Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Tar   Listen
verb
Tar  v. t.  (past & past part. tarred; pres. part. tarring)  To smear with tar, or as with tar; as, to tar ropes; to tar cloth.
To tar and feather a person. See under Feather, v. t.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Tar" Quotes from Famous Books



... I had willfully forborne taking the grand tour with a tutor, in order to put my hand in a tar-bucket, the handsome captain looked ten times more funny than ever; and said that he himself would be my tutor, and take me on my travels, and ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... seen in every Bluff and in the high hills at a distance on each Side. Saw more Buffalow and Elk and antilopes this evening than usial. 18 Miles below the last river on the Stard. Side, I passed one 60 yards wide which had running water. this Stream I call oak-tar-pon-er or Coal River has very steep banks on each side of it. passed Several large Brooks Some of them had a little running water, also Several Islands Some high black looking Bluffs and encamped on the Stard. Side on a low point. the country ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... sent forward under full steam, the speed was far too slow for the impatient boys. They were on the bridge most of the time with the Captain who had been employed to run the vessel. He proved to be a jolly, red-faced tar, who loved ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay

... as I believe Burnes represents. These are of no size, finish, or elegance, and it is only their number, and the extreme obscurity of their history, that makes them interesting; the roofs are usually arched, and the walls are often supplied with niches, and covered with a coating of tar of some thickness, and intense blackness. The galleries are low, arched, and admit one person at a time, or a line of persons with ease; they often form the ascent to the upper caves now inhabited, but originally they were enclosed in the rock, they are defended in ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... with a palpitating heart; and the next moment, the door was locked from the outside and the key withdrawn. The interior was long, low, and quite unfurnished, but filled, almost from end to end, with sugar- cane, tar-barrels, old tarry rope, and other incongruous and highly inflammable material; and not only was the door locked, but the ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... costly lawsuit, they were naturally averse to risk connection with any other patent. Watt the younger, with whom Murdock communicated on the subject, was aware that the current of gas obtained from the distillation of coal in Lord Dundonald's tar-ovens had been occasionally set fire to, and also that Bishop Watson and others had burned gas from coal, after conducting it through tubes, or after it had issued from the retort. Mr. Watt was, however, quite ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... B Street was solitary; no trains passed at this hour; except the distant rag-pickers, not a soul was in sight. The wind blew strong, carrying with it the mingled smell of salt, of tar, of dead seaweed, and of bilge. The sky hung low and brown; at long intervals a few ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... illustration of this box is given, with directions for its construction and location. A small quantity of scions may be kept in an icebox (not a mechanical refrigerator), by cutting them into convenient lengths of one or two feet, dipping them in melted beeswax, wrapping them in tar or asphalt paper and placing them close to the ice. They will remain in good condition for several months if there is always a good supply of ice. Care must be taken in dipping the scions in melted wax, for if the wax is too hot it will injure the buds. It should ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke

... not all into the road from which he had taken it. Some of it had percolated through the open windows, some had whitened the roses and gooseberries of the wayside gardens, while a certain proportion had entered the lungs of the villagers. "I wonder when they'll learn wisdom and tar the roads," was his comment. Then a man ran out of the draper's with a roll of oilcloth, and off ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... there were no houses. Along the streets were places of torment and torture exceedingly ingenious and disagreeable. For miles and miles, it seemed, I followed my conductors through these horrors, Here was a deep vat of burning tar. Here were rows of fiery ovens. I noticed several immense caldron kettles of boiling oil, upon the rims of which little devils sat, with pitchforks in hand, and poked down the helpless victims who floundered ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... had supplied to the Service a true British tar: for although you might mistake the man in other respects, his appearance forbade all equivocation ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... an introduction. They were generally of a harmless and amusing character, one of which was to bring them before old Neptune, and put them through the process of shaving. The chin, and the greater part of the face, would be plastered over with a composition made of tar and train oil, laid on thickly with a large tar brush. The razor was often fabricated from a worn-out hoop, notched like a handsaw. This was drawn over the face, not in the most gentle manner. After this operation was completed, a person ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head

