"Shear" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what you never could hold; I garner the kisses you'd barter life for And with them, I gather your gold. I garner the best of your manhood's prime Then quit them when shattered in health; I bring to heel the ones that you love And smiling I shear them of wealth. ...
— Rhymes of a Roughneck • Pat O'Cotter
... occurred at the fortress of Saint Leon, Rome, in 1795. A sublimer rascal never breathed, wrote W. Russell, LL.D., in "Eccentric Personages." Balsamo had unlimited faith in the gullibility of mankind, and was amply endowed with the gifts which enable their possessor to shear the simpletons ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... that live solely on flesh, have only the cutting, or shear-like movement of the jaws. Those that use vegetables for food, have the grinding motion; while man has both the cutting and ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... fully aroused—firing away with carbine and matchlock, dealing about them with bludgeon and cutlass, and led merrily on by Haultepenne and Elmont armed in proof, at the head of their squadron of lancers. The unfortunate patriots had risen very early in the morning only to shear the wolf. Some were cut to pieces in the streets; others climbed the walls, and threw themselves head foremost into the moat. Many were drowned, and but a very few effected their escape. Justinus de ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... for they are men skilled not in propagating the vine, nor in grafting trees, nor in tilling the ground. They know not how to cultivate the fields, nor to wash gold, or to break horses, or to shear or ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear
... in four boats, and Thorgrim laid claim to the whale and forbade the men of Wick to shear, allot, or carry off aught thereof: Flosi bade him show if Eric had given Onund Treefoot the drift in clear terms, or else he said he should defend himself with arms. Thorgrim thought he and his too few, and would not risk an onset; ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... understood and expressed with loving fidelity, and he has further succeeded in communicating to us the feelings by which he was animated. As we look at his pictures a strange primitive instinct of a rural life is gradually roused in us—an innocent desire to milk, to shear, to drive these gentle patient animals that delight the eye and heart. In this art Paul Potter is unsurpassed. Berghem is more refined, but Potter is more natural; Van de Velde is more graceful, but Potter is more vigorous; ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... for worms, and supply vacancies by planting anew. Then look out for woodchucks, if it is an exposed place, for they will nibble off the earliest tender leaves almost clean as they go; and again, when the young tendrils make their appearance, they have notice of it, and will shear them off with both buds and young pods, sitting erect like a squirrel. But above all harvest as early as possible, if you would escape frosts and have a fair and salable crop; you may save ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... straining his manhood for strength to shore up a resolution, and here was a sharpening of scissors to shear him well! ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... docile creatures, with shaggy, clumsy legs, hoofs as big as dinner plates, and fetlocks six inches long. Later we had to shear their legs, because the long hair loaded up so badly with snow. Several of them were light red in color, and had crinkly manes and tails; and three or four weighed as much as sixteen hundred pounds apiece. Each horse had its name, age, and weight on a tag. I ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... Trees. Ducks whistling, at Sapona. Ducks scarlet-eye at Esaw. Blue-wings. Widgeon. Teal, two sorts. Shovelers. Whistlers. Black Flusterers, or bald Coot. Turkeys wild. Fishermen. Divers. Raft Fowl. Bull-necks. Redheads. Tropick-birds. Pellican. Cormorant. Gannet. Shear-water. Great black pied Gull. Marsh-hens. Blue Peter's. Sand-birds. Runners. Tutcocks. Swaddle-bills. Mew. Sheldrakes. Bald Faces. Water Witch, or ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... went back to the camp. The boats were much lighter than the gear, being made of only half-inch plank. One boat was capsized bottom up, and the men took it on their shoulders, six on each side, the tallest men being placed in the middle on account of the shear of the boat, and it was carried about half a mile past the gear. They then returned for the other boat, and in this way brought everything to the bight close to the spot where the bathing house at Warrnambool has since been erected. There they launched the boats, and ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... necromancy," says Mr. Forbes, "are comprehended chiromancy, predictions, and responses by the sieve and the shear, and all other hellish arts of divination. It hath been sustained to bring in a woman guilty of witchcraft, that she threatened to do some mischief to a person who immediately or not long after suffered a grievous harm in his ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... true that there is a shear or a diagonal tension in the beam, and the diagonal portion of the rod is apparently in a position to take this tension. This