a sea of flame. It must have been wonderful ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... a seventy-ton schooner with paraffin auxiliary, and it ran, when there was no head wind, between four and five knots an hour. It was a bedraggled object; it had been painted white a very long time ago, but it was now dirty, dingy, and mottled. It smelt strongly of paraffin ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham

... and not easily digested. There is a public which eats salt beef and horse-radish sauce with relish, and does not care for artichokes and asparagus. Put yourself at its point of view, imagine the grey, dreary courtyard, the educated ladies who look like cooks, the smell of paraffin, the scantiness of interests and tasks—and you will understand N. and his readers. He is colourless; that is partly because the life he describes lacks colour. He is false because bourgeois writers cannot help being false. They are vulgar writers perfected. The vulgarians sin together with their ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... shutter had been fastened across the window. But the wood of the shutter was old and full of chinks, and Delane, pressing his face to the window, was able to get just a glimpse of the scene within—Rachel at the head of the table, the man in uniform beside her—three other women. A paraffin lamp threw the shadow of the persons at the table sharply on the white distempered wall. There were flowers on the table, and the meal wore a home-like and tempting air to the crouching spy outside. Rachel smiled incessantly, and it seemed ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Workmen in paraffin oils or other petroleum products often present numerous furuncles and cutaneous abscesses. Conditions favoring a persistent miliaria have also a causative influence, especially observed in infants and young children. In these latter, especially ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon

... wooden frame. About 11/2 in. of the opposite ends of the wires are bent downward to a vertical position to enable them to dip into liquids at different temperatures contained in long narrow troughs; the liquids being non-conductors, such as melted paraffin for the hot junctions, and the non-volatile petroleum, known as thin machinery oil. The electromotive force obtained varies with the temperature; a pile of 295 pairs having a resistance of 95.6 ohms at 16 deg. Cent. gave with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various

... "as usual" when in Paris there are about 1800 of these small workshops where a woman dips Bengal Fire and grenades into a bath of paraffin! ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch

... Prone in suffering upon my couch, my ears tell me all that is accomplished in every part of the house. Ten minutes after your girls descended I heard the kitchen fire roar. I suspect paraffin." ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... person and need cause no uneasiness, unless the other articles of the diet do not supply a sufficient amount of this food substance. After the inner coating has been removed, some of the rice is treated with paraffin or glucose and talc to give it a glazed appearance. This is called polish, and is sometimes confounded with the term rice polishings. However, no confusion regarding these terms will result if it is remembered that rice polishings are the thin inner coating that is removed and polish is ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... platform on trestles at one end and a paraffin lamp in the middle. The Vicar placed it at our disposal when there wasn't a Women's Institute or a choir practice, and on chilly nights he had the 'Beatrice stove' lit for us. Then the Summer began in real earnest. We got in extra gardeners, worked like niggers ourselves, and when the turf was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various

... make a comparison a cast has to be taken, if the mark is on soft ground. This is done by heating the footprint with a hot iron, and filling it in with paraffin. From this a plaster cast is taken, and it can be preserved for comparison ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various

... hurry to enter, and, instead of going in at the back door, walked with lagging footsteps round the low brick wall that ran before the house. Opposite the open window of the parlour she stopped. The little room, kept carefully closed in Tant Sannie's time, was well lighted by a paraffin lamp; books and work lay strewn about it, and it wore a bright, habitable aspect. Beside the lamp at the table in the corner sat Lyndall, the open letters and papers of the day's post lying scattered before her, while she perused the columns of a newspaper. At the centre table, with his ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner

... a little candle grease on a piece of copper about 3/4 inch wide and 2 or 3 inches long. In the flame of a Bunsen burner, gently heat the end of the copper that has the candle grease (paraffin) on it, so that the paraffin will spread out all over the end. Let it harden. With a nail, draw a design in the paraffin on the copper, scratching through the thin coat of paraffin to the copper below. Pour a couple of drops of concentrated nitric acid on the ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... route. Immense reception from the working men. Splendid luncheon set out at one end of the shed where we were assembled; bill of fare included crude oil, sulphate of ammonia, various mineral oils, and candles made from paraffin. There was no wine, but plenty of ammonia-water. Manager presented Mrs. G. with bust in paraffin wax, which he said was Mr. G. Also handed her a packet of dips cunningly carved in the likeness of HERBERT, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various

