Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Ripple   Listen
noun
Ripple  n.  
1.
The fretting or dimpling of the surface, as of running water; little curling waves.
2.
A little wave or undulation; a sound such as is made by little waves; as, a ripple of laughter.
Ripple grass. (Bot.) See Ribwort.
Ripple marks, a system of parallel ridges on sand, produced by wind, by the current of a steam, or by the agitation of wind waves; also (Geol.), a system of parallel ridges on the surface of a sandstone stratum.






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 |





"Ripple" Quotes from Famous Books



... did neither—he continued to speak on various occasions, and expressed himself so courteously, so modestly, so becomingly, that the members listened in awe and curiosity. Then soon it was discovered that beneath the mild and gentle ripple of his speech ran a deep current of earnest truth, tinged with subtle wit. When he spoke, the loungers came in from the cloakrooms, fearing to miss something ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... miles in length. They end at the mountain Roganora. Two rocks, twelve or fifteen feet above the water at the time we were there, may in flood be covered and dangerous. Our chief danger was the wind, a very slight ripple being sufficient to ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... in a line were making a long ripple on the swell. They were the heads of three sea elephants moving like one. Then the line became the segment of a circle bending in shore. But the swimmers were not going to land; they kept parallel to ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... grew conscious of a faint, gradual revealing of the mountain-tops, which for a time had been black, jagged pieces cut out from the spangled fabric of a starry sky. A ripple of pearly light wavered over them, like the reflection of the unseen river mirrored for ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... nerves, for to me the night remained as voiceless as a subterranean cavern. I became intensely irritated with him; within my mind I cried out against this infatuated pantomime of his. And then, of a sudden, there was a sound—the dying rumor of a ripple, somewhere in the outside darkness, as though an object had been let into ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... pacing it, round and round, like a caged beast, when the stars grew faint and the silver ripple of the dayspring broke over the sea. For two hours and more he had been thinking hard, and he rested his elbows on the balcony and paused for a minute or two to watch the red ball of the sun as it heaved above the waters. To the north, beyond the roofs ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... relic in the church itself is the font, which appears to belong to the tenth century; three typical Norman pillars support the northern arcade of the roof, and there is a very fine Norman door at the south porch. The Vicar loved to interpret the zigzag moulding as the "ripple of the lake of Gennesareth, the spirit breathing upon the waters of baptism"; he was doubtless more correct in reading a symbolic meaning into the carved vine that creeps from the chancel down the church. On the furze and bracken-clad slope above the cliffs, ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... here—quiet, order, beauty, power, life. It affected one to enter it unprepared in much the same way, only with a greater variety and richness of emotion, as to push through dense brush and suddenly behold a mountain lake upon whose bosom there is not so much as a ripple, and in whose silver mirror surrounding forests, flying water-fowl and the bright disk of ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... in the ripple of the flowing water the weeping of Cucuduri, and throws three small fish to him. If he should not do this, he would catch nothing. Cucuduri would throw stones into the water and drive the fish off, or he would even throw stones at ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... placed on arrival. The night was beautiful and starlight, and, our repast over, the awning was removed, and we sat out enjoying our cigars in the cool night breeze blowing in fresh and strong from the sea. The quiet ripple of the waves as they broke on the sandy beach had a soothing effect very favourable to reflection (and baccy), and the lights of the little fishing village twinkling at the foot of the black and rugged peak of Santubong—which rose to a height of 1,500 feet above our heads, and behind ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt

... out upon the calm sea, which lay like a sheet of glass, without a ripple on its surface, I could scarcely believe what he had said. But before many minutes had passed I was convinced of ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne

... upon the river that wus sweepin' along under sun and moon, bearing on every wave and ripple the glory ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... still there, the trees being quite motionless, and the only sounds heard being the hum of some insect and the ripple of the water a dozen yards away. High above us through the thin tracery of an overhanging tree the sky looked of a brilliant blue, and away to left ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... awful speech could be felt. The Prime Minister gasped, flushed to the eyes, and half rose to dismiss Dawson from the room. He himself thought for a moment that all was lost, when through the tense atmosphere ran a ripple of gay laughter. It was the First Lord who, with instant decision, had taken the only means to save his new friend Dawson. He has a delightfully infectious silvery laugh, and the effect was electrical. The War Minister opened his great mouth, and bellowed Ha! Ha! Ha! The Minister ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... across the glassy surface of the bay, propelled by six stalwart oarsmen each, a little jet of phosphorescent water spouting up under their sharp stems, a long ripple spreading out and undulating away on either side of them, and half a dozen tiny whirlpools of liquid fire swirling in the wake of each as their crews strained at the stout ash oars until they bent again. The night had grown black as pitch, not a solitary ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... silver in the gold. Two different metals and where they're not well fused. That sword blade, too. Just the misalignment of molecules in the surface of the steel makes it look wavy, and ripple when the light changes or you move. Different even in two parts of the same material. That's why you can't get the stereo cube to reproduce color-feel exactly." Breathing heavily, Jason had to let ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro

... enough? Holy God!" she cried with increasing vexation. "You are in love—in love, I say!" A ripple of laughter bubbled over the two rosy petals of Chiquita's lips, revealing the pearly whiteness of her teeth. Now that she realized the real cause of the Senora's anger, it was impossible to become angry herself. The Senora, however, was by no means abashed ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... it," said Bonner. Then callers put a stop to the chat. Then the colonel himself came home to his cosey quarters, and silence had settled down over the beautiful plain. The lights were dimmed in the barracks; the sentries paced their measured rounds; from the verandas of the hotel came the ripple of murmured words and soft laughter, and a tinkle of banjo and guitar. At the gate the colonel exchanged good-night greetings with a happy-faced, motherly looking woman whom Bonner had noticed overwhelmed with pride and emotion during the ceremonies in the morning. He did not at first recognize ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King

... turned to walk away, just as the babbling ripple of laughter began to flow downstairs, and a whole mass of little girls intertwined together was descending. 'I always hop,' said a voice new to him, 'except on the great staircase, and mother doesn't like it there. But this is such a ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... beside the river Long ago, my Love and I, Where the willows droop and quiver 'Twixt the water and the sky. We were wrapped in fragrant shadow, 'Twas the quiet vesper time, And the bells across the meadows Mingled with the ripple's chime. With no thought of ill betiding, "Thus," we said, "life's years shall be For us twain a river gliding To a calm, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various

... lips to cry, "Now, Dave, pull!" but he could not speak, only watch the thin, keen, yellow man, whose eye glittered beneath his rough hairy cap as he slowly tightened the line, drawing it up till it was above the surface of the water, which began to ripple and play about it in long waves running off in different directions. There was so great a length that it was impossible to draw it tight without moving the spreader poles; and as the lads both thought of what the consequences would be if ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn

... now, moreover, that an undercurrent of circumstance existed which did not even ripple the surface of that apparently facetious brutality hurled at ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... to see you," she went on slowly and gropingly, her face a ripple of smiles. "My English you will please excuse. It is not good. I am English like you," she gravely assured him. "My father he is Scotch. My mother she is dead. She is French, and English, and a little Indian, too. Her father was a great man in the Hudson Bay Company. Brrr! It is cold." She slipped ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... same voice with which the exercises on Ah have been sung, and to have them all of the same size, easily and loosely pronounced. Never permit the pronunciation to be too broad for the voice. The pronunciation should never be mouthed, but should flow into the stream of the breath without causing a ripple. This is ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... been different if they could have got hold of you in the beginning. But now," said Pinney, forgetting what he had already said of it, "the whole thing has blown over, so that that letter of yours from Rimouski hardly started a ripple in Boston; I can't say how it was in Hatboro'. No, sir, I don't believe that if you went back now, and your friends stood by you as they ought to,—I don't believe you'd get more than a mere nominal sentence, if you ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... plashing of night birds and reptiles. Then the train was halted. Jones left Nasmyd in command and plunged into a thick skirt of bushes. Now Barney, hot and dirty from the march, had shot ahead when he heard the ripple of the water. He had taken off his shoes to bathe his blistered and swollen feet, and sat quite still and restful under the leafy sprays of an odorous bush that even in the dark he knew to ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... length of figure on the sloping ground near by, and flung aside his cap; thus revealing more clearly the rugged contour of his head, and the black hair whose obstinate ripple no amount of brushing could subdue. With leisurely deliberation he filled his pipe, and surrendered himself to the enchantment of the hour, before it slipped from him into the region of accomplished things. And it is this very evanescence, this rainbow quality of our hill-top ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... dispel. And at he same time he looked at her, slim, tall, and elegant, daintily clothed from her shapely shoes to her sailor hat, her brown hair, parted in the middle, escaping a little from its confinement to ripple about her forehead, and show more clearly the delicacy of her complexion. Trent was an ignorant man on many subjects, on others his taste seemed almost intuitively correct. He knew that this girl belonged to a class from which his descent and education had left him far apart, a class of which ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... but with tears that we wring his hand and part from him on the lake shore" as "The Pathfinder." Glowing and brave proved his Mabel, as "the bubble of a boat floated on the very crest of a foaming breaker,"—yet not for him. But the ripple of the lake's waves and rustling of forest leaves are as unforgettable as the low, sweet tones of "Dew-of-June." Of "The Pathfinder" and Cooper Balzac wrote: "Its interest is tremendous. He surely owed us this masterpiece after the last two or three ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips

... call a vivacious man," said Mangles, looking dismally across the room. "There was a sort of ripple on his serene calm ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... battlement,[11] Which round about the wave inthralls: A double dungeon wall and wave Have made—and like a living grave. Below the surface of the lake[12] The dark vault lies wherein we lay: We heard it ripple night and day; Sounding o'er our heads it knocked; And I have felt the winter's spray Wash through the bars when winds were high 120 And wanton in the happy sky; And then the very rock hath rocked, And I have felt it shake, unshocked,[13] Because I ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... streamers flying, and the music of men's voices cheering her on her career. Happy and prosperous be her course! We think not of winter's cold in the fervent summer time, and wreck and ruin seem impossible on the smooth surface of the laughing sea; yet cold and winter come, and the smiling, sweet-tempered ripple can awaken from slumber, and battle and storm with the heavens. Never had bark left haven with finer promises of success. We will follow her from the port, and keep watchfully in the good ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... sweet and clear from some tea-garden near, A ripple of laughter steals out to your ear; Anon the wind brings from a samisen's strings The pathos that's born of a smile and ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... on the bench permitted the slightest ripple of anxiety to disconcert his steadfastness of gaze just then pandemonium was ripe for breaking in his courtroom. But the judge looked down with imperturbable calm as though this were the accustomed procedure of his court, and when a margin of pause had intervened to give his words greater effect ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... wave of her jewelled right hand she performed the ceremony of introduction between the three callers and Mrs. Frump—the fat young lady—who also carefully raised herself about two inches from her chair, and lowered herself again, without disarranging a ripple. ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... its streets, and distributed elephants among the senators, and laid Etruria out in vineyards, and contemplated in leisure moments the suppression of Christianity as a subordinate detail of administration, a mere ripple on the broad ocean of his policy—at this period Bahram the First, King of Persia, naturally became disquieted ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... her resistance, Flung back her penny, kicked their fruit Along whichever road they took, 440 Not leaving root or stone or shoot; Some writhed into the ground, Some dived into the brook With ring and ripple, Some scudded on the gale without a sound, Some vanished ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... I dreamed of you, I assure you I did, and now to find you in the morning, oh, so changed!' She clasped her little hands and inclined her head, while the sweet voice sank into a cadence of melancholy which seemed so genuine that the mocking ripple of a laugh immediately following was almost a shock to me. Where had this creature of the dull English countryside learnt all such frou-frou ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... the ripple of the water among the grass and pebbles; the tongue and lips of the lake are lapping and whispering all along. It is the merest poetry; but you are so romantic, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... pages to describe the fury of the storm, which Mr. Cruikshank has represented in one. First, he has to prepare you with the something inexpressibly melancholy in sailing on a dark night upon the Thames: "the ripple of the water," "the darkling current," "the indistinctively seen craft," "the solemn shadows" and other phenomena visible on rivers at night are detailed (with not unskilful rhetoric) in order to bring the reader into a proper frame of mind for the deeper gloom and horror which is to ensue. ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray

... covered the spot again and again in our circling machines, we were joined by two more pilots, and finally by a fast clipper steam yacht. The surface of the water was literally covered with oil, breaking up the ripple of the waves, and smoothing a huge area into gleaming bronze. Here and there floated a cork belt, odd bunches of cotton waste, a strip of carpet, and a wooden three-legged stool. These fragments alone remained to testify to ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... Pat!' 'Go it, Jamie!' 'Well ridden!' A subdued hum runs round the excited spectators. The ardent racers are nose and nose. One swift, sharp cut, the cruel whip hisses through the air, and the black is fairly 'lifted in,' a winner by a nose. The ripple of conversation breaks out afresh. The band strikes up a lively air, and the saddling for the next race ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... these gray and moss-grown walls, This ivied porch, and trelliced vine, The lattice with its narrow pane, A relic of the olden time; The willow with its waving leaves, Through which the low winds murmuring glide, The gurgling ripple of the stream That whispers softly at ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... kept, Shall it pass like the ripple, unhonour'd, unwept: Unknowing the lance, and the victim unknown, Far from Aberffraw's halls and ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... room. Himself is his dungeon. If he feels it not now, he will yet feel it one day—feel it as a living soul would feel being prisoned in a dead body, wrapped in sevenfold cerements, and buried in a stone-ribbed vault within the last ripple of the sound of the chanting people in the church above. His life is not in knowing that he lives, but in loving all forms of life. He is made for the All, for God, who is the All, is his life. And the essential joy of his life lies ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... emerged from a dense forest, abundantly adorned with exquisite foliage, and where majestic trees, flourishing in gorgeous profusion, afforded a gratifying shelter from the scorching sun. Not a sound was heard but the gentle ripple of a limpid stream, breaking over the boulders on its course towards the ravine below. But it was hardly the moment to ponder on the poetic scene, for fatigue and hunger had almost overcome sentimentality, and I got as quickly ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... a yard of her. She stirred the fire, so that a ripple of light broke from the disturbed coal: the glare, however, as she sat, only threw her face into deeper shadow: ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... like a sigh from the darkening clouds. Rand looked out over field and forest to the massed horizon, then shook the reins, and Selim picked his way down the ridge to a woodland bottom through which flowed a stream. Rand heard the ripple of the water. A jutting boulder, crowned by a mountain ash, hid the road before him; he turned it and saw the stream, some yards away, flowing over mossed rocks and beneath a dark fringe of laurel. He saw more than the stream, for a horseman had paused upon the little rocky ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... Fourth goes on watch, and we lie listlessly under our awning, praying for a breeze. On the face of the blazing vault there is not a single cloud, on the face of the waters not a ripple. The sea is a vast pond of paraffin. The hot gases from the funnel rise vertically, and the sun quivers behind them. The flaps of the windsail hang dead, the sides of the canvas tube have fallen in like the neck of a skinny old man. Slowly the sun mounts over our heads and the air grows hotter and ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... of the river seemed to cause a correspondent stir in his uneasy reflections. He would have laid them asleep if he could, but they were in movement, like the stream, and all tending one way with a strong current. As the ripple under the moon broke unexpectedly now and then, and palely flashed in a new shape and with a new sound, so parts of his thoughts started, unbidden, from the rest, and revealed their wickedness. 'Out of the question ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... moment. The ripple of amusement was gone; the iron, so near the surface, cropped through. "I can't answer that," he said. "I do not know. A man is not always able to control a first impulse, and before that pine tree fell there ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... pulpit, half-fearfully sitting down upon the minister's chair, or standing on tip-toe to peep over the sacred desk at the busy group below. Young girls moved silently about "helping." Over their pale lips not a ripple of laughter broke. The fire of youth seemed to have died out of their sad eyes, quenched for a time ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... Notes" Wakeman appears as Captain Hurricane Jones, probably a step in the evolution of the later name of Stormfield. The best feature of the series (there were four papers in all) is a story of a rescue in mid-ocean; but surely the brightest ripple of humor is the reference to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... to use of light ground. Brown lustrous paint, fine surface to clay. Decoration naturalistic, flowers, cuttle-fish, shells, spirals, ripple patterns, white and orange dots and bands occasionally super-imposed on dark glaze (Figs. 7, 10, ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various

... basin, with a pale blue-green light floating in the centre like a night-light. Round that basin the man on the floor wriggled himself three times. How he did it I do not know. I could see the muscles ripple along his spine and fall smooth again; but I could not see any other motion. The head seemed the only thing alive about him, except that slow curl and uncurl of the laboring back-muscles, Janoo from the bed was ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... up to the pitch of his nerves, for to me the night remained as voiceless as a subterranean cavern. I became intensely irritated with him; within my mind I cried out against this infatuated pantomime of his. And then, of a sudden, there was a sound—the dying rumour of a ripple, somewhere in the outside darkness, as though an object had been let into ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... Canute-like, sitting here, one is often reminded of the sea. For not only do long ground-swells roll the slanting grain, and little wavelets of the grass ripple over upon the low piazza, as their beach, and the blown down of dandelions is wafted like the spray, and the purple of the mountains is just the purple of the billows, and a still August noon broods upon the deep meadows, as a calm upon the Line; but the vastness and the lonesomeness ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... which had been placed in the boat, had set down the lighted lanthorn, jumped into the boat again and vanished in the darkness. And in the silence, broken only by the drip of water from the retreating oars, and by the scarcely-noticed ripple of the waves, Audrey voiced exactly ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher

... vain attempts to trace the old lady. It had never made much difference to anyone before where Miss Ann had gone. For many years she had been leaving one relation's home and arriving at another's, and the comings and goings of Cousin Ann had created but a small ripple in family affairs. She had never deigned to say where next she intended to visit, so why now should the cousins be so disturbed ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson

... really you at last," she cried again, and there was a tremor, the surface ripple of a sob in that clear voice. She fetched a deep sigh: "And I thought I'd lost you forever. Wait a moment. I'll ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... the hill toward the cliffs on her left hand, she descended till she reached a spot from which she could look down on the pebbly beach lying some three hundred feet below her, and on the soft shining ripple of the quiet waters as they moved themselves with a pleasant sound on the long strand which lay stretched in a line from the spot beneath her out to the point of the island. The evening was warm, and almost transparent in its clearness, and very quiet. There was no sound even of a breeze. When ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... the innumerable aloe-plants of colossal proportions, give the scene a truly African character. Villefranche reflects herself and her palms upon the surface of the most mirror-like of bays, for even in the stormiest weather no ripple stirs its waters—waters so deep that the largest ships of war can anchor in them close to the shore. The American frigates cruising in the Mediterranean usually make Villefranche their winter resort, and the stately presences of the Richmond, Plymouth, Shenandoah and Juniata ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... to kiss the still boisterous wind—the sunlight broke in a wide smile of springtide glory over the world! With the burden of my agony upon me—with the utter exhaustion of my overwrought nerves, I beheld all things as in a feverish dream—the laughing light, the azure ripple of waters—the receding line of my native shores—everything was blurred, indistinct, and unreal to me, though my soul, Argus-eyed, incessantly peered down, down into those darksome depths where SHE lay, silent forever. ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... she said. "I was only thinking that one of those low-necked English bodices would have made it perfect." Not only her mouth and eyes, but her whole body seemed to ripple with suppressed laughter as she left ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... a ripple broke upon the shore. The old stars of the old East were all out, each in its accustomed place; and there was summer everywhere—on land, on ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... began to decrease. It was as if some noble orator had begun to speak in the midst of a tumultuous assembly. Those nearest him catch his utterances first, and become quiet; the wave of silence spreads like a great ripple in the water; until at last the whole audience is as hushed as death. So something—some extraordinary thing—had arrested the battle; down, down, dropped the tumult; and at last there were only a few scattering shots to be heard, here ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... Cattleland. She had already met most of them at the launching of the machine from the flat car, and had directed their perspiring energies as they labored to follow her orders. Now she nodded a recognition with a little ripple of ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... Rabelaisian before Rabelais. But there is a freedom and hilarity in much of his writing that gives it a singular attraction. A breath of cheerfulness runs along the slender stream of his verse, under which it seems to ripple and crinkle, catching and casting back the sunshine like a stream blown on ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... object of their own in view, the five wise virgins of Miss Ladd's first class had waited an hour, in wakeful anticipation of the falling asleep of the stranger—and it had ended in this way! A ripple of laughter ran round the room. The new girl, mortified and offended, entered ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins

... band of successors, suggests an unpreparedness for the discovery when it came. Thus Calisto and Melibaea (1530), an imitation of a Spanish comedy of the same name, though it contained a definitely evolved plot, sent barely a ripple over the surface of succeeding authorship. It represents the steadfastness of the maiden Melibaea against the entreaties of her lover Calisto and the much more crafty, indeed almost successful, wiles of the procuress, ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... obstacle to the ascent of a good boat. In very high water warping might be required. Six miles below these rapids are what are known as 'Rink Rapids,' This is simply a barrier of rocks, which extends from the westerly side of the river about half 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 ...
— Klondyke Nuggets - A Brief Description of the Great Gold Regions in the Northwest • Joseph Ladue

... water hissed and ran over the baked earth; where had been dry channels, rents and scars, full of dust, were now singing torrents and broad pools fetlock deep. Prosper let his good beast go his own gait, which was a sober trot, and ever and again as he heard the ripple of running water and the swirl and suck of the eddies in it, he judged that he must soon or late touch the Wan river, whereon stood the Abbey and his bed. What to do with the girl when he got there? That puzzled him. "A well-ordered abbey," he thought, "has no place for a girl, and one ill-ordered ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... uplands of hope once more. Now, as twenty years ago, this feeling covered the whole world, was most pronounced in the newer and more progressive lands, and was voiced by Captain Tolliver, the grizzled swashbuckler of the land market. In it I recognized the ripple on the sands heralding the approach of another wave of speculation, which must roll shoreward in splendor and might, and, like its predecessors, must ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... creation her acquaintance with us had been. She would gaze through the microscope at awful forms, and would persevere until the silver rim which marked the confines of the drop of water under inspection would ripple inwards with a flash of light and vanish, because the drop itself had evaporated. 'Well, I can only say, how marvellous are Thy doings!' was a frequent ejaculation of Miss Wilkes, and one that was very well received. She learned the Latin names of many ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... dark, the yard was thronged with people. They listened with smiles or a faint ripple of merry feeling ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... the slope. A moment of suspense—and a long-drawn breath. We are first. There are the Boers dismounting a hundred yards away. "Action front, the pom-pom." "Down men, down!"—come the hoarse orders, and a ripple of fire crackles along the summit of the rise. "Let them have the whole belt." Pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom! The little gun reels and quivers as it belches forth its stream of spiteful bombs. For a moment the Boers return the fire. Then they rush for their horses, and in as many seconds ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... time the light fell upon a deer. He raised his head and gazed upon the light. Burr moved with the boat without making a ripple and finally he held the boat with his oar and ordered me to fire. This I did, and the deer ran for the shore, Burr pushed his boat to the quag, took the jack, and followed the track. At the distance of about fifteen rods he found the deer unable to move. ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... his finger over the side, so that it made a ripple in the water (the most delightful experience of childhood). Emmeline, with one hand clasped in her uncle's, watched Mr Button with a grave sort of ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... warm and blond Beside a wheat-shock in the white-topped mead, In her hot hair the yellow daisies wound,— O bird of rain, lend aught but sleepy heed To thee? when no plumed weed, no feathered seed Blows by her; and no ripple breaks the pond, That gleams like flint within its rim of grasses, Through which the dragonfly forever ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein

... phosphorescent, and I remember that the phrase "wan water," so familiar in the Scottish ballards, struck me just then as peculiarly appropriate, though its real meaning is quite different. A gentle breeze, from which I had hoped for a ripple, had utterly died away, and it was a warm, breathless Southern night. There was no sound but the faint swash of the coming tide, the noises of the reed-birds in the marshes, and the occasional leap of a fish; and it seemed to my overstrained ear as if every footstep of my own must ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... known to God alone, think not of the rushing torrents of this world! Envy not even the crystal stream which winds among the meadows. The ripple of its waters is sweet indeed, but it can be heard by creatures. Besides, the Field-flower could never contain it in its cup. One must be so little to draw near to Jesus, and few are the souls that aspire ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)