is just such a force as the truss-rod in a queen-post truss must take. Is this reinforcing rod equipped to perform this office? The beam is apt to fail ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... you shear?" demanded Zotique, (looking for an instant, as he turned to shout towards another quarter, "En'oyez ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... it: if he could not somehow shear through that web, he must destroy Leithgow himself, and follow on after. The scientist would prefer it so. For whatever Dr. Ku's exact reason for wanting the Master Scientist was, it was an ugly one: that it was worse than quick ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... sheep-gray cloke, Which was of the finest loke That could be cut with shear; His mittens were of bauzon's skin, {94h} His cockers were of cordiwin, {94i} {94j} His hood ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... is death! simply because no trees exist there. Well, the wealthy Baron of Shapinshay conquers nature thus; he has dug round the castle vast hollow gardens (not a continuous moat) in which flourishes a profusion of flowers and shrubs and even trees,—till arboriculture is cut shear off, if it dares to look over the mounds. I put ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... lean heap fleet thee east ease keep beef near plea heed greet year freed dean team weed ream tease deed treat wean teach sheet yeast meet spree plead sheaf mead steep sheer eaves greed creak creek shear spear breed agree sneer bleed speed beach sheen green preen cheap sweep sheep reach street freeze dream tweed fleece cream weave screen peach gleam wheat streak bream leaves cleans crease teapot beams please greedy Easter spleen breeze gleans squeak beaver season grease sneeze wheeze sheath stream ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... caught us, but we brought our guns to bear on them, which made them shear off for a time, yet they kept up a fire at us as long as they were in range. The next time the Turks came up, some of their men got on board our ship, and set to work to cut the sails, and do us all kinds of harm. So, as ten of our men lay dead, and ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... the field and cut the corn that we may have some bread." "Yes, dear Hans, I will do that." After Hans had gone away, she cooked herself some good broth and took it into the field with her. When she came to the field she said to herself, "What shall I do; shall I shear first, or shall I eat first? Oh, I will eat first." Then she emptied her basin of broth, and when she was fully satisfied, she once more said, "What shall I do? Shall I shear first, or shall I sleep first? I will sleep first." Then she lay down among the corn and fell asleep. Hans had ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... guess they don't stop for a storm like this if they's any money to be made by sending her through. Many's the night I've broke all night on top of the old wooden cars, when the wind was sharp enough to shear the hair off a cast-iron mule—woo-o-o! There's where you need grit, old man," he ended, dropping into ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... I asked her if she would be my wife, and she said she would. Thou takes after her a good deal; she had the very same bright eyes and bonny face, and straight, tall shape thou has to-day. Barf Latrigg was sixty then, turning a bit gray, but able to shear with any man they could put against him. He'll be ninety now; but his father lived till he was more than a hundred, and most of his fore-elders touched the century. He's had ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... chimneys; chimneys of marine boilers. Boilers, constructive details of: riveting and caulking of land boilers, proving of; seams payed with mixture of whiting and linseed oil; setting of wagon boilers; riveting of marine boilers; precautions respecting angle iron; how to punch the rivet holes and shear edges of plates; setting of marine boilers in wooden vessels; mastic cement for setting marine boilers; composition of mastic cement; best length of furnace; configuration of furnace bars; advantages and construction ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... Shagpat awoke in Shibli Bagarag fierce desire to shear him, and it was scarce in his power to restrain himself from flying at the clothier, he saying, 'What obstacle now? what protecteth him? Nay, why not trust to the old woman? Said she not I should first essay on Shagpat? and 'twas my folly in appealing to the King that brought on me that thwacking. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... they were ashen and sober, The streets they were dirty and drear; It was night in the month of October, Of my most immemorial year. Like the skies, I was perfectly sober, As I stopped at the mansion of Shear,— At the Nightingale,—perfectly sober, And the willowy woodland ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... gather," said Charles, waving his hands. "The more they gather to the fold, the more we'll shear." He laughed as if pleased with the prospect, and continued, "Proceed, ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... home run, ninety-six miles away. I insisted on driving and nursed the team as best I could, giving them plenty of time on the uphill grade, but sending them along at a furious pate on level ground and down hill. From The Dalles to Shear's bridge on the Deschutes we made a record run. There we changed horses, the generous owner returning not a word when our urgent errand was told. Mrs. Shear also kindly gave us some food to eat on the road. By 1 o'clock we were at Bakeoven, 45 miles from The Dalles. ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... thou wilt do; whereas by this time most like she has been sold and bought and is dwelling in some lord's strong-house; some tyrant that needeth not money, and will not let his prey go for a prayer. Here, take thou thy gold again, for thou mayst well need it, and let me shear a lock of thy golden hair, and I shall be well apaid for my keeping silence concerning thy love. For I deem that it is even so, and that she is not thy sister, else hadst thou stayed at home, and prayed for her with book and priest and ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... sheep to shear, Rainsford," said Laurence, as they entered the broker's office. "Don't clip him any closer than you did me, though he's dying to set up as a ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... to his antagonists, man or beast, from the cutting power of his fearful snap. His molar teeth shear through flesh and small bones like the gash of a butcher's cleaver; and his wide gape and lightning-quick movements render him a very dangerous antagonist. The bite of a wolf is the most dangerous to man of any animal bite to which ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... mighty and great Roll in splendour and state, I envy them not, I declare it. I eat my own lamb, My own chicken and ham, I shear my own sheep and ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... "teens," venture to express opinions contrary to those of his elders present, is he not at once snubbed by being called "a beardless boy"? A boy! Bitter taunt! He very naturally feels that he is grossly insulted, and all because his "dimpled chin never has known the barber's shear." Full well does our ingenuous youth know that a man is not wise in consequence of his beard—that, as the Orientals say of women's long hair, it often happens that men with long beards have short ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... said he, "but I tell you again I have no time either to drink or shear. I must be gone before those mad fellows return, and detain me by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... not obeyed the law of the General Court that each congregation should carry a 'competent number of pieces, fixed and complete with powder and shot and swords, every Lord's-day at the meeting-house?' And, right well equipped 'with psalm-book, shot and powder-horn' sat that doughty man, Shear Yashub Millard along with Hezekiah Bristol and four others whose issue I have known pleasantly in the flesh here; and those of us who had no pieces wore 'coats basted with cotton-wool, and thus made defensive against Indian arrows.' Yet it bethought me that there was no defence ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... ahead of us could be undertaken, it was necessary to shear off an awkward little bulge in the enemy's line, which included the ruined hamlet of Moyenneville. The corps on our right were to take part in an assault two days previous to the commencement of our own ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... learned well, as he said, the jarl tempered the axe head, heating and cooling it many times, until it would take an edge that would shear through iron without turning. And he also wrought runes on it, hammering gold wire into clefts ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... is the ceremony when a child reaches the age of one year, from rutuni, to cut or shear. It receives the name which it retains until the Huarachicu if a boy, and until the Quicu-chicuy if a girl. They then receive the names they retain until death. At the Rutuchicu the child was shorn. Molina, ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... hollow of the rock, where he seemed to pause like a bee on the sweets of existence itself that he might taste them fully, were there for Jerome. Very few chances he had for outspeeding his comrades in any but the stern and sober race of life, for this little Mercury had to shear the wings from his heels of youthful sport and take to the gait of labor. Very seldom he could have one of his old treasure hunts in swamps and woods, unless, indeed, he could perchance make a labor and a gain of it. Jerome found that sassafras, and ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... found some real oak rails, and set to work upon them at once, planing with her sharp shear-jaws. A tiger-beetle, gaudy and hungry-eyed, sought to pounce upon her in this task. He was long-legged, and keen, and lean, and very swift; but she shot aloft just in time; and when she came down again, with a z-zzzzp, as quickly as she went up, sting first, he had wisely dodged ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... of Vespasian, who, after ridiculing a comet, soon died. The general shape and appearance of comets, he thinks, betoken their purpose, and he cites Tertullian to prove them "God's sharp razors on mankind, whereby he doth poll, and his scythe whereby he doth shear down multitudes of sinful creatures." At last, rising to a fearful height, he