... are often tarred over with the surgery of our sheep; and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier's hands ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... problem of crossing wide bodies of water had, naturally, presented itself to the mind of the inventor at an early date, and during the most of this year he had devoted himself seriously to its solution. He laboriously insulated about two miles of copper wire with pitch, tar, and rubber, and, on the evening of October 18, 1842, he carried it, wound on a reel, to the Battery in New York and hired a row-boat with a man to row him while he paid out his "cable." Tradition says that it was a beautiful moonlight night and that the strollers on the Battery ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... will get firsthand evidence. This is generally true of the lower class of Italians throughout the United States, whether in the city or country. They live under worse conditions than at home. You may go through the railroad camps and see twenty men sleeping together in a one-room built of lath, tar-paper, and clay. The writer knows of one Italian laborer in Massachusetts who slept in a floorless mud hovel about six feet square, with one hole to go in and out by and another in the roof for ventilation—in order to save $1.75 per month. All honor ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... Whitley's Mill, ready to support the left until it is past Smithfield, when it will follow up (substantially) Little River to about Rolesville, ready at all times to move to the support of the left; after passing Tar River, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... a pleasant town—a remarkably pleasant town—situated in a charming hollow by the side of a river, from which river, Mudfog derives an agreeable scent of pitch, tar, coals, and rope-yarn, a roving population in oilskin hats, a pretty steady influx of drunken bargemen, and a great many other maritime advantages. There is a good deal of water about Mudfog, and yet it is not exactly the sort of town ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... circumstances might have been suitable and very proper, the account of New Netherland would not have been so large as it now is, caused by building the ship New Netherland at an excessive outlay,(1) by erecting three expensive mills, by brick-making, by tar-burning, by ash-burning, by salt-making and the like operations, which through bad management and calculation have all gone to nought, or come to little; but which nevertheless have cost much. Had the same money been used in bringing people and importing cattle, the country would now ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various

... man, an' make no outcry, an' see you repeat the words carefully, as I speak them, or you go home in tar ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... be useful here. When all these are ashore send on the rocket- cart, and come yourselves to the headland as quick as you can. Tell the coastguards that all those saved are to be taken to the castle. In the rocket-cart bring pitch and tar and oil, and anything that will flame. Stay!' she cried to the chief boatman. 'Give me some blue lights!' ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... warm himself. The flask was old, and so was the glass; its foot was broken off, but it was inserted into a piece of wood painted blue, which served as a stand for it. If one dram was good, two would be better, thought the master. The boy stood by the helm, and held on to it with his hard, tar-covered hands. He looked frightened. His hair was rough, and he was wrinkled, and stunted in his growth. The young sailor was the grave-digger's boy; in the church register he was called ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... for wines or other drinks. I gave an old priest a bottle of Bass's pale India ale; he could not drink half a glassful but rejected it as picro (bitter); the same old man enjoyed his penny-a-bottle black Cyprus wine, reeking of tar and half-rotten goat-skins, in which it had been brought to market—a stuff that I could not have swallowed! It must therefore be borne in mind when judging of Cyprian wines, that "English taste does not govern the world." Although ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... are all much older than I am. They work in the woods in the winter, cutting out logs or making tar; and in the summer they go off on fishing trips. I don't see them ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald

... resin or tar with the wax to make it more brittle, so that when the painting is finished and the work is to be taken down again off the plate, the spots of wax will chip off more easily. I do not advise it. Boys in the shop who are just entering their apprenticeship get very skilful, ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall

... over a heap of papers to give more room for his feet. "Take it that I continue as editor. We can discuss terms later. Under the present regime I have been doing all the work in exchange for a happy home. I suppose you won't want to spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar? In other words, you would sooner have a happy, well-fed editor running about the place than a broken-down wreck who might ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill

... was deposited in Wyatt's own; and there, too, it remained, occupying very nearly the whole of the floor, no doubt to the exceeding discomfort of the artist and his wife; this the more especially as the tar or paint with which it was lettered in sprawling capitals emitted a strong, disagreeable, and, to my fancy, a peculiarly disgusting odour. On the lid were painted the words: "Mrs. Adelaide Curtis, Albany, New York. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... day old Marse Gregg die? 'Course I does. It happen right here in Winnsboro. Him come down to 'tend John Robinson's Circus. Him lak Scotch liquor; de tar smell, de taste, and de 'fect, take him back to Scotland where him generate from. Them was bar-room days in Winnsboro. De two hotels had bar-rooms, besides de other nine in town. Marse Gregg had just finished his drink of Scotch. De parade of de circus was passing de hotel ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various

