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Staple   Listen
verb
staple  v. t.  (past & past part. stapled; pres. part. stapling)  
1.
To sort according to its staple; as, to staple cotton.
2.
To fasten together with a staple (9) or staples; as, to staple a check to a letter.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Staple" Quotes from Famous Books



... which soon ignited. He watched unmoved the curling flame that grew, until it began to entwine itself around and feed upon his body; then he sent forth cries of agony painful to the ear, begging some one to blow his brains out; at the same time surging with almost superhuman strength, until the staple with which the chain was fastened to the tree (not being well secured) drew out, and he leaped from the burning pile. At that moment the sharp ringing of several rifles was heard: the body of the Negro fell a corpse on the ground. He was picked up by some two or three, and again thrown into the ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown

... yield fibres of a similar character, which are imported under the name of wools. There are many (p. 002) varieties of wools Which are yielded by the various breeds of sheep, but they may be roughly divided into two kinds, according to the length of "staple," as it is called. In the long-stapled wools the fibres average from 7-1/2 to 9-1/2 inches in length, while the short-stapled wools vary from 1 to 2 inches long. The diameter varies very considerably from 0.00033 ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech

... materials than cotton and wool might, some economists think, be employed at home in making them. The day will come probably, but does not seem to be hastening very fast, when we shall conclude to make our own linens, as we have within a comparatively few years past determined in regard to all the staple varieties of carpets. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... contrive none the less to take on in some way a character and appearance peculiar to their inhabitants; this may be a matter only of red Turkey turbans flapping in the breeze, or perhaps of the haunting aroma of some national staple of food—but certainly it is there. Scattered through Manhattan, from the Battery to the Bronx, these five centers are witnesses as they stand to the effect of circumstance on bricks and mortar. ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... shrug are the end of it. With the Carolines it was not music that was the food of love, but love that was a staple food of music. A man who lets his hair down over his shoulders may be as sentimental as you please, or as impudent. He cannot nourish both a passion and a head of hair. He won't ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett

... other farinaceous foods are, for a child, only supplemental to milk—new milk being, for the young, the staple food of all other kinds of ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... of the court failed in the days of King Charles, though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy. None of these plays met with any marked success, although the scathing generalisation ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson

... that are staple, commonplace, or familiar in the semiconductor industry, or variations of such designs, combined in a way that, considered as a ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.

... animals, and that carbon was an element peculiar to plants, we now know that both elements are found in animals, just as both occur in plants. The chemistry of living things, moreover, when it did grow to become a staple part of science, revealed other and greater anomalies than these. It showed that certain substances which were supposed to be peculiar to plants, and to be made and manufactured by them alone, were also found in animals. Chlorophyl is the green coloring matter ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various

... intuition, otherwise she would have held her aunt and mother in somewhat slighting estimation, and she loved them both dearly. They were headstrong, violent-tempered women, but she had an instinct for the staple qualities below that surface turbulence, which was lashed higher by every gust of opposition. These two loud, contending voices, which filled the house before and after shop-hours—for Eva worked in the shop with her brother-in-law—with a duet of discords instead of harmonies, meant no ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... treacherous advocate. Too late they exposed the deceit practised upon them, and protested their innocence. The alleged crimes were: flying to their place of assembly by witchcraft, adoring the devil, trampling upon the cross, blasphemy, riotous feasting, and vile offences against morality—staple charges recurring again and again, ad nauseam, whenever persecuted men and women have been compelled to meet secretly for God's worship. See L. Rossier, Histoire des protestants de Picardie (Paris, 1861), 1-4; and more at length, Chronicon Cornelii Zantfliet, which styles the sufferers ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... very time he was said by Sir Walter to have been "engaged in a closer and more critical examination of the ancient English poets than he had before bestowed upon them;" and, from the perusal of Shakspeare, learning that the sole staple of the drama was "human characters acting from the direct and energetic influence of human passions." Yet Sir Walter was right; only Dryden's opinions and judgments kept fluctuating all his life long, too much obedient to the gusts of whim and caprice, or oftener ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... beef, saddles of mutton, smoking tongues, veal and ham pies, turkeys and chickens, and geese, with every variety of vegetables, and a succession of fiery cherries and heavy ales were the main staple of the feast. It was the same meal and the same cooking as their Norse or German ancestors might have sat down to fourteen centuries before, and, indeed, as I looked through the steam of the dishes at the lines ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... disappeared from the brig's stern, was sufficient proof that he had effected his escape in her. I was too much occupied all the time I was at Smyrna, to make many observations about the place. Figs are the great staple produce and subject of conversation for the greater part of the year, enlivened now and then by a visit from the plague, and then people talk about that; but at the time I speak of, I do not know that it had ever occurred to the inhabitants that they had the means in their own hands of avoiding ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... the City we have the remarkably picturesque half-timbered buildings of Staple Inn; and in the Strand, near the entrance to the Temple, there was once a group of wooden houses, one of which, popularly called Cardinal Wolsey's Palace, has been rescued from destruction, thanks to the action of the ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