declares: "For the Lord hath fired his beacon in the heavens among the stars of God there; the fearful sight is not yet out of sight. The warning piece of heaven is going off. Now, then, if ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... speaking to himself, but at the musician, "for one of your eyes turned this way; but you won't speak till you've got to the end of that bit of noise. Oh, how I should like to shear off those long greasy curls! They make you look worse even than you do when they're all twisted up in pieces of paper. It doesn't suit your round, fat face. You don't look a bit like a cavalier, Master P.P.; but I suppose you're a very good sort of fellow, or else father would ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... pall, thy fingers small, That wont on harp to stray, A cloak must shear from the slaughtered deer, To ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... nerve, I don't know; but anyhow I gave her more and more, half a knot at a time, until we were actually making appreciable headway against it. I never thought any ship could stand the bludgeoning she got. It seemed as if every rivet must shear, every frame and stanchion crush, under the impact of the Juggernaut seas that hurtled into her. As a thoroughbred horse starts and trembles under the touch of the whip, so she reared and trembled, only to bury herself again in the roaring Niagara of water. Oh, you ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... who hath elected thee his favoured child; by all the marvels of thy mighty mission, I do adjure thee! Arise, Alroy, arise and rouse thyself. The lure that snared thy fathers may trap thee, this Delilah may shear thy mystic locks. Spirits like thee act not by halves. Once fall out from the straight course before thee, and, though thou deemest 'tis but to saunter 'mid the summer trees, soon thou wilt find thyself in the dark depths of some ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... virtually an I section (fig. 15). The function of the flanges is to resist a horizontal tension and compression distributed practically uniformly on their cross sections. The web resists forces equivalent [v.04 p.0539] to a shear on vertical and horizontal planes. The inclined tensions and compressions in the bars of a braced web are equivalent to this shear. The horizontal stresses in the flanges are greatest at the centre of a span. The stresses in the web are greatest at the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... primitive representative of this beautiful genus. The inner peridium seems to be lacking,—a comfort to Rostafinski! Rare. Our best specimens are from New Jersey, by courtesy of Dr. C. L. Shear. These went to fruit on leaves and branches of Vaccinium. It seems to affect the heather of Europe, moorland, etc. I have also specimens from the herbarium of the lamented Dr. Rex. These are more plasmodiocarpous, ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... jackis, scripis, and bonnets of steel, Their legs were chenyiet[23] to the heel, Froward was their affeir,[24] Some upon other with brands beft,[25] Some jaggit[26] others to the heft[27] With knives that sharp could shear. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... haven't met one yet who made a successful speculator. Some of our friends have tried it—and you know where it landed them. I expect those broker and mortgage men must lick their lips when a nice fat woolly farmer comes along. It must be quite delightful to shear him." ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... at Highfield, during which time I made myself acquainted with all the routine of a sheep-farmer's life. I learned to ride stock, shoe horses, shear sheep, plough, fence, fell and split timber, and everything else that an experienced squatter ought to be able to do, not omitting the accomplishment of smoking. Mr. Lee then offered me what he had offered C——, and I agreed to accept ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... my soul. Heavens! what a take in! what a splendid sleight-of-hand! I never did nothin' better in all my born days. I hope I may be shot, if I did. Ha! ha! ha! ain't it rich? Don't it cut six inches on the rib of clear shear, that. Oh! it's ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust"; and Mr. Bluphocks shows himself amusingly familiar with Bible facts and phrases. Mr. Sludge, "the Medium," thinks the Bible says the stars are "set for signs when we should shear sheep, sow corn, prune trees," and describes the skeptic in the magic circle of spiritual "investigators" as the "guest without the wedding-garb, the doubting Thomas." Some one has taken the trouble ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... forsaken freeze froze frozen get got got [gotten] give gave given go went gone grind ground ground grow grew grown hang hung (hanged) hung (hanged) hold held held know knew known lie lay lain ride rode ridden ring rang rung run ran run see saw seen shake shook shaken shear shore (sheared) shorn (sheared) shine shone shone shoot shot shot shrink shrank or shrunk shrunk shrive shrove shriven sing sang or sung sung sink sank or sunk sunk [adj. sunken] sit sat [sate] sat slay slew slain slide slid slidden, slid ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... thy nurse will hear no master, Thy nurse will bear no load; And woe to them that shear her, And