... raillery was in progress, BELINDA felt somebody tugging at her dress. She looked down, and saw Mr. ARCHIBALD BLINKSOP, a sailor-looking chap who smelt of tar, and well he might, for he had ploughed the tempestuous deep for upwards of six months, as a common ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various

... sprung up at the head of the lake, and from dawn until dark it echoed to the unceasing sound of ax and hammer, of plane and saw. The air was redolent with the odor of fresh-cut spruce and of boiling tar, for this was the shipyard where an army of Jasons hewed and joined and fitted, each upon a bark of his own making. Half-way down the lake was the Boundary, and a few miles below that again was the customs station with its hateful red-jacketed police. Beyond were uncharted ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... "Two years ago," and to my story, as it was told to me, ask you to follow me into the good old West Country, and set you down at the back of an old harbour pier; thirty feet of grey and brown boulders, spotted aloft with bright yellow lichens, and black drops of tar, polished lower down by the surge of centuries, and towards the foot of the wall roughened with crusts of barnacles, and mussel-nests in crack and cranny, and festoons of coarse ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... poor mortals who had come from so much cooler a region. It had been hot when passing the tropics: it was hotter still now; for no clouds overhead tempered the sun's rays. The pitch, as before, in the sides and seams of the deck, melted and oozed out. The tar dropped from the rigging, and none of us willingly touched any piece of metal for fear of burning our fingers. Merlin wisely kept in the shade, and the young ladies followed his example. I, however, being now stationed ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... story-telling,—a gift that is as rare among the blacks as among the whites. There is good reason to suppose, too, that many of the negroes born near the close of the war or since, are unfamiliar with the great body of their own folk-lore. They have heard such legends as the "Tar Baby" story and "The Moon in the Mill-Pond," and some others equally as graphic; but, in the tumult and confusion incident to their changed condition, they have had few opportunities to become acquainted with that wonderful ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris

... resulted in Hartigan's determination to erect a stable of his own, where he could have his horse under his eye, day and night. What he built was not a large stable, only ten by twelve feet, of rough pine lumber, with tar-paper weather-proofing and no floor, but he did it entirely with his own hands at a material cost of twelve dollars; and he put his soul into it. There were two stalls, one for Blazing Star and one for supplies. There was much good-humoured jesting at the "Horse Preacher" while ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... and swallow the tar-water thus formed, and finally the resins themselves, and you will find your cough ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... began to flow along the rods, much as tar flows. From the mass extended a pseudopod; touched Gunga on the arm. Instantly the arm was raw and bleeding. Terrified, immovable, he writhed in agony. The pseudopod returned to the main mass, disappearing into its interior with the strip of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... 226-227.—At the date of the letter to Thurloe (April 11, 1654) Sandelands was still in great straits. He had been arrested for debt and was then in prison. He reminds Thurloe of his attempts to be useful for the last year or more, not forgetting his project, in the winter of 1652-3, of timber and tar from the Scottish woods. The "stirs in Scotland" since, it appears, had obstructed that design after it had been lodged, through Milton, with the Committee of the Admiralty; but Sandelands hopes it may be revived, and recommends a beginning that ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... tar an' feathers look sick for stickin' to a thing." Then, reading a grudging assent from Rifle-Eye, he continued: "Yep, I'll go an' saddle," and sauntered ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... in his work of nailing tar-paper over the boards, and stretched wide his arms. He was taking a cursory glance toward the incoming tide when his attention was attracted by the figure of Kobuk ambling up the trail from the beach. The dog was dripping wet and at intervals he stopped ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... saving, Morse conceived the idea of laying telegraph wires beneath the water. He prepared a wire by wrapping it in hemp soaked in tar, and then covering the whole with rubber. Choosing a moonlight night in the fall of 1842, he submerged his cable in New York Harbor between Castle Garden and Governors Island. A few signals were transmitted and then ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers

... the knees of this new charmer and worshiped her. The fact is, that he was too easily transformed, and submitted too quickly to the latest magic; otherwise he would have always walked erect, instead of wearing fur on his back, and a tail at the end of it. A coat of tar and feathers would have been a mere circumstance compared with such an indignity. Well, it was the fault, perhaps it should rather be called the misfortune, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... real sailors of any nation, I think. A real seaman knows too well what sea-perils are, and that what is another man's case one day may be his the next; and cowardice and cold-heartedness are the last sins that can be laid at Jack Tar's door as a rule. But I will finish my story by telling the children what happened next morning, as it goes to illustrate both my statements, that it is not easy to see an open boat in a heavy sea, and that sailors are very ready to risk their lives ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... awfully ill; one of the men, Geordie Grant by name and surname, followed shoot with considerable eclat; but, wonderful to relate! I kept well. My hands are all skinned, blistered, discoloured, and engrained with tar, some of which latter has established itself under my nails in a position of such natural strength that it defies all my efforts to dislodge it. The worst work I had was when David (Macdonald's eldest) ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... make a man wish for a kettle o' tar, or a pot o' black paint," said Pete one day. "What for, sir? Just to put on a coat of it, and change the colour of one's skin. They'd treat us better than they do. Makes me wish I was a nigger for a bit, so long as I could wash ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn

... preternaturally grave expression, his eyes forbidding as they rested upon the renegade. I know—from Lord Henry's own pen—that no word had passed between them during those brief moments before Sakr-el-Bahr was hurried away by his guards to be flung into those dark, cramped quarters reeking of tar and bilge. ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... yellowish oily liquid containing phenols and creosols, obtained by the destructive distillation of wood tar, especially from the wood of a beech, and formerly used as an expectorant in ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek

... out and away along the rumbling dock. "Doctor!" another bawled. "He's drank poison! Where's the doctor at?" And that, too, went out, and a faint shout answered from somewhere shoreward that the doctor was out at Si Pilot's place and Miah White was after him, astraddle of the tar-wagon horse. Through it all I can remember Aunt Nickerson's wail continuing, undaunted and unquenchable, "God save our souls! ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... but differing from it in the colour being of a more intense tint, and in having a row of blue stripes around the margin of the lower wings. This good beginning was, however, rather deceptive, and I soon found that insects, and especially butterflies, were somewhat scarce, and birds in tar less variety than I had anticipated. Several of the fine Moluccan species were however obtained. The handsome red lory with green wings and a yellow spot in the back (Lorius garrulus), was not uncommon. ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... sweet wife, upbraid me not with that; gain savours sweetly from any thing; he that respects to get, must relish all commodities alike, and admit no difference between oade and frankincense, or the most precious balsamum and a tar-barrel. ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... boy, the deck of the Shenandoah; forward right from the main hatchway it was laden with timber. Running rigging lay loose on the deck in coils, and nearly the whole of the quarter-deck was occupied by a deck-house. The place had a delightful smell of sea-beach, decaying wood, tar, and mystery. Bights of buntline and other ropes were dangling from above, only waiting to be swung from. A bell was hung just forward of the foremast. In half a moment Dick was forward hammering at the bell with a belaying pin he ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... put him on a horse, naked except his trousers, about twenty of 'em did it, and rode on either side with tar-pots; and every time he'd turn his head any way to jaw about what he'd do, they'd swab him in the mouth with it; and they had bags of feathers, and nearly smothered him with 'em, till with the black tar stickin' on every way, and all in his great beard, he would ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... to terrorise the horses and throw them into confusion. This practice has been quite common in the past. Each dog is dressed in a cuirass of leather and on his back is carefully strapped a pot of boiling, blazing tar. Nothing so terrorises horses as the sight of ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... them in romantic novels didn't exist in real life. Lulled by the steady reverberations of the paddle-wheels, conscious internally of a satisfying lunch and good wine, he fell asleep. When he awoke, they were manoeuvring carefully up to the bank, and black sailors in Jack Tar uniform quickly extemporized a ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... our darling! No more swearing, no more snarling; On their backs, when not on duty, Round they bore the blue-eyed beauty,— Singing, shouting, leaping, prancing,— All the crew took turns in dancing; Every tar playing Punchinello With the pretty, laughing fellow; Even the second mate gave sly winks At the noisy mid-day high jinks. Never was a crew so happy With a curly-headed chappy, Never were such sports gigantic, Never ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... the manufacture of coal gas, the tar and the ammonia water, are nowadays scarcely less important than the coal gas itself. The ammonia water furnishes large quantities of salts to be used, among other applications, as food for plants. We thus restore to-day to our vegetation the nitrogen which existed in plants of primeval times. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... compliments than I'd let any one else do! But I promised not to keep you long. And if I break my promise it will be your fault—because you're not reasonable. You're the pot and I'm the kettle, because we're both tarred with the same brush. By the way, are pots and kettles blacked with tar? They look it. But that's a detail. My sister and I are just as dead broke and down and out as you and your brother are. I mean, as you were, and as you may be again, ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... marvel at Dungeness, whilst of the former a good deal of salvage money was made. It is not far from this wreck that the Russian last-mentioned came to grief. She met her fate in a peculiarly sad manner. The Alliance, a tar-loaded vessel, drifting inwards before a strong east wind, began to burn pitch barrels as a signal for assistance. The Russian, thinking she was on fire, ran down to her assistance, and took the ground close by. Both ships were totally wrecked, and the ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy

... man'ger ban'ter mar'gin flat'ter quak'er ban'ner ar'dent lat'ter qua'ver hand'y ar'my mat'ter dra'per man'na art'ist pat'ter wa'ger can'cer har'vest tat'ter fa'vor pan'der par'ty rag'ged fla'vor tam'per tar'dy rack'et sa'vor plan'et ar'dor van'ish ma'jor ham'per car'pet gal'lant ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... him running weakly toward the corner of the house, where two men were bending over the tar barrel, into which they had put ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... carriage manufactory—the latter establishment being carried on by an enterprising Yankee, a brother to the stage proprietor. He told me that he furnished large numbers of vehicles to the planters in all parts of the State, and took in pay, cotton, tar, and turpentine, which he shipped to another brother doing business in New York. There were, if I remember aright, five of these brothers, living far apart, but all in co-partnership, and owning every thing in common. They were native and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the cabin and went forward to borrow a pair of the required articles from Tom Slake, an ordinary seaman of tall and slim proportions. In a short time Christian Vellacott bore the outward semblance of a very fair specimen of the British tar, except that his cheeks were bleached and sunken, which discrepancy was promptly commented upon ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... was a slight commotion on board the brig Queen Anne. A frolicsome tar had thrown out a rope, and hauled in two men one white and one black. The crew ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... the Fairies; I wonder if the original Titania's father dealt in buttons! Is it buttons, or soap, or tar? You didn't say," says Mrs. ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... was not a moment too soon. Bulger had taken up his quarters there with a very bad grace, the arrival of the Nawab's army having aroused in him the fighting spirit of the sturdy British tar. But when the news ran through the settlement that the fort was to be given up his feelings overcame him, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that Surendra Nath had persuaded him to wait patiently for orders from Desmond. Then the Babu himself had quitted the house, ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... Western town. Everywhere in it, were to be seen strenuous efforts at uglification, crowned with unmeasured success. The streets were straight level lanes without curves or beauty-spots. The houses were cheap and mean structures of flimsy boards and tar paper, and not even honest in their ugliness, for each of them was pretending to be something better than itself. One had a false front to make it look like two stories, another was of imitation brick, a third pretended ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Chad, is it? What the devil are you doing?" "Lookin' for one ob dese yer tar'pins Miss Nancy sent de colonel. Dey was seben ob 'em in dis box, an' now dey ain't but six. Hole dis light, Major, an' lemme fumble round ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... dry inside, and filled with a clean pungent scent of warm tar. Mandy Ann shook out her red skirt and her yellow curls, and set down the big covered basket on the bottom of the bateau. The basket continued to ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... mighty—until they came to a high gate, which led to the shipyard. Just outside and on guard walked one of the navy's jack-tars, but the bronze man strutted past him and kicked the gate open without the jack-tar's pretending ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... sailor, smelling of pitch and tar, and Antony will be a well-bred, point-device scholar, who will know how to give a lady his hand," ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... novel, which bears the fascinating title of The Bad Egg. Portions of this, it is to be hoped, will be recited at the banquet by the author's brother-in-law, Mr. Ossip Bobolinsky, Managing Director of the Anglo-Manchurian Steam Tar Company. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various

... overcoat, all stained with tar, a pair of dark mittens stuck from his belt, and his head was covered with ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... I hunted for that man in Africa all over seventy-five or one hundred parishes, thousands and thousands of miles in the wilds and deserts all over the place, sometimes riding negroes and sometimes travelling by rail. I didn't mind the rail or anything else, so that I didn't come in for the tar and feathers. I found that man at Ujiji—a place you may remember if you have ever been there—and it was a very great satisfaction that I found him just in the nick of time. I found that poor old man deserted by his niggers and by his geographers, deserted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... impatient and wondering why Leslie did not answer. It had occurred to the old tar that it was possible ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish

... or never." We laid our shoulders to the end wall, and heaved at it with all our might; when we were nearly at our last gasp it gave way, and we rushed headlong into the middle of the party, followed by Sneezer, with his shaggy coat, full of clots of tar, blazing like a torch. He unceremoniously seized, par le queue, the soldier who had throttled me, setting fire to the skirts of his coat, and blowing up his cartridge-box. I believe, under Providence, that the ludicrousness of this attack saved us from being bayoneted on the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... existence, by tossing ashore fragments of its dark bituminous shale. I soon ascertained that the shale is so largely charged with inflammable matter as to burn with a strong flame, as if steeped in tar or oil, and that I could repeat with it the common experiment of producing gas by means of a tobacco-pipe luted with clay. And, having read in Shakspere of a fuel termed "sea-coal," and unaware at the time that the poet merely meant coal brought to London by sea, I inferred that the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... vartue in good maple wood, Ill weather upon it, before one glass, as much as ten points more, so that the squire, when he comes home from Betty Hollisters warm room, will feel as hot as a hand that has given the rigging a lick with bad tar. Come, mistress, bring up in this here chair, and tell me how you like ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... goes round to one of the fishermen, her like in age and mind, and gets the uppers and the soles done in thoroughly with a powerful mess of stuff that leaves the water simply helpless. I've seen that dubbin boiling on the beach; there's tallow in it, and tar and resin as well. ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun

... sheets of hard or tarry asphalt, called gum beds, around the oil-springs. In the far West are numerous springs of petroleum, which are known to the hunters as "tar springs," because of the accumulations about them of the products of the evaporation and oxidation of petroleum to tar or asphalt. Certain less common oils yield ozokerite as a solid, and considerable accumulations of this are known in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various

... he's only a Democrat, his blood is hardly blue, Oh, Sacre Nom de Dieu! Sapristi! Eet is true! But he's a jolly tar dog, with dirk and pistol, too, He fights like William the Conqueror, he fights! Egad! that's true! A health to Renee the terrible; soldier and ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... apparently his servant; he rode a shaggy little grey pony, had a blue bonnet on his head, and a large check napkin folded about his neck, wore a pair of long blue worsted hose instead of boots, had his gloveless hands much stained with tar, and observed an air of deference and respect towards his companion, but without any of those indications of precedence and punctilio which are preserved between the gentry and their domestics. On the contrary, the two travellers entered the court-yard abreast, and the concluding ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... succeed Menou. Orders were given that the forests and hedges of La Vendee were all to be levelled, the crops destroyed, the cattle seized, and the goods of the insurgents confiscated. An enormous number of carts were collected to carry faggots, tar, and other combustibles into La Vendee, for setting fire to the woods. It was actually proposed to destroy the whole male population, to deport the women and children, and to repeople La Vendee from other parts of France, from which ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty

... Tar-wood, n. name given by the Otago bushmen to the tree Darrydium colensoi, Hook.; Maori name, Manoao (q.v.). ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... let the eagle flap his wings And let the cannon roar, For while the conquering bullet sings We pledge the commodore. First battle of a righteous war Right royally he won, But here's a health to the jolly tar— To the man ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... to do this, or to tar and feather and ride on a rail any gentleman who might in any way be so unfortunate as to fall one iota short ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... indeed, Pierre," Harry said as he worked away with the tar brush. "That idea of the turtle was a splendid one, and you may well say that God put it into the woman's head, for without it you could never have lived ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty

... whose grizzled hair, weather-beaten face, groggy nose, and whiskers, coming all round under his chin, gave him the air of old Benbow as he appears on the stage—"a reg'lar old salt," "sea-dog," or whatever other name the popular taste loves to apply to the British tar. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... roof on the south side can be raised when it is desirable to harden off the plants in spring. The foundation is of wood, locust posts being used, with boards nailed upon both sides and coated with coal tar. The house is forty one feet long and sixteen feet wide, and is heated by a tank constructed as follows: brick piers are built three feet apart on which are laid common blue flag stones six feet long and two feet wide. The sides ...
— Woodward's Graperies and Horticultural Buildings • George E. Woodward

... tar barrels of which the bonfire was made were half burned out a great crowd had come together. They were chiefly laborers and seafaring men, together with many young apprentices and all those idle people about town who are ready for any kind of mischief. Doubtless ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... his men under fire of his brig, but they were repulsed by the militia of the neighborhood, which Gov. Hyde had time to collect. They returned on board, and their Chief sought a safe retreat in the swamps of the Tar river, where he raised his standard and endeavored to bring the Tuscarora Indians into an alliance. For this purpose he dispatched to them Edward Porter, one of his counsel, who endeavored by promises of great rewards to induce them to cut off all the inhabitants ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson

... metaphysics,—demonstrative of the non-existence of matter, or demonstrative rather that fire is not conscious of heat, nor ice of cold, nor yet our enlightened surface of colour,—he bequeathed little else to the world than his tar-water; and his tar-water, no longer recognised as a universal medicine, has had its day, and is forgotten. Without professing to know aught of German metaphysicians—for in the times when we used to read ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... into the human group around him instead of into the animals or the trees, but it is a case of which the justice is so obvious that the modern man can intellectually seize and understand it, and consequently he does not tar it with the ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... their special methods of preparing it. Some travellers claim that it consists only of a decoction of poisonous plants; others believe that with such substances are mixed the fangs of snakes, and certain species of poisonous ants, the whole compound being boiled down to the consistency of tar. ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... sluggish octopus, to possess a thousand coils. Always you are turning upon a new bend of the ice, secretly stretching into darkness; strange bridges suddenly meet you, and then, where you had expected to find a solid mass of hideous flats, there will be a cluster of masts and the smell of tar, and little fierce red lights like the ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... oak, lined with iron bars, was ill protected. It was neither flanked nor machicolated, and it might have been mined or assaulted at any point. The enemy could approach under the walls without fear of being annoyed by showers of boiling lead or tar, and, if they kept close in, neither could arrows reach them ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... than the part next the bottom. The gum, or resinous covering, of the buds protects them from injury by rain or snow. Some kinds of pine, such as the pitch pine, have a great abundance of gum and turpentine. Resin and pine tar are made chiefly from this species. Heat a piece of pine wood—a knot or root is best. The gum will be seen oozing out of the wood. Pine torches were much used in the early days of settlement in Canada. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... someone went into Cook's Well to take a letter. Marcella wished a little that she had some money to buy things for her house, but it was the sort of wish she found it easy to conquer and when, in a spirit of mischief she took the tar brush with which Louis had been caulking the sides of the hut, and tarred CASTLE LASHCAIRN on the corrugated roof, she ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... At supper grain fit only for horses would have been set before him, accompanied by a cake of blood drawn from living cows. Some of the company with which he would have feasted would have been covered with cutaneous eruptions, and others would have been smeared with tar like sheep. His couch would have been the bare earth, dry or wet as the weather might be; and from that couch he would have risen half poisoned with stench, half blind with the reek of turf, and half mad ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... don't want no dabs o' paint as you can't tell what they are, Whether they're shadders or fellers' faces or blocks or blobs o' tar, But I want gear as looks like gear an' a spar that's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various

... mana, but the tabu, the Forbidden, the Thing Feared. We must cast away the old year; we must put our sins on to a pharmakos or scapegoat and drive it out. When the ghosts have returned and feasted with us at the Anthesteria we must, with tar and branches of buckthorn, purge them out of every corner of the rooms till the air is pure from the infection of death. We must avoid speaking dangerous words; in great moments we must avoid speaking any words at all, lest there should be even in the most innocent of them some unknown ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... scale,—a mere handful of splinters, that seems hardly more efficacious than a friction-match. Probably this is a natural habit for the short-lived coolness of an out-door country; and then there is something delightful in this rich pine, which burns like a tar-barrel. It was, perhaps, encouraged by the masters, as the only cheap luxury the ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... indifference as if they were mere mechanical agencies, it would be pulled and pushed into the dimness of the interior, cool, and pleasantly smelling of pine, and hemp, and flour, and dried fruit, and coffee, and tar, and leather, and fish. There it would abide, indefinitely again, till in the same large impersonal way it was pulled and pushed out on the platform beside the track, where a freight-car marked for the Hill Country division of the road, with devices intelligible ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... mending his gear. He never went down to the harbour for work like the other fishermen and never worked on the land. Humming away and talking to himself he fiddled about in his shed, around his boat-house or his croft, his hands all grubby with tar and grease. If addressed, he was abrupt and curt in his answers, sometimes even abusive. Hardly anyone dared go ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... this, however, is so or no, the rhubarb can be seen in Covent Garden, and I am afraid it must be admitted that to the philosophically minded there lurks within it a theory of evolution, and even Pantheism, as surely as Theism was lurking in Bishop Berkeley's tar-water. ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... her little brother and had him burnt; this eased the pain at her heart a little. Then her aunt was conveyed to her from Majorca, and on arrival was pierced by several bodkins and ultimately buried in hot tar. Isabella Angelica almost gave vent to ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward

... expected the sow would make its approach. In addition to this, they fixed a crane upon the rampart, armed with iron chains and grappling hooks, and large masses of combustibles and fire-faggots, shaped like tuns, and composed of pitch and flax, bound strongly together with tar ropes, were piled up in readiness for the attack. At different intervals on the walls were fixed the espringalds for the discharge of their heavy darts, which carried on their barbed points little bundles of flaming tow dipped in oil or sulphur; the ramparts were lined by the archers, spearmen, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various

... am afraid!" answered the true English tar. " "However, if there is, I should be glad of a frigate of thirty-two guns. Now, if you ask for it, don't say a frigate, and get me ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... a moment when no one was looking, I put a hunk of bread and butter down the leg of my trousers. Joe thought I had eaten it in one gulp, which greatly distressed him, and I was borne off and dosed with tar water. ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... richly furnished and endowed. They were built sometimes on artificial mounds; but generally on natural eminences, that they might be seen at a great distance. They were called by the Amonians, who first erected them, [230]Tar, and Tor; the same as the [Hebrew: TWR] of the Chaldees, which signified both a hill and tower. They were oftentimes compounded, and styled Tor-Is, or fire towers: on account of the light which they exhibited, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... a naturalist he can hardly fail to observe, and be interested in, the mosquitoes of this charming and picturesque locality. He will note that they rival the song-thrush in magnitude and the Bengal tiger in ferocity. A coating of tar laid with a trowel over the exposed parts of the body will be found the best protection, especially as the new Armour Company's patent hermetically sealed bear-proof visor will be found too hot for ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... city is tossed on the stormy deep; Who fort or fleet to the foe betrays; or, a vile Thorycion, ships away Forbidden stores from Aegina's shores, to Epidaurus across the Bay Transmitting oarpads and sails and tar, that curst collector of five per cents; The knave who tries to procure supplies for the use of the enemy's armaments; The Cyclian singer who dares befoul the Lady Hecate's wayside shrine; The public speaker ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes

... glass jugs with tar-water, and I observed that over half those present drank their wine ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... loosened bark to the tree, it should be entirely cut away, care being taken to give the cut a regular outline, especially on the lower side; for if a portion of the bark, even if adhering to the wood, is left without direct communication with the leaves, it must die and decay. A coating of coal-tar should ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... the hay harvest began. Then, on the first of September, they returned to the dale in order that the ram lambs might be taken from the flocks and sold at the September fairs. Once again, before winter set in, the farmers demanded their sheep of Peregrine in order to anoint them with a salve of tar, butter and grease, which would keep out the wet. For the rest the flocks remained with Peregrine on the moors, and it was his duty to drive them from one part to another when change ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman

... cannot but venture to find, even in our own extreme ignorance, with Mr. Stanfield's boats; they never look weather-beaten. There is something peculiarly precious in the rusty, dusty, tar-trickled, fishy, phosphorescent brown of an old boat, and when this has just dipped under a wave and rises to the sunshine it is enough to drive Giorgione to despair. I have never seen any effort ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... right out, a-rearing on her hind legs, a-pawing, and snickering. This hoss didn't see the cute of them notions; he was for examining, so I goes to jump off and lam the fool; but I was stuck tight as if there was tar on the saddle. I took my gun, that there iron, my rifle, and pops Blue over the head, but she squealed and dodged, all the time pawing; but it wasn't no use, and I says, 'you didn't cost more than two blankets when you was ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... facetiously characterized—doubtless in all good humor—as "Tar-heel mythology," stated that John Paul assumed the name of Jones out of friendship and regard for the justly celebrated Jones family of North Carolina, and especially for Mrs. Willie Jones, who is not unknown in history, and who was one of the most brilliant and charming women of the colonies. ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady



Words linked to "Tar" :   wood tar, steersman, officer, bargee, jack, bo'sun, bo's'n, lighterman, bargeman, coal-tar creosote, steerer, sailor, deckhand, sea dog, tar-wood, tar-and-feather, tar pit, tar paper, helmsman, Tar Heel State, coat, able-bodied seaman, whaler, pine-tar rag, seafarer



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org