... of the stuff to our hotel. It appeared that in the early part of our converse with him we had, unwittingly, clamoured for it. Personally, I can neither praise it nor condemn it. A long series of disappointments has disheartened me; added to which a permanent atmosphere of paraffin, however faint, is apt to cause remark, especially in the case of a married man. Now, I never ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome

... which found its zenith in the drawing-room, but deteriorated again very rapidly afterwards. The dining-room, being midway between the kitchen and the drawing-room, was only a middling-looking apartment. They did not often have a fire there; a paraffin lamp stove stood in the fire-place, leering with its red eye as if it took a wicked satisfaction in its own smell. Before the fire-place, re-reading the already-known newspaper by the light of one gas jet, sat Johnny Gillat. Poor ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... a desolate, empty passage beyond. On the threshold stood Karamaneh. She held in her hand a common tin oil lamp which smoked and flickered with every movement, filling the already none too cleanly air with an odour of burning paraffin. ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... of the houses stood open. The path was encumbered with the wreckage of their contents, and every now and then he smelt a whiff of paraffin, as though lamps had been broken or cans overset. Vaudere had been looted, but there were no Prussians now ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... Bailleul was less strenuous. We were always buying something for supper—a kilo of liver, some onions, a few sausages—anything that could be cooked by the unskilled on a paraffin-stove. Then after shopping there were cafes we could drop into, sure of a welcome. It was impossible to live from November to March "within easy reach of ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... bearing them fast home, turned into the last short cut. This narrow street was full of men and women circling round barrows and lighted booths. The sound of coarse talk and laughter floated out into air thick with the reek of paraffin and the scent of frying fish. In every couple of those men and women Hilary seemed to see the Hughs, that other married couple, going home to wedded happiness above the little model's head. The cab turned out of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... in the country from which this cloth was brought, men little by little forgetting that it ever had been imported from America, who then would divine the secret of the word? So too, if the tradition of the derivation of 'paraffin' were once let go and lost, it would, I imagine, scarcely be recovered. Mere ingenuity would scarcely divine the fact that a certain oil was so named because 'parum affinis,' having little affinity which chemistry could ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... pleased to introduce us to the late Mr. Charles Pease, as done in paraffin, with creped hair and bright, shiny glass eyes. Mr. Pease was undoubtedly England's most fashionable murderer of the past century and his name is imperishably enshrined in the British affections. The guide spoke of his life and works with deep and sincere feeling. He also appeared ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... force of a one-ounce arrow shot from a seventy-five pound bow at ten yards, is twenty-five foot pounds. This test is made by shooting at a cake of paraffin and comparing the penetration with that made by falling weights. Such a striking force is, of course, insignificant when compared with that of a modern bullet, viz., three thousand foot pounds. Yet the damage done by an arrow armed ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... by a small paraffin lamp set in a niche hollowed out of the whitewashed rock, made darkness visible in a tiny room with a rough earthen floor. A red calico curtain at the far end signified a second cave-room beyond. No one was visible, no one ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... only material used for artificially heightening the apparent proportion of stearoptene is said to be spermaceti, which is easily recognizable from its liability to settle down in a solid cake, and from its melting at 122 deg. Fahr., whereas stearoptene fuses at 91.4 deg. Fahr. Possibly paraffin wax would more easily ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... square sail bent on a yard to the mainmast and never used except with such a wind. The Ariadne had a strong flood tide under her, and her 200-h.p. twin motors were stopped. Hence there was no tremor in the ship and no odour of paraffin in the nostrils of those who chanced to wander aft of the engine-room. The deck awning had been rolled up to the centre, and at the four corners of its frame had been hung four temporary electric lights within Chinese lanterns. A radiance ascended from the saloon skylight; the windows of the ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... indicated in Fig. 3, and pressed against the soft part, while the tube is quickly rotated about its axis. If the flange is insufficient the operation may be repeated. The tool should always be warmed in the flame before use, and occasionally greased by touching it to a piece of wax or paraffin. After the flange is complete, the end must be heated again to the softening temperature and cooled slowly, to prevent ...
— Laboratory Manual of Glass-Blowing • Francis C. Frary