woe to them that goad! When all the pack, loud baying, Her bloody lair surrounds, She dies in silence, biting hard, Amidst the ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... account of them, my Lord, that you may pay me their value when we come to settle our score, seeing that I never gave you leave to shear my sheep and ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... suggested by you. Allow me to thank you for the complimentary manner in which you have mentioned my work. Since the notice appeared, we have done a deal of heavy work in this mill; and a plate large enough to shear 11' 0" and 10' 2" and 1/2" thick has been rolled in five minutes. The slab went through the roll 17 times before being rolled to the width and turned round, and 18 times after turning and of the full width; making a total of 35 ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... work well; and as preventive measures are always better than remedial, the wise use of this process is from every standpoint commendable. But where it is recklessly or unnecessarily used, the abuse should he censured, above all by the very men who are properly anxious to prevent any effort to shear the courts of this necessary power. The court's decision must be final; the protest is only against the conduct of individual judges in needlessly anticipating such final decision, or in the tyrannical use of what is nominally a temporary injunction to accomplish ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... up a pole and labeled it the cinter of the United States. Being a thousand miles closer that pole than you are in Boston, naturally we come by that distance closer to the great wool industry. Most of our wool here grows on our tongues, and we shear it by this transmutin' process, concerning which you have discoursed so beautiful. But barrin' the shearin' of our wool, we are the mildest, most sheepish fellows you could imagine. I don't reckon now there is a man among us who could be induced ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... pause, Duc de Richelieu, famous blackguard man, gallops up to the Marechal, gallops rapidly from Marechal to King; suggesting, 'were cannon brought AHEAD of this close deep Column, might not they shear it into beautiful destruction; and then a general charge be made?' So counselled Richelieu: it is said, the Jacobite Irishman, Count Lally of the Irish Brigade, was prime author of this notion,—a ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Pivot steel Gin saw steel Plane bit steel Granite wedge steel Quarry steel Gun barrel steel Razor steel Hack saw steel Roll turning steel High-speed tool steel Saw steel Hot-rolled sheet steel Scythe steel Lathe spindle steel Shear knife steel Lawn mower knife steel Silico-manganese steel Machine knife steel Spindle steel Magnet steel Spring steel Mining drill steel Tool holder steel Nail die shapes Vanadium tool steel Nickel-chrome steel Vanadium-chrome ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... until the black line of the hull was visible whenever the raft lifted on the back of a wave. This was enough for Joe. He recognized the graceful shear of the flush deck which had been extended fore and aft to make room for a heavier main battery. Even at a distance, a sailor's eye could read other signs that marked ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... hours must I take my rest; So many hours must I contemplate; So many hours must I sport myself; So many days my ewes have been with young; So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean; So many years ere I shall shear the fleece. So minutes, hours, days, months, and years, Pass'd over to the end they were created, Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely! Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... hurts in hero-mood You got from hostile sabre. Now well behave, keep up thy heart, God's help itself will tend thee; Although at present great the smart, To dress the wound will mend thee; Wash off the blood, Time makes it good,— Reach me the shear,— A plaster here,— Hold out your arm, 'T is no great harm,— Give drink to stay, He limps away: Thank God, their wounds all tended, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... bear my eldest born." Then speedily answered Volsung: "No king of the earth might scorn Such noble bidding, Siggeir; and surely will I come To look upon thy glory and the Goths' abundant home. But let two months wear over, for I have many a thing To shape and shear in the Woodland, as befits a people's king: And thou meanwhile here abiding of all my goods shalt be free, And then shall we twain together roof over the glass-green sea With the sides of our golden dragons; and our war-hosts' blended shields Shall fright the sea-abiders ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... the shout of yea-say that arose at that word; and when it was stilled, a grey-head stood up and said: "King Christopher, and thou, our leader, whom we shall henceforth call Earl, it is now meet that we shear up the war-arrow, and send it forth to whithersoever we deem our friends dwell, and that this be done at once here in this Mote, and that the hosting be after three nights' frist in the plain of Hazeldale, which all ye know is twelve miles nigher ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... these the gaunt adjutant stands conspicuous