... Saronia was thoughtful and calm. Not a ripple of agitation crossed her face as she gave her orders to a ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short

... Homer, dwelt upon these coasts, although later poets have increased the number of the fatal sisters to three or even four. Singing the most enchanting songs to the sound of tortoise-shell lyres, there used to bask in the sunlight beside the gentle ripple the Sirens, their nether limbs well hidden from the gaze of passing seamen, who, attracted by the tuneful notes, hastened hither to discover the whereabouts of the musicians. Innocent eyes, angelic faces, flowing golden locks and white beckoning hands had ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... of Douglas began to cause no little uneasiness. Brown paid tribute to his influence, when he declared that if the Senator from Illinois had stood with the administration, "there would not have been a ripple on the surface." "Sir, the Senator from Illinois gives life, he gives vitality, he gives energy, he lends the aid of his mighty genius and his powerful will to the Opposition on this question."[655] But Douglas paid a fearful price for this power. ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... Buenos Ayres," Rochester heard him conclude, amidst a ripple of laughter. "I can assure you that I saw the incident with my ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the old man was stark enough to have waded the water waist-deep. She was no longer in her war-gear, but was clad after her wont of Shadowy Vale, in nought but a white woollen kirtle. So she stood in the stream beside the stones, and let the swift water ripple up over her ankles, while the elder leaned on her shoulder and looked down upon her kindly. The Sun-beam followed after them, stepping daintily from stone to stone, so that she was a fair sight to see; her face was smiling and happy, and as she stepped ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... consequences. So, for that matter, was the gangsman. Knowing well that Jack would make a break for it the first chance he got, he hovered about the ship both day and night, alert for every movement on board, watchful of every ripple on the water, taunting the woebegone sailors with the irksomeness of their captivity or the certainty of their capture, and awaiting with what patience he could the hour that should see pratique restored and the crew at his mercy. Whether the ship had "catching" disease on board or not ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... somewhat delicate-looking gentleman seated beside him turned upon the big man an expansive smile, a mischievous smile, and, pushing his goggles up on his forehead, burst into such a ripple of laughter that his drooping moustache, which seemed so natural, fell from its place, instantly transforming him. It was the jovial, yet cautious, Henri enjoying this amazing adventure ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... hills of Erin. But cheer up, Cuglas, there are mossy ways and forest paths and nestling bowers in fairyland. Lonely they are, I know, in your eyes now," said the little woman; "but maybe," she added, with a laugh as musical as the ripple on a streamlet when summer is in the air, "maybe you won't always ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... down the tide,— The waters gurgling along her side,— Down where the bay glows vast and wide,— A beautiful sheet of water; With scarce a ripple about her prow, The oyster-smack floated, silent and slow, With Keyport far on her starboard bow, And South Amboy ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... once said, 'If all that Christ said and did were written in books, the world could not contain them. This is an exageration, (a ripple of laughter dances over the congregation), having a great meaning, however." * * * * "David gives us only his intense life." (The audience smile). (11:35). The preacher becoming dramatic in gesticulation and oratorical in delivery, ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner

... an Indian crouching in its stern wielding a paddle, was skimming across the stream, not a sound or splash of paddle, nor hardly a ripple from it to be ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower

... are in Spain, on a July night of the same summer, the air being hot and heavy. In the darkness the ripple of the river Tormes can be heard over the ford, which is near the foreground ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... that trunk, Johnnie," came her mother's caution, with a girlish ripple of laughter in the tones. "Hit's a borried one. Now don't you roach up and git mad. I had obliged to have a trunk, bein' wedded and comin' down to the settlement this-a-way. I only borried Mildred Faidley's. She won't never ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... [To CHANTECLER, tossing and twisting her head so that the colours ripple at her throat.] Have you noticed these two shades? They are our own especial colours—the Dawn's and mine! Princess of the underbrush, queen of the glade, I am pleased to wear the yellow locks of an adventuress. Dreamy and ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand

... appealed to the public with manifest approval. "But this," Weed said, "did not suit the Tribune and a class of politicians with whom it sympathised. They demanded a candidate with whom abolition is the paramount consideration."[838] Morgan's letter created a ripple of applause, after which the presentation of Wadsworth's name aroused an enthusiasm of longer duration than had existed at Albany. Nevertheless, Charles G. Myers of St. Lawrence did not hesitate to speak for "a more available ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... was driving his master's gig to the Cartmel shore, and was to return with the horse the same evening. He had of course no time to lose, and had begun his journey at the earliest possible hour. We found the sands firm and level, except the slight wrinkles produced by the ripple of the waves; but they were still wet, having only just been left by the sea. The guide appeared to drive with caution, and in no place went farther than a mile from land. We had a good deal of conversation, and I found him intelligent and communicative. His name is Thomas ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... great," replied Patricia with a ripple of mirth. "I honestly do, Bruce. I'm going to have a gorgeous time, and I'm awfully ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

... ships were heading for the land, the long oars rising and falling swiftly, while the red and white striped sails hung idly in the calm. One could see the double of each ship in the water, broken wonderfully by the ripple of the oars, and after each stretched a white wake like a ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler

... thinking of the little people who had just gone—how would it be with them in the years to come?—they were so sweet and pure and lovely now. Unconsciously she bowed her head on her hands, and a cry quivered from her heart. The yellow sunlight made a ripple of golden water on the wall behind her and threw a wavering radiance on ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... When Pao-yue raised his eyes, he noticed that Shih Jung, Prince of Pei Ching, wore on his head a princely cap with pure white tassels and silvery feathers, that he was appareled in a white ceremonial robe, (with a pattern representing) the toothlike ripple of a river and the waters of the sea, embroidered with five-clawed dragons; and that he was girded with a red leather belt, inlaid with white jade. That his face was like a beauteous gem; that his eyes were like ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... way the wind blew before the Deluge by marking the ripple and cupping of the rain in the petrified sand now preserved forever. We tell the very path by which gigantic creatures, whom man never saw, walked to the river's ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... Gascoigne followed them, looking as if he had gathered up all the gloom of the deserted spot, and was hearing it as a burden of inestimable treasure. But still they rambled on, and soon found themselves in a rocky dell, through the midst of which ran a streamlet, with ripple, and foam, and a continual voice of inarticulate joy. It was a wild retreat, walled on either side with gray precipices, which would have frowned somewhat too sternly, had not a profusion of green shrubbery rooted itself into their crevices, and wreathed gladsome foliage around their ...
— The Lily's Quest (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... But,"—he added after a pause—"his works do follow him. Look there!" He took a large stone and threw it into the Silverburn stream; there was a great splash, and the ever-widening circles of blue ripple broke the surface of the water, dying away one by one in the sedges on the bank. "There," he said, "see how long those ripples last, ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... Sky, sea, beach, and village, lie as still before us as if they were sitting for the picture. It is dead low-water. A ripple plays among the ripening corn upon the cliff, as if it were faintly trying from recollection to imitate the sea; and the world of butterflies hovering over the crop of radish-seed are as restless in their little way as the gulls ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... creek? Not likely! Link's been crabbin' for thirty years in these waters. Water was smooth. Not a ripple, even out on the bay. Even if he fell over, he could almost walk ashore. Tide was out and he was settin' lines in about six feet, and he's better than two yards high. Shore wasn't more ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin

... the sunshine, her white shoulders expanding in youthfulness, her whole being so fraught with the gladness of life, that she leaped from her stem and darted upon his mouth, scenting him with her long ripple ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... pleasures that besieged me in the darkness. Wonderful tremors filled me; my head swam in the most delirious but enjoyable manner; and the bed softly oscillated with me, like a boat in a very gentle ripple. It does not make me write a good style apparently, which is just as well, lest I should be tempted to renew the experiment; and some verses which I wrote turn out on inspection to be not quite equal to Kubla Khan. However, I was happy, and the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... she suddenly broke into a little ripple of laughter, and, upon being questioned severely as to the reason of such unseemly mirth, she said, gaily, "I was just wondering what poor Phil will do with three girls, and one his sister, ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield



Words linked to "Ripple" :   gurgle, moving ridge, ripple mark, ripple-grass, wave, flux, wavelet, turn up, flow, vibration, cockle, rippling, bubble, fold up, burble, babble, guggle, oscillation, fold, go, ruffle



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org