... wood as it could. When a dog heard his step it tucked its tail out of sight and sought for a hole in the hedge. The birds knew he carried stones in his pockets. No tree cast so black a shadow in the sunlight as he did. There were stories of a bottle of paraffin oil and a cat that screeched in flames. Folk told of a maltreated dog that pointed its nose to heaven and bayed a curse against humanity until a terrified man battered it to death with a shovel. No one knew who did it, but every one said there were ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... there are, of course, many other applications of ammonia refrigerating machines of a more or less special nature, of which time will not permit even a passing reference. Many of these are embraced in the second class, cold water or brine being used for the cooling of candles, the separation of paraffin, the crystallization of salts, and for many other purposes. In the same way cold brine has been used with great success for freezing quicksand in the sinking of shafts, the excavation being carried out and the watertight tubing or lining put in while the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... played contentedly in the intervals of coughing with the shining chestnuts, or ate his slice of the fine pear—the gift of a friend in Thame—which proved to be the "summat else" of promise. The curtains were close-drawn; the paraffin lamp flared on the table, and as the savoury smell of the hare and onions on the fire filled the kitchen, the whole family gathered round watching for the moment of eating. The fire played on the thin legs and pinched faces of the children; on the baby's cradle in the further ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... cold vegetables, were cracked and did not match; the bread was of the commonest kind, that which is called "household;" the knives were badly cleaned, and the plate was worn off the forks and spoons. It was considered inelegant to have gas in the dining-room, therefore a cheap paraffin-lamp was in the centre of the table, and was more liberal of scent than light. The curtains to the window were of that annoying red which shrieks down any other colour near it; they ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... purpose for several months, but unfortunately the glaze used did not suffice to cover them completely and there was a slight, though persistent, leakage of sulphuric acid through the porous walls. To overcome this difficulty the interior of the vessels was coated with hot paraffin after a long-continued washing to remove the acid and after they had been allowed to dry thoroughly. The paraffin-treated absorbers continued to give satisfaction, but it was soon seen that for ...
— Respiration Calorimeters for Studying the Respiratory Exchange and Energy Transformations of Man • Francis Gano Benedict

... of six eggs to a stiff froth. They should be beaten until so light and dry that they begin to fly off of the beater. Stir in a cupful of powdered sugar, gently and quickly. Spread paraffin paper over three boards, which measure about nine by twelve inches. Drop the mixture by spoonfuls on the boards, having perhaps a dozen on each one. Dry in a warm oven for about three-quarters of an hour; then brown them slightly. Lift from the paper and stick them together at the base by twos. ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa

... of the use of oil and paraffin washes is that the material soaks into the concrete and closes the surface pores against the penetration of water. Paraffin has been quite widely used for preserving stone masonry walls for buildings. It ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... their few belongings into the cave. First they took most of the little store of food that remained, the three hand-lamps and all the paraffin; there was but one tin. Then returning they fetched the bucket, the ammunition, and their clothes. Afterwards, as there was still no sign of Meyer, they even dared to drag in the waggon tent to make a shelter for Benita, and all the wood that they had collected for firing. This proved ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... time of dinner, and arriving half an hour too soon, were shown into a long room that opened on to the verandah. You were working there, being I believe a private secretary at the time, copying some despatch; I think you said that which gave an account of the Annexation. The room was lit by a paraffin lamp behind you, for it was quite dark and the window was open, or at any rate unshuttered. The gentleman who showed us in, seeing that you were very busy, took us to the far end of the room, where we stood talking in the shadow. Just ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... woman in an underground back kitchen. She was suffering with some complaint. When they knocked at the door she was terrified for fear it was the landlord. The room was in a most filthy condition, never having been cleaned. She had a penny paraffin lamp which filled the room with smoke. The old woman was at times totally unable to do anything for herself. The Officers ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... sheltered borders expressly prepared for the purpose, and provided with reed hurdles to screen the plants from cutting winds. Where the assaults of mice are to be apprehended, it is an excellent plan to soak the seed in paraffin oil for twenty minutes, and then, having sown in drills only one inch deep, heap over the drill three inches of fine sand. If this cannot be done, sow in drills fully two inches deep, for shallow sowing will not promote earliness, but it is likely to promote weakness of the plant. ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... black kettle sang on the crane, to make tea for the mourners. Here and there were bunches of new clay pipes scattered, and long rolls of twisted tobacco, for the men to smoke, and saucers full of snuff for both men and women. A great paraffin lamp threw broad, opaque shadows, making the whole a strange blur in the kitchen, while in the bedroom opening off it, where the tense, dead woman lay, was a glare of candles as from footlights, and there gathered the old women of the neighborhood, discussing everything ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... dry gun-cotton was safely fired in shells in small quantities, but when a sufficient quantity to fill the shell cavity was used, the gun burst. Some few years ago it was found that if the gun-cotton was either wet or soaked in paraffin, it could be fired with safety from powder guns in ordinary shells, provided the quantity was small in proportion to the total weight of the shell—say five or six per cent. But a new difficulty arises from the fact that it breaks the shell up into very small pieces, and it is an unsettled ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various

... stout unbleached muslin, fill, tie close, dip the bag in melted grease, cool and smoke. The dipping was not really essential—still it kept the sausage a little fresher. Latterly I have been wondering if paraffin had been known then whether or not it would have ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams

... watches, droves of horses, remounts for Brits's and Vandeventer's Brigades, cattle for our food and for the transport, mules and donkeys, pass this way. Fine sleek animals that have left the Union scarcely a month before, carefully washed in paraffin in a vain attempt to protect them from flies and ticks. But what a change in a short six weeks. The coat that was so sleek now is staring, the eye quite bloodless, the swelling below the stomach that tells its own story; wasting, incredible. Soon these poor beasts are discarded, ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey

... up the steps. She entered the wide hall which was lit by a ghostly, and not too carefully-trimmed, paraffin lamp. Catherine followed her. They went into the drawing-room. Here also a paraffin lamp gave an uncertain light; very feeble, yellow, and uncertain it was, but even by it Catherine could catch a glimpse of her mother's face. It was drawn and white, it was not ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... me back across the interval of fifty years to a little ill-lit room with a sash window open to a starry sky, and instantly there returns to me the characteristic smell of that room, the penetrating odor of an ill-trimmed lamp, burning cheap paraffin. Lighting by electricity had then been perfected for fifteen years, but still the larger portion of the world used these lamps. All this first scene will go, in my mind at least, to that olfactory accompaniment. That was the evening smell of the room. By day it had ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... boxes of matches. 6 gallons paraffin. 1 tin methylated spirit. 10 boxes of flamers. 1 box of blue lights. 2 Primus stoves with spare parts and prickers. 1 Nansen aluminium cooker. 6 sleeping-bags. A few spare socks. A few candles and some ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... previously described where a straight wire is clamped in the middle (fig. 55, a), we next arrive at (b). Here the wire A B is placed in a U tube and clamped in the middle by a tightly fitting cork. Melted paraffin wax is poured to a certain depth in the bend of the tube. The two limbs of the tube are now filled with water, till the ends A and B are completely immersed. Connection is made with the non-polarisable electrodes by the side tubes. Vibration may be imparted to either A or B by means of ebonite ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose

... of the Fournier Works represents about one-fourth of the whole stearine and glycerine production of France, and as paraffin has of late years largely taken the place of stearine in the famous Price Works in England, the Fournier Works are now doubtless the most important of their kind in the world. Thirty years ago the candles produced here were almost all exported; now the home consumption just about equals ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... of small diameter. Branches of small diameter may be grafted by ordinary cleft grafting methods but branches of larger diameter should be treated by the bark slot method. At the present time and in the locality of my country place at Stamford, Connecticut, melted paraffin suffices in place of grafting wax and melted paraffin is brushed over the entire scion, buds and all, as well as over the wound ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various

... aside. The swish of her dress caught the candle, and by good fortune put it out, or she would have been in a blaze. Now there was only the light from the paraffin lamp in the kitchen below striking ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... vicinity of iron, we mounted here our standard compass and Lloyd Creek pedestal for magnetic work. Our range-finder was also mounted on the ice-house. A new stove was put in the galley, a lamp room and paraffin store built, and store-rooms, instrument, and chronometer rooms were added. A tremendous alteration was made in the living spaces both for officers and men. Twenty-four bunks were fitted around the saloon accommodation, whilst for ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans

... light of the paraffin lamp, and gazed in wonderment at Gentle Annie. He was a tattered and mournful object; his boots worn out, his trousers a marvel of patchwork, his coat a thing discoloured and torn, his hair and beard unshorn, himself a being unrecognisable ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... of the poop is a stack of petrol cases; a further stack surmounted with bales of fodder stands between the main hatch and the mainmast, and cases of petrol, paraffin, and alcohol, arranged ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... himself and Eric, a couple of thick blanket rugs, and two empty bed-tick covers—to be afterwards filled with the down they should procure from the sea birds. He bought, too, a strong lamp, with a supply of paraffin oil, and several dozen boxes of matches; so that he and Eric should not have to adopt the tinder and flint business, or be obliged to rub two pieces of dry stick together, in the primitive fashion of the Australian aborigines, ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... in the evening, but it ended in disaster, for a heavy thunderstorm broke, with violent wind, and the tent collapsed on the guests. Had a torrential rain not been falling a horrible catastrophe might have occurred, for the reason that the festive scene was lit with paraffin lamps. However, the canvas was so completely soaked that it could not ignite. But the dancers were held, prone on the ground, by the weight of the sodden material for quite a long time, and the ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... inertiae[Latin], inertion[obs3], inactivity, torpor, languor; quiescence &c. 265; latency, inaction; passivity. mental inertness; sloth &c. (inactivity) 683; inexcitability &c. 826[obs3]; irresolution &c. 605; obstinacy &c. 606; permanence &c. 141. rare gas, paraffin, noble metal, unreactivity. V. be -inert &c. adj.; hang fire, smolder. Adj. inert, inactive, passive; torpid &c. 683; sluggish, dull, heavy, flat, slack, tame, slow, blunt; unreactive; lifeless, dead, uninfluential[obs3]. latent, dormant, smoldering, unexerted[obs3]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... including flamingoes and storks, and on the bushes near the wadi were found these wonderfully nimble little green tree frogs. Small fish abounded in the pools; but pools were not popular with the malaria experts and attempts were being made to drain all casual water into one channel, put a little paraffin in the pools that could not be emptied by draining, and so either remove or render ineffective the breeding places of the anophylis mosquito. The day's work lay on the rifle range or in practising trench-to-trench attacks. There ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... day has gone by when any one of us fears the electric light as a possible rival, we are not insensible to the fact that paraffin oil, from its present low-price, is a rival which we cannot afford to despise. And more especially is this the case in many of the smaller towns and villages, where the charge for gas is of necessity higher than ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various

... charged it dilates a little and the capacity increases, so that it can take a little more charge for a given potential difference existing between its two coatings. This phenomenon occurs with other static condensers, varying in degree with the dielectric. With shellac, paraffin, sulphur and resin, for instance, the absorption is very slight; with gutta-percha, stearine, and glass, the absorption is relatively great. The term is due to Faraday. Iceland spar seems almost or ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... morning add 1 pound (scant measure) of sugar to each pint of the mixture and boil until it jells. This is delicious if you do not object to the slightly bitter taste of the grape fruit. Put in tumblers, cover closely with paraffin. This quantity should fill 22 tumblers, if a ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... hands of the drinkers wire no longer steady. A cake-seller had taken up his place at the other side, and was kneading a last batch of paste, while his apprentice was ringing a bell which hung over the iron cooking-stove to attract customers. There was an odor of rancid butter, spilled wine, and paraffin oil. ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... the arrangements to make the ship comfortable during the dark months, the question of artificial light was as difficult as it was important. Paraffin had from the first been suggested as the most [Page 81] suitable illuminant, its main disadvantage being that it is not a desirable oil to carry in quantities in a ship. 'Our luckiest find,' Scott says, 'was perhaps the right sort of lamp in which to ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... "The paraffin is all over the place!" He seized my sofa blanket, and flung it over the table while I stood helpless. "There, that's safe now. Have you candles on ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... fears which little Janey Ford had put into their hearts began to grow greater and more fixed each moment. When Kathleen appeared all was immediately changed. Susy preceded her, carrying the little paraffin lamp. This was placed on the table which was arranged in the yard for the purpose, and its light fell now on the vivid coloring and beautiful face of the Irish girl. She took off her favorite blue velvet cap and pushed her hand through her masses of radiant hair, and then flung herself ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... editors and reporters while Parliament was sitting. She saw them as rather silly, violent and desperate men, yet pathetic in their silliness, violence and desperation, snatching at divorces, and breach of promise cases, and fires in paraffin shops, as drowning men ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair

... cement must be taken into account, and I should certainly not trust it for this reason in vacuum tube work, where the purity of the confined gas could come in question. Otherwise it is an excellent cement, and does not in my experience tend to crack away from glass to the same extent as paraffin ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... gunners to aim with precision, but the sound guided them to some extent, and suddenly a perfect volcano of machine-gun fire broke out on board the Blanco Encalada, followed by a hoarse scream of agony from the torpedo-launch. An iron bucket was partly filled with paraffin and this was lighted as a flare, throwing a lurid glare over the sea and disclosing plainly to view a couple of rapidly approaching launches, each of which carried a spar over her bows, from which a torpedo was suspended, the launches heading ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... floor. The other man continued for a while to pace the room; then he sat down on the chair and spread his hands out over the stove, muttering to himself. I watched him as well as I could through the chink of the cupboard doors by the dim light of the stinking paraffin lamp; a greasy, unwholesome-looking wretch, sallow, pallid and unshorn; and thought how striking he would look in the form of ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... showed me the design of his new lamps—the first paraffin lamps to be seen so far north. They were splendid things, with a heavy leaden base, and he lit them himself every evening—to prevent any accident. He spoke once or twice of his grandfather, ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun

... be brought within 1/200 in. of the surface of the drum. Each pin is a part of the secondary circuit of an induction coil, the space between the pins and the drum forming spark-gaps. The drum is rubbed over with a weak solution of paraffin wax in benzol, which causes the markings produced by the sparks to be well defined. The records are read by means of a fine hair stretched along the drum and just clear of it, the dots being located under the hair by means of a lens. The velocity ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... for omega-brommethylfurfural by 'sowing' with the most minute trace of the substance, as described above. It was then warmed on a water-oven, kept in a vacuum desiccator over solid paraffin, and the weight estimated. When necessary, the product was recrystallised from ether, and further identified by the tests mentioned. ...
— Researches on Cellulose - 1895-1900 • C. F. Cross

... an action against Messrs. MACDOUGALL, of Mark Lane. I tried their smearing plan on a horse in my stable that had a huge appetite, and was always getting cold if left out in the wet. I used paraffin, and at first the animal seemed really grateful. In the night I was called up by a fearful noise, and found that the horse's appetite had not got at all less owing to the oil; on the contrary, it seemed to have eaten up most of the woodwork of the stable, and was plunging about madly. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various

... Lorrain Smith;[2] it requires the addition of a lamp resistance and sliding rheostat, also a delicate ammeter reading to .01 of an ampere. It consists of a wooden frame supporting a flat glass bulb with a long neck bent upward at an obtuse angle (Fig. 53). The bulb is filled with liquid paraffin, which rises in the open neck when expanded by heat. The neck also accommodates the thermometer. Two coils of manganin wire run in the paraffin at opposite sides of the bulb (outside the field of vision), coupled to brass terminals on the wooden frame by platinum wire fused into ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... soon," Willesden, who was specially in charge of the stores, said. "It was a capital idea bringing that large spirit stove and the paraffin with us; even a native could not find any dry sticks ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty

... however, make the yarn brittle, and other ingredients are combined with them to overcome the brittleness. For a softener on heavy weight goods nothing has been found superior to good beef tallow. On light-weight goods the softener giving the most general satisfaction is paraffin. ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... the human lot was cast, the duskiest corner of a shop pervaded not a little, in winter, by the poison of perpetual gas, and at all times by the presence of hams, cheese, dried fish, soap, varnish, paraffin and other solids and fluids that she came to know perfectly by their smells without consenting to know them ...
— In the Cage • Henry James

... partially burned. One witness was taken prisoner in the street by some German soldiers, together with several other civilians. At about 12 o'clock some of the tallest and strongest men among the prisoners were picked out to go around the streets with paraffin. Three or four carts containing paraffin tanks were brought up, and a syringe was used to put paraffin on to the houses, which were then fired. The process of destruction began with the houses of rich people, and afterward the houses of the poorer ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... France, and at every faint puff of wind the sparks floated about them like falling stars. But other fires were burning. Under the cover of the darkness the Germans had collected their dead and had piled them into great heaps and had covered them with straw and paraffin. Then they had set a torch to ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs



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