as he stalks with measured steps through the high rushes, now plunging his immense bill into the tangled sedges, then triumphantly throwing back his head with a large snake writhing helplessly in his horny beak; open fly the shear-like hinges of his bill—one or two sharp jerks and down goes one half of an incredibly large snake; another jerk and a convulsive struggle of the snake; one more jerk—snap, snap goes the bill and the snake has disappeared, while the adjutant again stalks quietly ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... revenge me on another,[52] whoever to her be the dearest of mortals. But to thee, O unhappy one, in recompense for these evils, will I give the greatest honors in the land of Troezene; for the unwedded virgins before their nuptials shall shear their locks to thee for many an age, owning the greatest sorrow tears can give; but ever among the virgins shall there be a remembrance of thee that shall awake the song, nor dying away without a name shall Phaedra's ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... dwarf, bedwarf[obs3]; shorten &c. 201; circumscribe &c. 229; restrain &c. 751. [reduce in size by abrasion or paring. see subtraction 38] abrade, pare, reduce, attenuate, rub down, scrape, file, file down, grind, grind down, chip, shave, shear, wear down. Adj. contracting &c. v.; astringent; shrunk, contracted &c. v.; strangulated, tabid[obs3], wizened, stunted; waning &c. v.; neap, compact. unexpanded &c. (expand &c. 194)[obs3]; contractile; compressible; smaller &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... I felt, General? You remember how I tried to get out of it. I felt like I had led in the lambs and now I had to help shear them. As a part-time historian I can tell you there's a word for that—Judas goat. Give or ...
— Measure for a Loner • James Judson Harmon
... to shear the ewe, by which a remedy could more easily be applied to cure the disease with which it was infected. The garden made near the tents was not in a prosperous condition: most of the melons and cucumbers were destroyed by insects; and the soil being sandy was not favourable ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... the baron, "the golden fleece! splendidly said! In truth, we shear the sheep, or, if you like, the shepherds, for you cannot imagine what a rheumatism of thought in this matter prevails throughout the country. No man knows the value of what he has; no man knows what he possesses. There is no conception of art; ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... such considerations, it seems impossible to refrain from thinking that there must be a closer continuity of identity, life, and memory, between successive generations than we generally imagine. To shear the thread of life, and hence of memory, between one generation and its successor, is so to speak, a brutal measure, an act of intellectual butchery, and like all such strong high-handed measures, a sign of weakness in ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... eight inches wide, of hand-worked embroidery of the strangest, old-world-looking patterns and the most brilliant colors. These things are manufactured by the peasantry of the hill-country in the neighborhood of San Germano, who grow, shear, spin, weave, dye and embroider the wool themselves. And being barbarously unsophisticated by any adulteration of cotton, and in no wise stinted in the quantity of material, they are wonderfully strong and enduring. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... know that the peculiar behaviour of the hybrid Hieraciums is due to the fact that they normally produce seed by a peculiar process of parthenogenesis. It is possible to take an unopened flower and to shear off with a {134} razor all the male organs together with the stigmata through which the pollen reaches the ovules. The flower, nevertheless, sets perfectly good seed. But the cells from which the ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett
... lamb, but she isn't going to let us shear her, if she can help it," said Phil, looking ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... remembered it can cost thee nothing. Young gentlemen, this pious pattern of primitive simplicity will teach thee the right way to the Shepherd's Bush—aye, and will himself shear thee like a sheep, if you come to ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... had subsided, it was impossible to find laborers enough to till the soil and shear the sheep. Those who were free now demanded higher wages, while the villeins, or serfs (S113), and slaves left their masters and roamed about the country asking for pay for ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... electric-light system, was again displayed in this concentrating plant, where, to save possible injury to its expensive operating parts, he devised an analogous factor, providing all the crushing machinery with closely calculated "safety pins," which, on being overloaded, would shear off and thus stop the machine ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... another—emerged from the darkness, heading straight for the Yahiko, as though to run her down! Would they dare? I wondered. Surely not. But if they did not, there was no reason why the Yahiko should not; she was a stout-built, merchant steamer, and, old as she was, would shear through the destroyer's thin plating as though it were brown paper. If I had been in charge of the Yahiko, I would not have hesitated an instant, indeed I would have jumped at the chance, and in my excitement I leaped ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... Throndhjem girls so fair Their jeers, I think, will spare, For the king's force was but small That emptied Throndhjem's hall. But if they will have their jeer, They may ask their sweethearts dear, Why they have returned shorn Who went to shear that Sunday morn." ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... that upon which the shears are carried, this latter end rises, and the block is raised off the seat on which it was formed, without the chains being put to work to do the actual lifting at all. The vessel, with the block suspended to the shear legs and over the bows, is then ready to be removed to the place where the block has to be laid. A word must here be said about an extremely ingenious mode of dealing with the slack chain, to prevent ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... says little Bo-peep, Co' dea', co' dea', I'll shear my sheep; Their wool so fine will make my coat, My blankets and my hose ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... shining on a fire and putting it out—now that the sun had gone she saw that her hearth was cold. It was for Martin she had sown her spring wheat, for Martin she had broken up twelve acres of pasture by the Kent Ditch, for Martin she would shear her sheep and cut ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... he became the head of the church as well as of the state. Gustav's pen was as sharp as his tongue. When Hans Brask, the oldest prelate in the land, who had stood stoutly by the old regime, left the country and refused to come back, he wrote to him: "As long as you might milk and shear your sheep, you staid by them. When God spake and said you were to feed them, not to shear and slaughter them, you ran away. Every honest man can judge if you have done well." Hard words to a good old man; but there were plenty ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... eyes, indulgent as they usually are, will scarcely venture to insist that I shall behold one nymph among them worthy to tie the shoe-latchets of Diana. The manners of the hunter are those of an elastic savage; but these lads shear sheep, raise hogs for the slaughter-pen, and seldom perform a nobler feat than felling a bullock. They have none of the elasticity which, coupled with strength, makes the grace of the man; and they walk as if perpetually in the faith that their corn-rows and ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... STEEL is produced, and it furnishes the material out of which razors, files, knives, swords, and various articles of hardware are manufactured. A further process is the manufacture of the metal thus treated into SHEAR STEEL, by exposing a fasciculus of the blistered steel rods, with sand scattered over them for the purposes of a flux, to the heat of a wind-furnace until the whole mass becomes of a welding heat, when it is taken from the fire and ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... "Never shear their sheep till they are dead!" she exclaimed when that fact had been gestured into her understanding. "Absurd! There's another specimen of masculine stupidity. I'll warrant you, if the women had the management ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... Greydule, on the eve of Yule, Will forge three anchors rare; The hemp thou shalt pull, thou shalt shear the wool, And the ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... negativity; he is nothing more than an employee paid for his ministration. And this ministration is not exalted in him by an extraordinary and visible renunciation, by perpetual celibacy, by continence promised and kept; he is married,[5333] father of a family, needy, obliged to shear his flock to support himself and those belonging to him, and therefore is of little consideration; he is without moral ascendancy; he is not the pastor who is obeyed, but the official who is made ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... is their chastisement for apostasy; but a remnant of them shall return. They had not utterly forgotten God, therefore a part of the nation shall be rescued from captivity. So full of hope is Isaiah that the nation shall not utterly be destroyed, that he names his son Shear-jashub,—"a remnant shall return." This is his watchword. Certain is it that the Lord will have mercy on Jacob whom he hath chosen; his promises will not fail. Judah shall be chastised; but a part of Judah shall return ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... grandfather could just remember back When they were planted there. It was my task To keep them trimm'd, and 'twas a pleasure to me! All strait and smooth, and like a great green wall! My poor old Lady many a time would come And tell me where to shear, for she had played In childhood under them, and 'twas her pride To keep them in their beauty. Plague I say On their new-fangled whimsies! we shall have A modern shrubbery here stuck full of firs And your pert ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... the nose to the heels, through the aperture of his separate enclosure. With the same effort apparently he calls out 'Wool!' and darts upon another sheep. Drawing this second victim