Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Fife   /faɪf/   Listen
Fife

noun
1.
A small high-pitched flute similar to a piccolo; has a shrill tone and is used chiefly to accompany drums in a marching band.



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Fife" Quotes from Famous Books



... the energetic English king, who had been abroad when the defeat of Stirling Bridge lost him Scotland, had now returned home, and was already on his march toward the borders at the head of a powerful army. A body of English, which had landed in the north of Fife, led by Aymer de Vallois, Earl of Pembroke, is said by the Scottish authorities to have been attacked and routed by Wallace on June 12, 1298, in the forest of Blackironside, in that county; but when the two main armies met on July 22d, in the neighborhood of Falkirk—the Scots ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... stepped on shore, we found the lepers assembled to the number of two or three hundred—there are 697 all told in the settlement—for they had heard in advance of our coming, and our ears were greeted with the sound of lively music. This proceeded from the 'band,' consisting of a drum, a fife, and two flutes, rather skilfully played upon by four young lads, whose visages were horribly marked and disfigured with leprosy. The sprightly airs with which these poor creatures welcomed the arrival ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... that Prince, and laid the foundation of the future grandeur of his fortunes. Shortly after his marriage he accompanied the Duke of York to Scotland, in the course of which they both were nearly shipwrecked on the coast of Fife. On this occasion the Duke made the greatest efforts to preserve his favourite's life, and succeeded in doing so, although the danger was such that many of the Scottish nobles perished under his eye. On his return to London in 1682, he was presented by his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... clarion, fill the fife! To all the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins

... meant much to our race. We wish, however, following Professor Buller's Essays on Wheat (1919), to explain the method by which this good seed was discovered. From one we may learn all. The parent of Marquis Wheat on the male side was the mid-Europe Red Fife—a first-class cereal. The parent on the female side was less promising, a rather nondescript, not pure-bred wheat, called Red Calcutta, which was imported from India into Canada about thirty years ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... of marching riflemen. In front of one of these, the fife and drum corps playing behind him, was a young Tory, who had insulted the company, and was, therefore, made to carry a gray goose in his arms with this maxim of Poor Richard on his back: 'Not every goose ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... F. Ferdinand Fife Was a student of life: He was coarse, and excessively fat, With a beard like a goat's, But he held all the notes Of ruined John Jeremy Platt! With an adamant smile That was brimming with guile, He said: "I am took with the ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl

... Coleraine, Cookstown, Craigavon, Down, Dungannon, Fermanagh, Larne, Limavady, Lisburn, Londonderry, Magherafelt, Moyle, Newry and Mourne, Newtownabbey, North Down, Omagh, Strabane Scotland: 9 regions, 3 islands areas*; Borders, Central, Dumfries and Galloway, Fife, Grampian, Highland, Lothian, Orkney*, Shetland*, Strathclyde, Tayside, Western Isles* Wales: 8 counties; Clwyd, Dyfed, Gwent, Gwynedd, Mid Glamorgan, Powys, South ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... sound is heard, like the note of a whistle, fife, or flute. This is due to a dry constriction of the bronchial tubes and it is heard in chronic bronchitis and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... nae mair nonsense till we cam till a station in Fife wi' an' awfu'-like name. I canna mind what it was, an' never will, I suppose. The stationmester had an awfu' ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond

... quite an imposing sight. General Kelly sat a magnificent black charger, and with waving banners, to the martial music of fife and drum corps, company by company, in two divisions, his two thousand stiffs countermarched before him and hit the wagon-road to the little burg of Weston, seven miles away. Being the latest recruit, I was in the last company, of the last regiment, of the Second Division, and, furthermore, ...
— The Road • Jack London

... hard white sand by the sea-shore, watching the waves, and studying the course of the tides. He was quite a young man, and 'twas little wonder if the story which the old baron had told was true, and if all the ladies' hearts in Fife ached for love of him, for I trow never did goodlier youth walk the earth, and men said of him that he was as gentle and ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... incident occurred during this little voyage on the schooner, which was managed by the French traders who had threatened my life two days before. The wind was light, and the sailors amused themselves with music—one of them playing on a fife. He was attempting to play a tune which he had not properly learned. I was walking the deck, and told him to give me the fife, when I played the tune. The Frenchmen gathered around my feet, and looked with astonishment and delight. From that hour they were my warm friends, ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... his charge. Colonel Hamilton Smith, in the "Cyclopaedia of Natural History," mentions a curious instance of fidelity and sagacity in a dog. He informs us that "in the neighbourhood of Cupar, in the county of Fife, there lived two dogs, mortal enemies to each other, and who always fought desperately whenever they met. Capt. R—— was the master of one of them, and the other belonged to a neighbouring farmer. ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... called out in great emergencies. The military band, composed of four of the well-grown lads of the colony, Giles Hopkins, Bartholomew Allerton, John Crakstone, and John Cooke, was also called out and equipped with its two drums, a trumpet, and a fife, while a house just roofed in and not yet portioned into rooms, was hastily prepared as an audience chamber by clearing it of litter, and spreading at the upper end a large green rug belonging to Edward Winslow, and various cushions and mats, while a high-backed settle ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... it in a hostile manner. This work he carried on by means of requiring the thanes of the kingdom, each one in turn, to come with a set of workmen to help forward the edifice. When it came to the turn of Macduff, thane of Fife, he sent workmen, but did not come himself, as the others had done. Macbeth from that time regarded Macduff with an eye of ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... celebrated in military fashion; the train-band marched to the music of drum and fife accompanied by a procession of urchins. The crowning exercise was the firing of a salute by the whole company. It made every boy wish to be a soldier as soon as possible. Then the muskets were stacked under a great elm tree from a limb of which swung the sign, "E. Thayer, ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee

... Insurrection of 1715 embraced three different movements. In the north, the Earl of Mar was to possess himself of all the rich coasts of Fife, and also to maintain, in the name of James the Third, the northern counties, which, with few exceptions, were soon under the control of the insurgents. An attempt was made upon the southern parts of Scotland, by sending Brigadier Mackintosh, with a strong detachment ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... the Spartan fife, And call in solemn sounds to life, The youths, whose locks divinely spreading, Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue, At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding, 5 Applauding Freedom loved of old to view? What new Alcaeus,[21] fancy-blest, Shall sing ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... the last rays of the moon sank below the horizon, they quietly filed forth from the fortress and turned towards the insurgents' camp. Slowly and silently they stole across the plain, without note of drum or fife, and headed by their young commander, until they reached the brow of the little elevation, beyond which the enemy lay sleeping, some in tents, some on the open field, ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray

... obliged to answer the challenge of sentinels who were posted at the Custom-House and other public places, and at the doors of the officers' lodgings. Then the usual quiet of Sunday was disturbed by the changes of the guards, with the sounds of fife and drum, and the tunes of "Nancy Dawson" and "Yankee Doodle"; church-goers were annoyed by parties of soldiers in the streets, and the whole community outraged by horse-racing on the Common. Applications for redress had been ineffectual; and General Pomeroy was excused for not checking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... Marble and I had got near each other on the fife-rail, and held a consultation on the subject of our prospects. Although we both clung to the same top-sail-sheet, we were obliged to hallow to make ourselves heard, the howling of the wind through the rigging ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... Poland. Segismund his Son. Astolfo his Nephew. Estrella his Niece. Clotaldo a General in Basilio's Service. Rosaura a Muscovite Lady. Fife her Attendant. ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... death I might have welcomed the chance of new lands and new folk. As it was, I felt the loneliness of an exile. That afternoon I walked on the Braid Hills, and when I saw in the clear spring sunlight the coast of Fife, and remembered Kirkcaple and my boyish days, I could have found it in me to sit down ...
— Prester John • John Buchan

... in every house of the neighbourhood, sounded the fife and lute, while the inmates indulged in music and singing. Above head, the orb of the radiant moon shone with an all-pervading splendour, and with a steady lustrous light, while the two friends, as their exuberance increased, drained their cups dry so soon as ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... occasions a laughable incident occurred, as scores of these bluejackets and marines passed up Esquimalt Road. A squad or more might have been seen walking along, headed by a bluejacket playing a lively tune on a fife or tin whistle. One or two were dancing to the tune, when all at once the music stopped, as a halt was made, the command being "'Alt all 'ands!" They had come opposite a wayside house and the sign over the porch—saloon—had ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... the assailants were quietly to ascend, and then overpower the little garrison, and possess themselves of the Castle. When the stroke had been done, they were to fire three cannon, and men stationed on the opposite coast of Fife were thereupon to light a beacon; and the flash of that light would be the signal for other beacons from hill to hill to bear the news to Mar—as the lights along the Argive hills carried the tale of Troy's fall to Argos. The plan was an utter failure. ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... Edinburgh as the place where he met his patient, and does not mention any other place of sojourn, but the record just quoted goes on to say that he abode with the Primate for eleven weeks at his country residence at Monimail, near Cupar, Fife, where there is a well called to this day ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... overbearing manner of Albany. It was an evil day for Scotland when our good king, who was then but prince, lamed himself for life; and so was forced, on his accession, to leave the conduct of affairs to Albany, then Earl of Fife. The king, as all men know, is just and good, and has at heart the welfare of his subjects; but his accident has rendered him unfit to take part in public affairs, and he loves peace and quiet as much as Albany ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty

... Fife, in the churchyard of the village of Torryburn, part of an epitaph remains, which deserves notice. A part was very absurdly erased by the owner of the burying ground, to make way for the names of some of his kindred. The whole epitaph ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various

... general, and have no objection to drums in particular—doubts do occasionally come across me whether there be in reality any such thing as tune. My friend William Ross was, on the contrary, a born musician. When a little boy, he had constructed for himself a fife and clarionet of young shoots of elder, on which he succeeded in discoursing sweet music; and addressing himself at another and later period to both the principles and practice of the science, he became one of the best flute-players in the district. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... from a long pole, and Fernando heard the roll of the drum and the shrill notes of a fife. The company was more than half made up when he arrived. He enlisted at once and four days later the company ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... under these circumstances General San Martin sought an interview with Bolivar, at Guayaquil, and shortly after his return to Lima, in 1822, he resigned his high post of Protector and General-in-chief, and embarked for Europe. On his arrival in Europe, after a short visit to the East of Fife, San Martin passed his time chiefly in Brussels and Paris, so much respected by all who knew him, and so esteemed for his probity, that Sor Aguado, the rich Spanish Banker, on his death-bed, named ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... William Carmichael, formerly a bailie of Edinburgh, was one of Sharp's favourites, and one of his numerous commissioners for suppressing conventicles in Fife. He was a licentious profligate, greedy of money, and capable of undertaking any job, however vile. This man's enormities were at last so unbearable that he became an object of general detestation, and his excessive exactions had ruined so many respectable ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... distance, one could see a long wavering line of torches drifting down the main street, and could hear the throbbing of the bass drum, the clash of cymbals, the squeaking of a fife or two, and the faint roar of remote hurrahs. The tail end of this procession was climbing the market house stairs when the twins arrived in its neighborhood; when they reached the hall, it was full of people, torches, smoke, noise, and enthusiasm. They were conducted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the men were going round the capstan to the sound of the merry fife, when a messenger from the Admiralty arrived in hot haste, directing the captain to carry out despatches to the governor of Cape Coast Castle, instead of proceeding direct to the Pacific, whither ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston

... gallant days, bustling days, worth the bravest days of chivalry, at least; tall battalions of native warriors were marching through the land; there was the glitter of the bayonet and the gleam of the sabre; the shrill squeak of the fife and loud rattling of the drum were heard in the streets of county towns, and the loyal shouts of the inhabitants greeted the soldiery on their arrival or cheered them at their departure. And now let us leave the upland and descend to the sea-board; there is a sight for you upon the ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... with patriotism. Sumter had fallen; Lincoln had issued his first call. The sound of the fife and drum rang in the streets. Men gave up work to talk and listen or go into the sterner business of war. Then one night in April, a regiment came out of New England, on its way to the front. It lodged at the ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... course treats the subject of biology as a whole, and meets the requirements of the leading colleges and associations of science teachers. Instead of discussing plants, animals, and man as separate forms of living organisms, it treats of fife in a comprehensive manner, and particularly in its relations to the progress of humanity. Each main topic is introduced by a problem, which the pupil is to solve by actual laboratory work. The text that follows explains and illustrates the meaning of each problem. ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... more we will know at the end of the journey. I am as curious as a prong-horned antelope when there is a mystery, so put your nose to the ground, my good friend, and find the spot where this Mr. Werwolf, witch, or bear flies the canyon, and maybe, like the husband of 'The Witch of Fife,' we may find the 'black crook shell,' and with its aid fly out of ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... authorities in the land broke out, and he immediately declared for it; the wealthy farmer (Swartz) with whom he lived, being one of the first who were overhauled and "spotted" by the LOCAL COMMITTEE OF SAFETY, who paraded through the settlement with a drum and fife. He was at the disarming of Sir John Johnson, at Johnstown, under Gen. Schuyler, where a near relative, Conrad Wiser, Esq., was the government interpreter. He was at Ticonderoga when the troops were formed ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... each to his slumber laid, When the country folks came to serenade; With twang of fiddle, and toot of horn, And shriek of fife, they stayed till morn! Poor Campers! never a wink got they! So they started for home ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... sdealer. You know what?"—his face lightened a little with garrulity—"my granmutter she seen him, yah, sure she seen him, seddin' on his horse when he gone ridin' into Utrecht in eighdeen hunderd fife, with soljus. Sure she seen him; she loogs outer a winda' so she could touch him if she been glose to him, unt a soljus rides oop unt says, 'Ve gamp right here, not?' unt Naboleon he shneer awful unt say, 'Gamp here vere dey go inter dem cellus from der ganal-side unt ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... an account of the siege, see De Haas, pp. 223-340. It took place in the early days of September.] was attacked by two or three hundred Indians; with them came a party of Detroit Rangers, marshalled by drum and fife, and carrying the British colors. [Footnote The accounts of the different sieges of Wheeling were first written down from the statements of the pioneers when they had grown very aged. In consequence, there is much uncertainty ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... this ministerial reserve was carried was shown by a question put to Mr. Asquith in his own constituency in East Fife on the 6th of December. Scottish "hecklers" are intelligent and well informed on current politics, and no one who knows them can imagine one of them asking the Prime Minister whether he intended to introduce a Home Rule Bill if Home Rule had been proclaimed ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... "Twenty-fife thousand vould satisfy us," said Heinzman. "Bring us a suitable bond for that amount and ve vill ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... World War, Guatemala was the first Central American republic to follow. During the War President Cabrera "would allow nothing to interfere with the advancement of free and compulsory education in the State." (See Domville- Fife, C. W., Guatemala and the States ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... much ado to escape; for they not only shot at him, but pursued him to the woods, where he climbed to the top of a tree, at the foot of which they made water, and killed several goats just by, but went off again without discovering him. He told us that he was born at Largo, in the county of Fife, in Scotland, and was bred a sailor from his youth. The reason of his being left here was difference between him and his captain; which together with the ship's being leaky, made him willing rather to stay here, than go along with him at first; but when he was at last willing to go, the ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... harpsichord, clavichord, clarichord^, manichord^; clavier, spinet, virginals, dulcimer, hurdy-gurdy, vielle^, pianino^, Eolian harp. [Wind instruments]; organ, harmonium, harmoniphon^; American organ^, barrel organ, hand organ; accordion, seraphina^, concertina; humming top. flute, fife, piccolo, flageolet; clarinet, claronet^; basset horn, corno di bassetto [It], oboe, hautboy, cor Anglais [Fr.], corno Inglese^, bassoon, double bassoon, contrafagotto^, serpent, bass clarinet; bagpipes, union pipes; musette, ocarina, Pandean pipes; reed ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... formality which belongs to such meetings, and, by his easy, and graceful familiarity, imparts to them somewhat of the pleasing character of a private entertainment. Near Sir W. Scott sat the Earl of Fife, Lord Meadowbank, Sir John Hope of Pinkie, Bart., Admiral Adam, Baron Clerk Rattray, Gilbert Innes, Esq., James Walker, Esq., Robert Dundas, Esq., ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... which the mind of Orange Ulster is prepared to face the tasks of the twentieth century. Barbaric music, the ordinary allowance of drum to fife being three to one, ritual dances, King William on his white horse, the Scarlet Woman on her seven hills, a grand parade of dead ideas and irrelevant ghosts called up in wild speeches by clergymen and politicians—such ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... passed; my professional studies were finished, and I had occasion to visit a Fife laird near the East Neuk. The gentleman was notable for his taste in kitchen-gardening; and having a particularly fine bed of Jerusalem artichokes which I must see, he conducted me to the scene of his triumphs, when, hard at work with the rake and hoe, whom should ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various

... daunted by the dreadful ceremonies which he saw, boldly answered, "Where are they? let me see them." And they called the spirits, which were three. And the first arose in the likeness of an armed head, and he called Macbeth by name, and bid him beware of the thane of Fife; for which caution Macbeth thanked him; for Macbeth had entertained a jealousy of Macduff, the thane ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... would have been the result had Stetson fought the battle single-handed. The men looked on, waiting the result, but without daring to interfere. Not so the captain. When he saw Allen attack the mate, he seized a belaying pin, that was loose in the fife-rail, and watching his opportunity, gave the refractory sailor two or three smart raps over the head and face, which embarrassed him amazingly, caused him to release his grasp on the mate, and felled him to ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... their mirth, All that would wake the soul to earth. Choose ye the softly-breathing-flute, The mellow horn, the loving lute; The viol you must not forget, And take the sprightly flageolet And grave bassoon; choose too the fife, Whose warblings in the tuneful strife, Mingling in mystery with the words, May seem like ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... so fierce indeed that in bringing up two boxes of rifle ammunition which four men could carry twelve casualties were incurred. A head shown in the village instantly drew a hail of bullets from three sides. Reinforcements were on the way up, and the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry battalion of the Royal Highlanders were prepared to make a flank attack from their outpost line three-quarters of a mile south-east of Foka to relieve the Devons, but this would have endangered the safety of ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... retired as possible; during which time he went about reproving vice and instructing people in the grounds of religion, which coming at length to the ears of the ecclesiastics, in 1558, he was, by order of the bishops, apprehended in Dysart in the shire of Fife, by two priests, and imprisoned in the castle of St. Andrews, where the Papists, both by threatening and flattery, laboured with him to recant, offering him a place in the abbey of Dunfermline all the days of his life, if he would deny what he had already taught. But continuing ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... that pontiff ordered the ground to be pared away to the very pedestal or base of the portico, which is now even with the street, so that there is no descent whatsoever. The height is two hundred palmi, and the breadth two hundred and eighteen; which, reckoning fife palmi at nine inches, will bring the height to one hundred and fifty, and the breadth to one hundred and sixty-three feet six inches. It was not any covering of copper which pope Urban VIII. removed, but large brass beams, which supported the roof of the portico. They weighed ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... Sunday afternoon! "A gallant band of natives headed by their military Vicar, the Rev. Thomas Shield, in full regimentals, and accompanied by good old John Warren, the parish clerk and music-master, as leader of the Band, marched through the streets on Sunday afternoons to the sound of the fife and the drum, and all the little boys in the place learned to play soldiers." I have been unable to verify this to the letter, but something approaching it, though not on a Sunday, took place on one memorable occasion, when the ceremony ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... the place, it is the place, my soul! (Blow, bugle, blow; sing, triangle; toot, fife!) Down to the sea the close-cropped pastures roll, Couches behind yon sandy hill the goal Whereat, it may be, after ceaseless strife The "Colonel" shall find peace, and Henry ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various

... rumble of marching feet; dark, massed figures were in the distance swimming toward her along the glistening line of the car tracks, and she heard the shrill whistling of the doffer boys, who acted as a sort of fife corps in these parades—which by this time had become familiar to the citizens of Hampton. And Janet remembered when the little red book that contained the songs had arrived at Headquarters from the west and had been distributed by thousands among the strikers. She recalled the words of this ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... heard the block-house gates unbar, the column's solemn tread, I saw the Tree of a single leaf its splendid foliage shed To wave awhile that August morn above the column's head; I heard the moan of muffled drum, the woman's wail of fife, The Dead March played for Dearborn's men just marching out of life; The swooping of the savage cloud that burst upon the rank And struck it with its thunderbolt in forehead and in flank, The spatter of the musket-shot, the rifles' whistling ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish

... fact that the yield of wheat in Minnesota was far beneath that in the neighbouring States. The local varieties were Fife and Blue Stem. They gave him, on inspection, some better specimens, "phenomenal yielders" as he called them. These were simply isolated and propagated, and, after comparison with the parent-variety and with some other ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... Fife, there was not perhaps an individual whose exertions were followed by consequences of such a remarkable nature as those of Davie Duff, popularly called "The Thane of Fife," who, from a very humble parentage, rose to fill one of the chairs of the magistracy ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... to do it. I hope they will turn out strong, for you will find that the workers are the men that make the soldiers. I am glad we've got a drum and fife. You don't know how hard it would be for me to drill a large squad without some kind of music to help them ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon

... this collection we find some from John Gray, "teacher of mathematics in Cupar of Fife,"—some from Dr. John Armstrong, the author of "The Art of Health,"—and one from George Colman the elder. In 1761, Gray writes to Smollett, thanking him for kind notices in the "Critical Review," and asking his influence in regard to certain theories ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... leaves, the muttering of a multitude. Jamie turned his face homeward, and edged along by the wall, where there was most room. And now the mutter rose and swelled, and above it he heard the noise of fife and drum ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... they come, with fife and drum, And gleaming pikes and glancing banners: Though the eyes flash, the lips are dumb; To talk in rank would not be manners. Onward they stride, as Britons can; The ladies ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley

... I am. As the Fife men say, 'I was born with the sea in my mouth.' I thank God for it! Often I have met Him on the great deep, for 'His path is on the waters.' I don't believe I would have found Him as easy and as often, in a cotton-spinning factory—no, ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... great "training days," when drum and fife took our ears by storm; When the militia and the Light Infantry mustered and marched through the streets to the Common with boys and girls at their heels,—such girls as could get their mother's consent, or the courage ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... such soothing and delicious sounds, was, at least, justifiable; for it was long—very long, since she had listened to any thing like melody. The fierce trumpet and the shrill fife were the only instruments she had heard, since her arrival ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... perceiving the inefficiency of the local police powers, and alarmed at the still-increasing mob and the vicious spirit which it displayed, invoked the aid of the sheriff of the county. At midnight Sheriff Fife came to Twenty-eighth Street with a hastily summoned posse, a part of which deserted him before he reached the scene of action, and ordered the rioters to disperse, which they, with hoots and jeers, defiantly refused to do. The ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church

... the Prayer-Book, and its use was at once discontinued. The angry orders which came from England for its restoration were met by a shower of protests from every part of Scotland. The ministers of Fife pleaded boldly the want of any confirmation of the book by a General Assembly. "This Church," they exclaimed, "is a free and independent Church, just as this kingdom is a free and independent kingdom." The Duke of Lennox alone took sixty-eight petitions ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... and his friend, the candidate, into the town. Of this party was the yeomanry-band of which Tom Durfy spoke, though, to say the truth, considering Tom's apprehensions on the subject, it was of slender force. One trumpet, one clarionet, a fife, a big drum, and a pair of cymbals, with a "real nigger" to play them, ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... glorious dead, now resting in eternal peace, whom the drum and fife will rouse no more to superhuman effort in our behalf, sweet be your sleep in the heart of the country you died to save, and ever green the laurel above your grassy graves! We will not forget you, wrapped in your gory shrouds for the land ye loved! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... seeing that the trained bands were a force especially intended for the defence of the city, greater activity was shown in making the city's troops as perfect in their drill as circumstances permitted.(397) Boys from Christ's Hospital and Bridewell were taught to play the drum and fife, weapons were marked, and musters held in Goodman's Fields and elsewhere under the eye of Captain ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... of Montluc's castle of Estellac on the votive festival of St. Jacques at Roquefort. Franconnette was there, as well as Marcel and Pascal, her special admirers. Dancing began to the music of the fife; but Pascal, the handsomest of the young men, seemed to avoid the village beauty. Franconnette was indignant at his neglect, but was anxious to secure his attention and devotion. She danced away, sliding, whirling, and pirouetting. What would not the admiring ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... among them, fast fading was his life, A lancer from the border, from the good old county Fife; Already was death's icy grasp upon his honest brow, When through the ward was passed the word, "The Queen ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... earth To many a battle growing, Of music God has thought them worth, A gift of His bestowing. It came through Jubal into life; For Lamech's son inventing The double sounds of drum and fife, They both became consenting. For music good Wakes manly mood, Intrepid goes Against our foes. Calls stoutly, "On! Fall on! fall on! Clear field and street Of hostile feet, Shoot, thrust them through, and cleave, Not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... diligently drilling. Whatever the leaders might say, or refrain from saying, the mass of the people believed in the immediate probability of war with England. In every village you could see the farmers shouldering arms and marching to and fro on the green, while an old man played the fife and a boy beat the drum. They did not concern themselves about "regimentals" or any of the pomp and glory of battle; but they knew how to cast bullets, and how to shoot them into the bull's-eye. In their homespun ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... a mistake," said the overjoyed Mrs. Blows; "we must have buried somebody else. But such a funeral, John; you would ha' been proud if you could ha' seen it. All Gravelton followed, nearly. There was the boys' drum and fife band, and the Ancient Order of Camels, what you used to belong to, turned out with their brass band and banners—all the people marching ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... the fife, War's rattling throng, And a wandering life The world along! Swift steed—and a hand To curb and command— With a blade by the side, We're off far and wide. As jolly and free, As the finch in its glee, On thicket or tree, Under heaven's wide hollow— Hurrah! for the Friedlander's ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... need only allude to the cambrics, gauzes, and silks of Paisley; the cottons and other goods of Glasgow; the plaidings of Stirlingshire; the stockings of Hawick; the printing-paper of Mid-Lothian; the carpets and bonnets of Kilmarnock; the iron of Muirkirk and Carron; the linens of Fife and Dundee; ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... massy! boys, it's alius so. Get a man and a woman together,—any sort o' woman you're a mind to, don't care who 'tis,—and one way or another she gets the rule over him, and he jest has to train to her fife. Some does it one way, and some does it another; some does it by jawin' and some does it by kissin', and some does it by faculty and contrivance; but one way or another they allers does it. Old Cap'n Brown was a good stout, stocky kind o' John Bull ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... cockade, the black stripe down his face, the expression of weight and massiveness about his head and neck, and his erect attitude, give him a decided soldier-like appearance; and there is something of the tone of the fife in his song or whistle, while his ordinary note, when disturbed, is like the clink of a sabre. Yesterday, as I sat indolently swinging in the loop of a grapevine, beneath a thick canopy of green branches, in a secluded nook by a spring run, one of these birds came pursuing some kind of insect, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... kept secret for a time," said the mediciner. "I have possessed two or three tattling fools, in deep confidence, that the hand which was found was that of your knighthood's groom, Black Quentin, and your knighthood knows that he has parted for Fife, in such sort as to make it ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... dwarfed by the distance. It was when she turned to go down again that Goodwin had a full view of her face, bleak and rigid, with greying hair drawn tightly back from the temples, as formal and blank as the face of a clock. It was told of her that she would sit knitting in her chair by the mizzen fife-rail while at the break of the poop a miserable man was being trodden and beaten out of the likeness of humanity and never lift her head nor shift her attitude for all his cries and struggles. It was her presence aboard that touched the man-slaughtering Etna ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... laws, Lo! every joy the gallant youth resigns; The avenging naval sword he draws, And o'er the waves conducts her martial lines: Hark! his sprightly clarions play; Follow where he leads the way! 40 The piercing fife, the sounding drum, Tell the deeps ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... was tambour-major in the Garde Imperiale. I was born in the camp—brought up in the camp—and, finally, I was married in the camp, to a lieutenant of infantry at the time. So that, you observe, I am altogether militaire. As a child, I was wakened up with the drum and fife, and went to sleep with the bugles; as a girl, I became quite conversant with every military manoeuvre; and now that I am a woman grown, I believe that I am more fit for the baton than one half of those marshals who have gained it. I have ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... minor and tricolor. Eschscholtzia crocea. Gamolepis Tagetes. Gilia laciniata and linifolia. Godetia Duchess of Albany, Prince of Wales, Fairy Queen, Brilliant, grandiflora maculata, Whitneyi, Duke of Fife, rubicunda splendens. Helipterum corymbiflorum. Iberis affinis. Kaulfussia amelloides atroviolacea, and a. kermesina. Leptosiphon androsaceus and densiflorus. Linaria bipartita splendida. Matthiola dwarf Forcing Snowflake, Wallflower-leaved. Mesembryanthemum ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey

... and degrading, that yet form by far the greater part of the drama of war? You, gentlemen of England, who live at home at ease, and compliment yourselves in the songs of triumph with which our chieftains are bepraised—you pretty maidens, that come tumbling down the stairs when the fife and drum call you, and huzzah for the British Grenadiers—do you take account that these items go to make up the amount of the triumph you admire, and form part of the duties of the heroes you fondle? Our chief, whom England and all Europe, saving only the Frenchmen, worshipped ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... year ran off with and married Mademoiselle Mercandotti, premiere danseuse at His Majesty's Theatre, a beautiful girl of sixteen, reported in the scandal of the day to be a natural daughter of the Earl of Fife. The incident of Lady Jane Paget we have mentioned is thus referred to by Charles Molloy Westmacott, the Ishmael of the press of his day, in the English Spy, a work which, as we shall presently see, was ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... sound the clarion! fill the fife! To all the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth a world without ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton

... great heiress of the day. It is true that the hereditary possession of Skye, Staffa, Mull, Arran, and Bute went, with the title, to the Marquis of Auldreekie, together with the counties of Caithness and Ross-shire. But the property in Fife, Aberdeen, Perth, and Kincardineshire, comprising the greater part of those counties, and the coal-mines in Lanark, as well as the enormous estate within the city of Glasgow, were unentailed, and went to the Lady Glencora. She was a fair girl, with bright blue eyes and short wavy flaxen ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... see what looked like an approaching mob, but behind them could be distinguished horsemen. As she stood, the rabble ran, or pattered, or, keeping step to the music, marched by, followed by a drum-and-fife corps. After them came the horsemen, and the girl's tired eyes suddenly sparkled and her pale face glowed, as she recognised, pre-eminent among them, the tall, soldierly figure of Washington, sitting Blueskin ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... them that I nevare lof ze Eenglish, that your father and shermoganish peleece she was took me pressonar, and I was not able to get 'way, and that I plenty hate the Eenglish, oh! yees, and haf keel as many as three, four, fife, plenty times. So they say, 'Bully for you, pardner! and you can go tell Man-Who-Jumps-Like-a-Frog to sit down here more long and ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie

... sleeping—that is, attempting to sleep—at York. What a pity it is that Scotland is so far off! all the good one has gained there gets shaken off one in the terrific journey home again, and then the different atmosphere is so trying to one fresh from the pure air of Fife—so exhausting and depressing. If it hadn't been that I had a deal of housemaiding to execute during the week I was here before Mr. C. returned, I must have given occasion for newspaper paragraphs under the head of 'Melancholy ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... contributions, with other necessaries. While this infirm old woman was relating her story in a tremulous voice, I could not but think of the changes of things, and the days of her youth, when the shrill fife, sounding from the walls of the Garrison, made a merry noise through the echoing hills. I asked myself, if she were to be carried again to the deserted spot after her course of life, no doubt a troublesome one, would the silence appear ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... small quiet seaport town with little or no commerce, situated on the coast of Fife, immediately opposite to Edinburgh. It is sheltered at some distance on the north by a high and steep hill called the Bin. The harbour lies on the west, and the town ended on the east in a plain of short ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... owner, Colin, third Earl of Balcarres, had added many books to the library, and spent the evening of his days in the pursuit of letters. When Lady Balcarres, great-grandmother of the present Earl of Crawford, left Fife and removed to Edinburgh, whilst her son was in the West Indies, the greater portion of the library was literally thrown away and dispersed—torn up for grocers as useless trash, by her permission. Of the library collected by generations of Lindsays, all ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher

... that brought me thatch an' spars, Wer down a-taiten on the bars, Or zot a-cutten wi' a knife, Dry eltrot-roots to meaeke a fife; Or dreven woone another round The rick upon the grassy ground. An', as the aier vrom the west Did fan my burnen feaece an' breast, An' hoppen birds, wi' twitt'ren beaks, Did show their sheenen spots an' streaks, Then, ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes

... All your thoughts of meat and drink! Bertrand the fifer!—you were shepherd once,— Draw from its double leathern case your fife, Play to these greedy, guzzling soldiers. Play Old country airs with plaintive rhythm recurring, Where lurk sweet echoes of the dear home-voices, Each note of which calls like a little sister, Those airs slow, slow ascending, ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand

... sez he never heerd in his life That th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller tail coats, An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife, To get some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes; But John P. Robinson, he Says they didn't know everything ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various

... musical instrument maker, friend of poets. Born half a man and half a goat. Took after the latter. Studied music under the old masters and outfluted Apollo. Was also a sheep fancier. Fathered fife and drum corps. Ambition: A pair of shoes or a goat's appetite. Recreation: Hunting and falling in love. ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous



Words linked to "Fife" :   flute, fife rail, transverse flute



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org