... sleeve in the simplest manner, rather to look at it herself, than to show me where the wound was. Her sleeve was of dark blue Taunton staple; and her white arm shone, coming out of it, as round and plump and velvety, as a stalk of asparagus, newly fetched out of the ground. But above the curved soft elbow, where no room was for one cross word (according to our proverb),* ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... amidship, with two sturdy fellows to tug at each; and the quiet evening air led through the soft rehearsal of the water to its banks the creak of tough ash thole-pins, and the groan of gunwale, and the splash of oars, and even a sound of human staple, such as is accepted by the civilized world as our ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... a man with a rumor, whom the overseer brought to the master's sick-room, to tell that an enterprising Frenchman was attempting to produce a new staple in Louisiana, one that worms would not annihilate. It was that year of history when the despairing planters saw ruin hovering so close over them that they cried to heaven for succor. Providence raised up Etienne de Bore. "And if Etienne is successful," cried the news-bearer, "and gets ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... of that exalted kind which make ordinary beauty seem dross. In short, he was one of those ethereal priests the Roman Catholic Church produces every now and then by way of incredible contrast to the thickset peasants in black that form her staple. This Brother Leonard looked and moved like a being who had come down from some higher sphere to pay the world a very little visit, and be very kind and patient ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... Agriculture, including fishing, hunting, and forestry, contributes 40% to GDP, employs 80% of the labor force, and provides most of the exports. The country is not self-sufficient in food production; rice, the main staple, accounts for the bulk of imports. The government - which is hampered by internal political disputes - is struggling to upgrade education and technical training, privatize commercial and industrial enterprises, improve health services, diversify exports, promote tourism, and reduce the ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... ebony, panthers' skins or rings of gold, myrrh, incense, or a score of other sweet-smelling gums. So many of these odoriferous resins were used for religious purposes, that it was always to the advantage of the merchant to procure as much of them as possible: incense, fresh or dried, was the staple and characteristic merchandise of the Red Sea, and the good people of Egypt pictured Puanit as a land of perfumes, which attracted the sailor from afar by the delicious odours ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... the Jew. From the hortator, the great man glanced at him; and when he dropped his oar all the section of the ship on his side seemed aglow. He heard nothing of what was said; enough that the chain hung idly from its staple in the bench, and that the chief, going to his seat, began to beat the sounding-board. The notes of the gavel were never so like music. With his breast against the leaded handle, he pushed with all his might—pushed until the shaft bent ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... danger? Outwardly all now was peaceful. Each waking-time the fishers put forth in their long boats of metal strips covered with fish-skins. Every sleeping-time they returned laden with the fish that formed the principal staple of ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... give us the Fifty-first Psalm to sing at the morning service—it always seems to me that it is the soul's staple food; and let us begin with ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... iron and brass bedsteads, as a staple trade, dates only from the accession of Her Majesty; but, unlike that august personage, they were a long time before they were appreciated as they deserved to be, for, in 1850, there were only four or five ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... any article of food has evidently much, very much, to do with its digestibility. It is not the purpose of this paper to teach cooking, but merely to give some general hints as to the best as well as the simplest methods of preparing staple articles of food. The same articles of food can and should be prepared differently on each day of the week. Changes of diet are too likely to be underestimated. By constant change the digestive organs in the average person are prevented from having that repulsion of food which, to a greater ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various

... product. This is now changed, and, the beetroot being taxed, the grower strives after that kind producing the largest percentage of saccharine matter. Hardly less important is the residue. The pulp of the crushed beetroot in these regions forms the staple food of cows, pigs and sheep. Mixed with chopped straw, it is stored for winter use in mounds by small cultivators, in enormous cellars constructed on purpose by large owners. Horses refuse to eat this mixture, which has a peculiar odour, scenting farm premises from ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... writing to any of them before made, did any thing auaile them. [Sidenote: K. Richards practises. The moonks Cisteaux.] Moreouer, where he had borrowed a great summe of monie of the merchants of the staple, he wrought a feat with the moonks of the Cisteaux order to discharge that debt. He told these moonks that being constreined with vrgent necessitie, he had borowed that monie of the merchants beyond ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (6 of 12) - Richard the First • Raphael Holinshed

... of the loom at the bottom of the extended series of warp threads. The latter can thus be tightened preparatory to the operation of filling in with the woof. The kiva looms seem to be used mainly for weaving the dark-blue and black blankets of diagonal and diamond pattern, which form a staple article of trade with the Zuni and the Rio Grande Pueblos. As an additional convenience for the practice of weaving, one of the kivas of Mashongnavi is provided with movable seats. These consist simply of single stones of suitable ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various

... a door on the first floor, and there was also a window in the chamber above. Not only was the door closed, and closed also was the wooden shutter of the window, but over each iron hook dropped in its staple and securing the door and window were two nails stoutly driven. All this Charlie had noticed before. He now traced these half-obliterated words in chalk on the door: "This is not to be opened." He ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand

... to dwell on this point. It cannot be doubted, I say, that, in spite of his professing to consider me as a dotard and driveller, on the ground of his having given up the notion of my being a knave, yet it is the very staple of his pamphlet that a knave after all I must be. By insinuation, or by implication, or by question, or by irony, or by sneer, or by parable, he enforces again and again a conclusion which ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... red ochre round a woman's mouth indicates that she has her courses; no one would offer fish to such a woman.[185] The Arunta of Central Australia forbid menstruous women to gather the irriakura bulbs, which form a staple article of diet for both men and women. They believe that were a woman to break this rule, the supply of bulbs would fail.[186] Among the aborigines of Victoria the wife at her monthly periods had to sleep on the ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... population and industries change. The first is largely composed of descendants of French colonists, termed creoles, with some Spanish intermixed, and the sugar cane is the staple crop, changing as the Gulf is approached to rice. At the point where the united Red and Washita Rivers join the Mississippi, which here changes direction to the east, the Atchafalaya leaves it, and, flowing due south through Grand Lake and Berwick's Bay, reaches the Gulf at Atchafalaya ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... farthing. The great advantage adduced in favour of this scale is, that it would be much more likely than the other to secure general adoption. The removal of the pound, he says, affects chiefly the higher and educated classes; it leaves the shilling, which is the staple and standard for the masses, and also the penny, with slight alteration, accompanied by the utter removal of the old one. It is also said, that a half-farthing piece would be a great boon to the poor, especially in Ireland. The circumstances ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various

... of the principal agricultural productions of the country, from which two of the most important—namely, flax and wool—were altogether omitted; and by this means he found himself obliged to exclude from his consideration the staple crop of the country when he was valuing the land in the north, and the clip of the grazier when he was estimating the rich pastures of the west. "Previous to commencing the valuation of the counties of Derry and Antrim, in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... procures his supply of protein chiefly from the Soya bean from which he makes different preparations of bean cheese and sauce. It is said that the poorer classes of Spaniards and the Bedouins rely on a porridge of lentils for their mainstay. In India and China where rice is the staple food, beans are eaten to provide the necessary nitrogenous matter, as rice alone ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon

... best enjoyed when it is sought for with some trouble and difficulty, and partly because such beauty, and the romance which is attached to it, should not make up the staple of one's life. Romance, if it is to come at all, should always come by fits ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... and bring him to me," Edipon ordered, then strode agitatedly away. The other slaves watched wide-eyed as the blacksmith was rushed out, and with much confusion and shouted orders Jason's chain was cut from the bar where it joined the heavy staple. ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey

... and sifted the sand that yielded silver and gold, and the soil is ours that is richer than gold mines, whether we offer in evidence South Carolina, whose Sea-Island cotton surpasses the long staple of Egypt; or the Dakotas, matchless for wheat; or the lands of the cornstalk in the Mississippi Valley, that could feed all the tribes of Asia; or Nebraska, whose beets are sweeter with sugar than those that were the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... rustically forward. Bucks, and bears, and rattle-snakes, and former mining operations, are the staple of men's talk. Agriculture has only begun to mount above the valley. And though in a few years from now the whole district may be smiling with farms, passing trains shaking the mountain to the heart, many-windowed hotels lighting up the night like factories, ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... have been told as her describes me as a villin, and speaks in the same terms of you, Reuben. And that's why I advised you to speak out before there should be time to make mischief, if by any chance mischief might be made. And I've seen enough to know as theer's no staple so easy to mannyfacture as ill-will, even betwixt them as thinks well of each other. But, Reuben, even the best of women are talkers, and I look for it to be made a point on between Ruth and you, that no word of this is breathed ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray

... the Staple Square, and over the long bridge. Only too well did he know the terrible bulk of the "Ark"—and there was no other exit than the tunnel! And the timber-work, which provided the sole access to the upper stories! As he ran he could see it all clearly ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... readily taken, the prospects being excellent for enormous profits if the scheme proved successful. The cost of producing cotton varies from three to eight cents a pound. The staple would find ready sale at fifty cents, and might possibly command a higher figure. The prospects of a large percentage on the investment were alluring in the extreme. The plantations, the negroes, ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... boats' crews, each two of which were paired, rowing about twenty feet apart, with a chain suspended between them, dragging along the bottom of the river. Each torpedo was anchored at the bottom of the river by means of a rope, one end of which was tied to the torpedo, the other end to a staple fastened in the centre of the surface of a hemisphere of iron six inches in diameter, resting at the bottom of the river. The rope was sufficiently long to float the torpedo just beneath the surface of the water. The torpedoes were made of tin, each about eighteen inches long and ten inches in ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten

... a high state of cultivation and, according to its peculiarly varying and unalterable adaptability, produces enormous crops of all the staple ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

... of Higher School—one in which modern languages form the basal subjects of the curriculum; one in which the physical sciences are the main systems organised and established; one in which the classical languages form the main staple ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch

... of the public road in passing from Charlotte. The lingering signs of the old family mansion are still visible; and the plow, in this centennial year, runs smoothly over its site, presenting a more vigorous growth of the great Southern staple, cotton, than the adjoining lands. The plantation was a part of the valuable lands owned by Ezekiel Polk in the "Providence" settlement, and near the present flourishing village of "Pineville." The family ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter

... trout au bleu and good cookery, and the marvellous view over the Rhine valley makes it a notable little place. There are many refreshment-places on the roads along which the patients take their walks, but as milk is the staple nourishment sold, they hardly find a place in a guide for gourmets. The wines of the Duchy, both ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard

... a church, and inclosed with pales that separate it from the village of the Hurons. The Courriers de Bois have but a very small settlement here, at the same time it is not inconsiderable, as being the staple of all the goods that they truck with the south and west savages; for they cannot avoid passing this way when they go to the seats of the Illinese and the Oumamis on to the Bay des Puanto, and to the River ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

... Listen to this, 'Mr. Quarrington's wonderful creations are evidently not entirely the fruit of the spirit, since we understand that his staple breakfast dish consists of a couple of underdone cutlets—so lightly cooked, in fact, as to be almost raw.' I'm glad I've learned that," pursued Magda earnestly. "It seems to me an important thing for a wife to know. ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... carousal of Valhalla. More is said of the latter the former is scarcely visible to us now because the only record we have of the Norse faith is that contained in the fragmentary strains of ferocious Skalds, who sang chiefly to warriors, and the staple matter of whose songs was feats of martial prowess or entertaining mythological stories. Furthermore, there is above the heaven of the Asir a yet higher heaven, the abode of the far removed and inscrutable being, the rarely named Omnipotent One, the true All Father, who is at last to come ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... The second Volume. Containing these Playes, Viz. 1 Bartholomew Fayre. 2 The Staple of Newes. 3 The Divell is an Asse. London, Printed for Richard ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg

... of TOCADILLE or backgammon, capable of rough slashes of sarcasm when he opens his old beard for speech): these, and the like of these, intimate confidants of the King, men who could speak a little, or who could be socially silent otherwise,—seem to have been the staple of the Institution. Strangers of mark, who happened to be passing, were occasional guests; Ginckel the Dutch Ambassador, though foreign like Seckendorf, was well seen there; garrulous Pollnitz, who has wandered over ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... questionable shadows; and those that, like Laudon and the Gennevilliers, promise better results, are imperfectly developed. Such defects would be fatal in a novel of the ordinary kind. But this is not a novel of the ordinary kind. The real staple of the book consists not of the incidents and the characters, but of discussions and reflections which sparkle with wit, with shrewd observation, and with ingenious if not absolutely profound speculation. There are a hundred little essays in it, compact with thought ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various

... time was spent in procuring them. For all that, they were gratified on discovering the abundance of these slippery creatures—knowing that, should other resources fail, they would find in them a staple article of wholesome food, that could never become scarce, no matter how much ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... Mrs. Wood's appearance and success at the opera as an auspicium melioris aevi, as the dawn of a coming day, when the staple commodity of our Italian opera shall be furnished by our own island, instead of being imported from a country which, I boldly assert, does not produce either superior voices, or better educated musicians than our own—nay, so well educated. Has Italy ever ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various

... which all their labor was to be devoted to the common stock. He gave out land in severalty, and the laborer enjoyed the fruits of his own industry and thrift, or suffered the consequences of his laziness. The culture of tobacco gave the colony a currency and a staple of export. ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... the frequency of begging by opening accounts and having the bills sent to him. She had found that staple groceries, sugar, flour, could be most cheaply purchased at Axel Egge's rustic general store. She said ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... evenings poring over accounts, or making endless calculations based on cheaper freights for copra and on the possible maximum and minimum market prices for that staple of commerce. His days were spent out on the plantation. He undertook more clearing of bush; and clearing and planting went on, under his personal supervision, at a faster pace than ever before. He experimented with premiums for extra work performed ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... the books I have consulted, Brother Adipose Tissue. It is just the right land for rice, and that is the staple product of all this region," ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... whose trunks are swollen into the likeness of earthen water-jars. Scattered here and there over the meadows were the dead or fallen trunks of another variety, the cabbage-palm, the green heart of which had long formed a staple article of diet for the Insurrectos. Spanish axes had been at work here and not a single tree remained alive. The green floor of the valley farther down was dotted with the other, the royal kind, that monarch of tropic vegetation which lends to the Cuban landscape its ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... at David a good deal during the biftek, the black pudding which seemed to be a staple dish of the establishment, and the omelette aux fines herbes, which the landlord's wife had added in honour of the stranger. One of them, behind the shelter of his glasses, drew the outline of the Englishman's head and face on the table-cloth, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and at last taxes her beyond her resources; for man naturally dies out of her. When we want culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a world are taxed and drawn out, and the result, or staple production, is, not slaves, nor operatives, but men,—those rare fruits called heroes, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... between the Senegal river and the sea, which forms his kingdom, I entered St. Louis, the capital of our possessions on the West African coast. While nobody talks anything but sugar at Martinique, nor cod in Newfoundland, at St. Louis the only subject of conversation is GUM. It is its staple product, and indeed is found nowhere ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... with type faces of a lighter and more delicate design, had been dissatisfied with the uneven surface of laid paper. Possibly he saw examples of the Chinese wallpaper on wove stock, made from a cloth mesh, which was a staple of the trade with the Orient. Hunter[17] describes the ...
— Why Bewick Succeeded - A Note in the History of Wood Engraving • Jacob Kainen

... wont to have an opening to the outer court, but it had unfortunately been built up of late by his own orders. There, under the replaced boards, cowers the King, while the Queen and her women seek to barricade the door. One brave young lady, Catherine Douglas, thrusts her beautiful arm into the staple from which the bolt had been removed. It is broken in a moment, and she sinks back, to bear, with her descendants—a family well known in Scotland—the name of Barlass ever since. The murderers, who had previously killed in the passage one Walter Straiton, a page, rush ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... of his muse' with him. It is no better or worse than the staple. In the character of ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... padlock attentively; then, drawing from his pocket one of those wonderful knives which are really miniature tool-chests, he raised from a grove the screw-driver which formed part of its equipment, and with neatness and dispatch unscrewed the staple to which ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... anxious to test the truth of my imaginings, rose and pulled aside one of these curtains only to see, just as I expected, the blank surface of a series of unslatted shutters, tightly fitting one to another with old-time exactitude. A flat hook and staple fastened them. Gently raising the window, and lifting one, I pulled the shutter open and looked out. The prospect was just what I had been led to expect from the location of the room—the long, bare wall of ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... has been proved to us by the evidence of many witnesses competent to speak on the subject, and when we bear in mind that the excess charge of 40s. to 45s. per case does not benefit the State, but serves to enrich individuals for the most part resident in Europe, the injustice of such a tax on the staple industry becomes more apparent and ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... by a liberal patronage, and their professors in some instances elevated to the rank of knighthood. [42] The excellent breed of sheep, which early became the subject of legislative solicitude, furnished them with an important staple which, together with the simpler manufactures and the various products of a prolific soil, formed the materials of a profitable commerce. [43] Augmentation of wealth brought with it the usual appetite for expensive pleasures; and the popular diffusion ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... in the Dietary.—When nuts can be secured at a low price per pound, ten cents or less, they compare favorably in nutritive value with other staple foods. Digestion experiments with rations composed largely of nuts show that they are quite thoroughly digested. Professor Jaffa of the California Experiment Station, in discussing the nutritive value ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder

... obtained from a given area of land. This is partly due to the careful mode of enrichment applied in liquid form. Its flora is spontaneous and magnificent, repaying the smallest attention by a development which is surprising. Next in importance to the production of rice, which is the staple food of the people, come the mulberry and tea plants, one species of the former not only feeding the silkworm, but it also affords the fibre of which Japanese paper is made, as well as forming the basis of their cordage ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... pale, and began to meditate dreadful bloodthirsty thoughts, of which hair-triggers and Lord's Cricket-ground formed the staple. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... walls of his cell into the King's garden. It was the time of night when all things are silent; but St. George, listening, heard the voices of grooms in the stables; which, entering, he found two grooms furnishing forth a horse against some business. Whereupon, taking the staple with which he had redeemed himself from prison, he slew the grooms, and mounting the palfrey rode boldly to the city gates, where he told the watchman at the Bronze Tower that St. George having escaped from the dungeon, he was in hot pursuit of him. Whereupon the gates were thrown ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel

... thousand times to his once. His best ideas are enjoyed and used, and in due time are sent back, often quite innocently, for re-issue. Nay, even what is popularly known in England as "modern American humour" has been claimed as a leaf out of Punch's book, quaint exaggeration forming its staple feature, as in the case where we are told that "a young artist in Picayune takes such perfect likenesses that a lady married the portrait of her ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... English acre, which is equivalent to eight shillings and eightpence Irish, and that to be paid before the farmer removed it from the field. Flax is a manufacture of little consequence in England, but is the staple in Ireland, and if it increases (as it probably will) must in many places jostle out corn, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... rent may be paid, ranging from $2 to $6 an acre for land on which the ordinary, staple crops are raised. Perhaps $3 to $4 is more commonly paid ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt

... appeared to consider that there was no chance of an attempt to escape. Cuthbert had in every way endeavored to ingratiate himself with his guard. He had most willingly obeyed their smallest orders, had shown himself pleased and grateful for the dates which formed the staple of their repasts. He had assumed so innocent and quiet an appearance that the Arabs had marveled much among themselves, and had concluded that there must have been some mistake in the assertion of the governor's guard who had handed the prisoner over to them, that he was one of ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... staple, but malted milk, chocolate, rice, and tea had come in, and little by little various things were added by which our menage quite resembled a hotel. The wounded were still being taken away by ambulance and wagon, assorted and picked over like fruit. Those who would ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton

... a week, or a bit of hard cracker to pick at. Whole oatmeal or grits, and a piece of apple or pear occasionally, are healthy food. These tidbits must be given sparingly, for if the bird eats them constantly it will grow so fat that it can not sing. The staple food should be canary seed mixed with rape, and there must always be a piece of cuttle-fish fastened in ...
— Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... There is, to be sure, an Alms House to catch all who, by misfortune or improvidence, fall through. But such is the public opinion in favor of personal independence springing from industry, that a native-born American citizen had rather die than go to an Alms-House. Foreigners are our staple paupers. Our charity feeds the poor wretches whom foreign slavery has crippled and cast upon us. But the whole South is a vast work-house for the slave while young, and a vast alms-house for him when old, and neither young or old, is he permitted to feel the responsibility for labor. And ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher

... sounds well. There are some genuine bankrupt sales, of course; there are a few bona fide smoke, fire and water mark-downs undoubtedly, but there are more advertised in a week than there are failures and fires in a year. Good, staple merchandise will usually bring its value, and he who advertises an unheard of bargain has generally set a trap for the unwary. One class of goods in the window marked a certain price, an inferior class on the bargain counter at the same figure. You bargain for a piece of furniture at a surprisingly ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins

... him—he knows his favorite phrases and gestures by heart, and has used them until there is not a Riggan collier who does not recognize them when they are presented to him, and applaud them as an audience might applaud the staple jokes of ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... results for causes and to vent its resentment upon persons when misgovernment occurs. That disposition was bitterly intense at this period. "Turn the rascals out" was the ordinary campaign slogan of an opposition party, and calumny formed the staple of its argument. Of course no party could establish exclusive proprietorship to such tactics, and whichever party might be in power in a particular locality was cast for the villain's part in the ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford

... Finally, the manufacture of woolen goods had received such an increment since 1849, that the production of wool could not keep step with it, and the price of the raw material rose greatly out of proportion to the price of the manufactured goods. Accordingly, we have here in the raw material of three staple articles a threefold material for a commercial crisis. Apart from these special circumstances, the seeming crisis of the year 1851 was, after all, nothing but the halt that overproduction and overspeculation make regularly in the course ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx

... from the army, and if you will suffer so low a pun, as upon his face, is a rubric martyr for his country: bad as it Is, this is the best bon-mot I have to send you: Ireland, which one did not suspect, is become the staple of wit, and, I find, coins bons-mots for our greatest men. I might not send you Mr. Fox's repartee, for I never heard it, nor has any body here: as you have, pray send it me. Charles Townshend t'other night hearing somebody say, that my Lady ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... for summer use, fruits were few and not choice, and the vegetables limited; our ancestors, at that time, having no acquaintance with the tomato, cauliflower, egg-plant, red-pepper, okra, and certain other staple vegetables of today. The Indians had schooled them in the preparation of succotash with the beans grown among the corn, and they raised melons, squashes, ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

... Everyone knows the staple ways of preparing oysters, and every chef looks upon the oyster as the source of new flavors in many dishes, but to our mind the best way we have found in San Francisco was at a little restaurant down in Washington street before the fire. ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords

... and his overseers, and not a bit afraid of them. They are fed most liberally, and looked fat and healthy. For breakfast they have coffee and bread; for dinner, fresh pork alternately with dried beef, and black beans (the staple food of the poor of this country); and for supper they have coffee, bread, ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... Chamillart were their brother, they would sorrowfully admit the necessity of removing him! At last, nobody could understand either how such a man could ever have been chosen, or how he could have remained so long in his place! All his faults and all his ridicules formed the staple of Court conversation. If anybody referred to the great things he had done, to the rapid gathering of armies after our disasters, people turned on their heels and walked away. Such were the presages ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... established the only regular flying-fishery in the world, and in just the manner I have described, except that the boats are considerably larger, is the whole town supplied with delicious fish at so trifling a cost as to make it a staple food among ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... Aryo-Dravidians of the United Provinces resulted from a second invasion or invasions, in which the Aryan warriors came alone and had to intermarry with the daughters of the land, belonging to the race which forms the staple of the population of Central India and Madras. This theory was based on measurements of heads and noses, and it seems probable that deductions drawn from these physical characters are of more value than any evidence based on the use of a common speech. But it is hard to reconcile ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... its—full value. You can help along a little by wearing high-heeled shoes. So you can do something to encourage yourself in serenity of aspect and demeanor, keeping your infirmities and troubles in the background instead of making them the staple of your conversation. This piece of advice, if followed, may be worth from three to five years of the fourscore which you ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... berry is cherished alike by white men and Indians; and the red men have woven about it some of their prettiest legends. When June had ripened the tree's blue-black berries, the Back Country folk went out in parties to gather them. Though the service berry was a food staple on the frontier and its gathering a matter of household economy, the folk made their berry-picking jaunt a gala occasion. The women and children with pots and baskets—the young girls vying with each other, under the eyes of the youths, as to who could strip ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... Felicia—and the sound ceased as suddenly as it had risen. Just a phrase, a stormy phrase, from an Italian folk-song which he had heard her sing to his mother. He caught the usual words—"morte"—"amore." They were the staple of all her songs; to tell the truth he was often bored by them. But the harsh, penetrating note—as though it were a note of anger—in the sudden sound, arrested him; and when it became silent, he still thought of it. It was a strange, big voice for ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... about, to fit the mastiff, the presence of whose mistress proved entirely necessary. Dorothy had indeed to put it on him with her own hands, for at the sound of the chain attached to it he began to grow furious, growling fiercely. When the chain had been made fast with a staple driven into a strong kennel-post, and his mistress proceeded to take her leave of him, his growling changed to the most piteous whining; but when she actually left him there, he flew into a rage of indignant affection. ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... productions, they are wanting in many articles which Europeans regard as of the first importance. There are sugar and coffee, it is true; but no corn, no potatoes, and none of our delightful varieties of fruit. The flour of manioc, obtained from the cassava plant, which forms a staple portion of almost every dish, supplies the place of bread, but is far from being so nutritious and strengthening; while the different kinds of sweet-tasting roots are far inferior in value to our potato. ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous

... nor any of the Border States had then joined the rebel Confederacy. Most of these States were opposed to the reopening of the African slave trade from principle and sentiment. The material interests of Virginia were strongly opposed to it. The staple product of Virginia was slaves. She lived only by breeding negroes for the market of the slave-consuming States of the Lower South. To reopen the African slave trade would destroy the profits of her great staple. The price of negroes would go down from one ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... the great staple of diet in ancient, as it is in modern, times. The importance attaching to it is shown by the fact that the Sun goddess herself is represented as engaging in its cultivation and that injuring a rice-field ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... since its settlement, Mesa has prospered, but its prosperity has been especially notable since the development, a few years ago, of the Pima long-staple cotton. Nearly every landowner, and Mesa is a settlement of landowners, has prospered through this industry, though it has been affected by the post-war depression. The region is one of comfortable, spacious homes and of well-tilled farms, with less acreage ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... was a small door. Feeling cautiously about, he found it to be secured by a hook. When he sought to raise the catch, however, it resisted. Evidently it had not been lifted for many years, and had rusted to the staple. Carefully Alex threw his weight upward against it. It still refused to move. He pushed harder, and suddenly it gave with a ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs

... after she had been asleep, who should come snuffing about in the garden but Boxer, the gardener's ugly, old rough terrier. He had no business at all in the garden, but had managed to get his chain out of the staple, and there he was running about, and dragging it all over the flower beds, and doing no end of mischief; then he made a charge at Mrs Spottleover, who was on the lawn, where she had just punched out a fine grub, but she was so frightened at Boxer's rough head ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn

... hundreds of farmers' families as this singular summer and autumn advanced. The corn crop, then the main staple in the East, was wholly cut off. Two and three dollars a bushel—equal to ten dollars to-day—were paid for corn that year—by those who had the money to purchase it. Many of the poorer families subsisted in part on ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... When I told those eight phlegmatic souls I was going, they all said 'So!' much as they had said 'So!' to every previous remark I had been moved to make to them. 'So' is capital garnishing: but viewed as a staple of conversation, I find it a trifle ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... publishers, the Anak of stationers, has a design upon you in the paper line. He wants you to become the staple and stipendiary editor of a periodical work. What say you? Will you be bound, like "Kit Smart, to write for ninety-nine years in the Universal ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... heroic, to the sphere of morals and the intellect. We are let into another realm unlooked for, where daring and imagination also lead. The secret and suppressed heart finds a champion. To the young man fed upon the penny precepts and staple Johnsonianism of English literature, and upon what is generally doled out in the schools and colleges, it is a surprise; it is a revelation. A new world opens before him. The nebulae of his spirit are resolved or shown ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... the prince address'd, The duteous dame received the purple vest; The purple vest with decent care disposed, The silver ring she pull'd, the door reclosed, The bolt, obedient to the silken cord, To the strong staple's inmost depth restored, Secured the valves. There, wrapped in silent shade, Pensive, the rules the goddess gave he weigh'd; Stretch'd on the downy fleece, no rest he knows, And in his raptured ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... training the wild cucumber vines upon the veranda posts, or watering the shrubs and flowers within the rough paling fence that enclosed the house and garden. A new-made garden, for ornament rather than for use, for the staple produce was grown in the Chinaman's garden by the lagoon. Young passion-fruit vines barely concealing the fences' nakedness, a mango, a few small orange trees now in flower. A Brazilian cherry, two or three flat-stone peach trees ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed



Words linked to "Staple" :   stapler, staple fibre, natural fibre, raw material, fasten, staple fiber, feedstock, essential, plural, fix, good, trade good, short-staple cotton, nail, natural fiber, staple gun, plural form, long-staple, unstaple, paper fastener, basic, commodity, secure



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