across his knee, he buries his shear-points in the long wool of its neck. A moment after a lithe and eager boy has gathered up fleece number one, and tossed it into the train-basket, the shearer is halfway down the sheep's side, the wool hanging in one fleece like a great glossy mat, ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... and she seemed to be full of men—swarthy, greasy, black-bearded cut-throats, every one of them, if looks went for anything. In another minute or so she was within biscuit-toss of us,—so close that we could hear the hissing shear of her sharp stem through the water, and the moan of the wind in the hollows of her canvas,—when up jumps a fellow upon her rail and hailed us in what I took to be Spanish,—it wasn't French, I know, because I can speak a little of that lingo,—at ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... have overtaken him by running, then again did Juturna turn the horses about and flee. And as he sped Messapus cast a spear at him. But AEneas saw it coming, and put his shield over him, resting on his knee. Yet did the spear smite him on the helmet-top and shear off the crest. Then indeed was his wrath kindled, and he rushed into the army of the enemy, slaying many ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... has no associate; consequently, he cannot experience social affections,—such as goodness, equite, and justice. Is the shepherd said to be just to his sheep and his dogs? No: and if he saw fit to shear as much wool from a lamb six months old, as from a ram of two years; or, if he required as much work from a young dog as from an old one,—they would say, not that he was unjust, but that he was foolish. Between man and beast there is ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... Davy and all the people returned home, and the Fair Nancy was towed to the "shear-hulk" to have her masts put in. The shear-hulk is a large ship in which is placed machinery for lifting masts into other ships. Every one who has looked at the thick masts of a large vessel, must see at a glance that they could never be put ...
— The Life of a Ship • R.M. Ballantyne
... harvest, They will shear and bind; They'll come with elfin music On a western wind; All night they'll sit among the sheaves, Or herd the kine that stray— The quick folk, the fine folk, the folk that ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... shear't with a sickle of leather, (Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme), And bind it up with a peacock feather, And he shall be a true ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... might almost as well have gone to St. Jo by land, for she was walking most of the time, anyhow—climbing over reefs and clambering over snags patiently and laboriously all day long. The captain said she was a "bully" boat, and all she wanted was some "shear" and a bigger wheel. I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the deep sagacity not to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... if they are to be handled by the trade in a regular way, and they will always allow it if proportioned aright; but what I complain of is that so many manufacturers are unable to comprehend the jobber's position. Here is a sheep-shear that is advertised to consumers at $1.25 per pair; the maker says the lowest he can sell at and make a small margin is $8 per dozen. There is a good margin between $8, factory price, and $15, consumer's price, ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... handsomely now, God willing. No sleepyheadedness allowed: Chrysalus, you must be a golden chrysalis! Here's at him—the man I'll certainly make a [G]Phrixus's ram here to-day, and by the same token shear off his gold right down to the quick! (aloud, ceremoniously) Greetings,to Nicobulus from ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... as much as to say Latin was beyond her; and he was kind enough to translate. "It is the part of a good shepherd to shear, not flay, ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... shear me as bare as Delilah did Samson of old. But I am not promising you I am going to work. My physician warns me against work on Saturday nights, so I am going to ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... Where does the wind come from? It doesn't matter: we know the habits of wind after it arrives." As to politics: "The people are always worsted in an election." As to altruism: "The long and the short of it is, whoever catches the fool first is entitled to shear him." As to love: "We cannot permit love to run riot; we must build fences around it, as we do around pigs." As to money: "In theory, it is not respectable to be rich. In fact, poverty is a disgrace." As to literature: "Poets are prophets ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... will at the Tribunal, after showing it to the President.' So at that, I told him to ask M. Villemot to come here as soon as he could.—Be easy, my dear sir, there are those that will take care of you. They shall not shear the fleece off your back. You will have some one that has beak and claws. M. Villemot will give them a piece of his mind. I have put myself in a passion once already with that abominable hussy, La Cibot, a porter's wife that sets up to judge her lodgers, forsooth, and insists that you have ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac |
