Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Ply   /plaɪ/   Listen
Ply

noun
1.
One of the strands twisted together to make yarn or rope or thread; often used in combination.  "Four-ply yarn"
2.
(usually in combinations) one of several layers of cloth or paper or wood as in plywood.



Related searches:



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 |





"Ply" Quotes from Famous Books



... interwoven oaks and pines. Oh cheer, Divine presenter of the healing rod, Thy snake, with ardent throat and lulling eye, Twines his lithe spires around! I say, much cheer! Proceed thou with thy wisest pharmacies! And ye, white crowd of woodland sister-nymphs, Ply, as the sage directs, these buds and leaves That strew the turf around the twain! While I 120 Await, in fitting silence, ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... hearken, ere I go: It were full hard to finde now-a-days In all a town Griseldas three or two: For, if that they were put to such assays, The gold of them hath now so bad allays* *alloys With brass, that though the coin be fair *at eye,* *to see* It woulde rather break in two than ply.* *bend ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... is for homely features to keep home— They had their name thence: coarse complexions And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply The sampler and to tease the ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various

... exclaimed. "Have you no shame to ply your lewd vocation before a priest of God? Verily, you do well to hide ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... I knew my own heart. I raised ply head and put my hand on his arm. 'Don't go,' I murmured; 'I will give you ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre

... ventilation than light. The purpose of this peculiar arrangement seems to be for defense, for no one can approach the house from any side without being seen, and, in time of attack, it affords the inmates of the house an admirable vantage ground from which to ply ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... of the waters ply White ducks, a living flotilla of cloud; And, look you, floating just thereby, The blue-gleamed drake stems proud Like Abraham, whose seed ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence

... am directed by the Methylated Spirit Controller to inform you that the employment of a hackney motor vehicle, not licensed to ply for hire, as a conveyance to divine service constitutes a breach of Regulation 8 ZZ of the Defence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various

... had received him with sly courtesy and sought to ply his company with wine and brandy rather than to come to any agreement with him. It was plain that they meant mischief, and Governor Dinwiddie decided to send a force of soldiers to build a fort at the juncture between the Allegheny and the Monongahela rivers, one of the places that Washington ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... worry you, Lady Gwendolen. He presumes till he's checked, on principle. Send him to lie down over here. Here, Ply, Ply, Ply!... Oh, won't he come?" Probably Achilles knows that his master, who speaks, is only ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... spectators exhibit on these occasions, as if this were quite decisive of the question. That ragged children, who have never thought of death at all, play their usual pranks at the foot of the gallows—that pickpockets ply their trade in this as in every other gaping crowd—what has all this to do with the impression produced on the mind of every man and woman throughout the kingdom, by the knowledge that if he, through sudden passion, or the instigations of cupidity, take the life of a fellow-creature, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... I ply my trade about the Place; Where proudly reigns La Guillotine; I pile my basket up with bloom, With mosses soft and green. This morning, not an hour ago, I stood beside a Tricoteuse; And saw the little fair head fall Off the little Wooden Shoes. ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... weather the shepherd shuns, And so do I; When beeches drip in browns and duns, And thresh, and ply; And hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe, And meadow rivulets overflow, And drops on gate-bars hang in a row, And rooks in families homeward go, ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy

... Earth promoted a luxury passenger-line of spaceships to ply between Earth and Moon. It looked like a perfect set-up. Three spacecraft capable of the journey came into being with attendant reams of publicity. They promised a thrill and a new distinction for the rich. Guided tours to Lunar! ...
— Scrimshaw • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... increase of immorality and crime is universally admitted. The usual explanation is that in olden times every slight offense was punished with death; the criminal class was thus continuously exterminated. Nowadays a robber can ply his trade continuously, though interrupted by frequent intervals of imprisonment. In former times, once caught, he never could steal again, except in the land of the shades. While this explanation ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... morsels of the deep. Most of the other steamboat lines by which I travelled in the United States and Canada seemed to me as good as could be expected under the circumstances. There is, however, certainly room for improvement in some of the boats which ply on the St. Lawrence, and the Alaska service will probably grow steadily better with the ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... Kesa remained obdurate, he would kill her mother. From this dilemma the brave woman determined that self-sacrifice offered the only effective exit. She promised to marry Morito after he had killed her husband, Wataru; to which end she engaged to ply Wataru with wine until he fell asleep. She would then wet his head, so that Morito, entering by an unfastened door and feeling for the damp hair, might consummate his purpose surely. Morito readily agreed, but Kesa, having dressed her own hair in male fashion and wet her head, lay ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... pane; Sometimes he feels his foothold shake with giddy swing and sway, And barely leaps to safety as the crashing roof gives way; Sometimes, penned in and stifling fast, he waits, with courage grim, And hears the willing axes ply that strive to rescue him; But sometime, somewhere, somehow, help may come a bit too late For Fireman ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln

... is fraud. The parties so engaged are the vilest scoundrels; and that they are allowed to continue to ply their nefarious vocation is a foul blot upon the enlightened civilization of a so-called Christian country. A publisher who will insert such a notice in his journal, would advertise a brothel if he dared. While there is so much interest in the ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we hear of a "school" of jongleurs at Beauvais. In Lent they might not ply their profession, so they gathered at Beauvais, where they could learn cantilenae, new lays. [Footnote: Epopees Francaises, Leon Gautier, vol. ii. pp. 174, 175.] But by that time the epic was decadent ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... purchased in the bazaars of the ancient world, brought back as a return cargo an equivalent number of works of art, bought in the towns of the West, which eventually found their way into the various markets of Asia and Africa. These energetic merchants were not the first to ply this profitable trade of maritime carriers, for from the time of the Memphite empire the products of northern regions had found their way, through the intermediation of the Hauinibu, as far south as the cities of the Delta and the Thebaid. But this commerce ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... and travel along the Upper Columbia, where several steamers now ply between busy marts, of themselves attest what magical effects the years have wrought. Besides gold, lead for miles is found along the Kootenay. Red hermatite, iron ore, traces of copper, and plumbago are found along the main Bitter Root. Cinnabar ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... however, that smugglers are not liable to the plague, for they have no purifier on board, and if the disease should break out a hundred times over in Brussa, they would still ply day and night between the two banks. We must remember, however, that St. Procopius is their patron. Only the Bora disturbs their retail trade; for the swift current through the Iron Gate drives the rowing-boats toward the southern shore. Of course smuggling is done ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... them hanged. The poor devils, unable to do aught else, thereupon answered, 'Ha! is that the way you take it, sir, and you, monsieur? We swear to you that you shall hear news thereof, for we will ply our hands so well right and left that the memory shall abide forever of a right well kept St. Bartholomew.'" "Wherein they did not fail," continues Brantome, "but they did not like it at first." According to other reports, the first opposition of the provost of tradesmen, Le Charron, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... life," he announced, "is to be prepared. Should the car overturn and it become necessary to ply me with cordial, just part my lips and continue to pour until I say 'When.' Should—— What are ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... have cheaper Cabs in Greater London! The County Council should subsidise a lot of Cabs, to ply exclusively between London and the outskirts. Or why not a Government Cab Purchase Bill, like the Irish Land Purchase one? We want a special Minister for Public Locomotion—perhaps Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various

... solicitous about Bob, the oldest man on the place. Over and over again he enumerated the comforts he thought he might need and made provision to supply them. He sent him enough cochineal flannel for his rheumatism to wrap him four-ply deep. For Rhinah, his wife, he ordered enough ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... flap, I found that pressure, irresistible pressure, was being put upon me to gain, by any and every means, access to its interior. I had no option but to yield. I looked about me in search of some convenient tool with which to ply the felon's trade. I found it close beside me. Leaning against the wall, within a yard of where I stood, were examples of various kinds of weapons,—among them, spear-heads. Taking one of these spear-heads, with much difficulty I forced the point between the flap and ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... officers of the station gave Madame and myself some excellent coffee. Beyond the formal: "Madame has nothing to declare for His Majesty's customs?" and my companion's equally formal: "Nothing, Monsieur, except my personal belongings," they did not ply us with questions, and after half an hour's halt we again proceeded ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... carefully and expeditiously as a party of crack mechanics from the Royal Air Force factories. One of the floats was badly smashed, but the other was practically intact except for a small jagged hole in the three-ply mahogany. ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman

... dextrously turning, shake out like a pancake on a smooth board between two pieces of flannell, then press it between a greate presse, the flannell sucking out the moisture; then taking it out they ply and dry it on strings, as they dry linnen in the laundry; then dip it in alum-water, lastly polish and make it up in quires. They put some gum in the water in which they macerate the raggs. The mark we find on the sheets ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell

... to sink no further; the upper slantwise shoaling against, but not touching by two foot, the Water, and the Strings which bear up this upper side fastned to small yeilding sticks prickt in the Bank, that as the Fowle strike may ply to the Nets to entangle them. And thus lay your Nets (as many as you please) about twelve score one from another, as the River or Brook will afford. And doubt not your success. To expedite it however, ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett

... out, and Sister Sue was putting on her best blouse, so six-year-old Bobby had to entertain Sue's young man. As is the way with his kind, he began to ply ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... stretch of land on which to walk or ride and watch the seasons behave; and as a bathing station it has no rival. The Lido is not beautiful; but Venice seen from it is beautiful, and it has trees and picnic grounds, and its usefulness is not to be exaggerated. The steamers, which ply continually in summer and very often in winter, take only a quarter of an hour to ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... himself who cried, 'Speak then—speak!' to his statue, as it was carried through the city. But whether true or false the tale, this fact is surely true, that it is well—nobly and purely well—with a people when the men amongst it who ply for hire on its public ways think caressingly of a sculptor dead five hundred years ago, and tell such a tale standing idly in the noonday sun, feeling the beauty and the pathos ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... smiler of the streets, The singer upon garden seats; He sees the climber in the rocks; To Him, the shepherd folds his flocks; For those He loves that underprop With daily virtues Heaven's top, And bear the falling sky with ease, Unfrowning Caryatides. Those He approves that ply the trade, That rock the child, that wed the maid, That with weak virtues, weaker hands, Sow gladness on the peopled lands, And still with laughter, song, and shout Spin the great wheel of ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh

... her, and told us to return to the house, as luncheon was ready. We, of course, obeyed. With sharpened appetites, produced by our late warm exercise, we indulged in a plenteous meal, aunt taking care to ply me with Champagne, for which, as may well be imagined, she had her object. She afterwards ordered me to my room, to do the daily task the doctor had set for me and which, as she said, she was to see to the doing of—giving me a ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... thrilling to the core. Border warfare of the most primitive type still is waged in mountain fastnesses, the darkest pages in the annals of crime now are being written, piracy has but changed its scene of operations from the sea to the land, smugglers ply a busy trade, and from their factory prisons a hundred thousand children cry aloud for rescue. The flame of Crusade sweeps over the land and the call for ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... all the other large ships, having silenced the guns to which they had been respectively opposed, joined the rest of the fleet. The four bombs being anchored near the shore, began to ply the town with shells and carcasses; so that in a little time the houses were in flames, the magazines of gunpowder blew up with the most terrible explosion; and about ten o'clock the whole place blazed out in one general conflagration. Next day, at two in the afternoon, the fleet came ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... a sample of Roman justice! How do you like it, Romans? I had gone there to seek justice; not for a Christian, but against a Christian. A Christian master had abused his slave with cruelty, I standing by; and when to my remonstrance—myself feeling the bitter stripes he laid on—he did but ply his thongs the more, I seized the hardened monster by the neck, and wrenching from his grasp the lash, I first plied it upon his own back, and then dragged him to the ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... naturally robust constitution "routed his forces," and brought him through what at one time he anticipated would prove a fatal illness. Again and again, during his period of indisposition, the Tempter took advantage of his bodily weakness to ply him with his former despairing questionings as to his spiritual state. That seemed as bad as bad could be. "Live he must not; die he dare not." He was repeatedly near giving up all for lost. But ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... sentinels, and keep them alarmed and under arms all night. At daybreak they pushed hard for the sandpit bridge. We followed close in the rear, constantly firing on them from every thicket and swamp; and often, in spite of their field pieces, making false charges. Never did I see a body of infantry ply their legs so briskly. The rogues were constantly in a dog trot, except when they occasionally halted to give us a blast, which they did from their whole line. But though their bullets made a confounded whizzing and clatter ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... the people. When it was proposed a year ago to place a steamer upon the line from Halifax to Boston, to carry freight and passengers, the idea was scouted as chimerical, and certain to fail. The Eastern State, a Philadelphia-built propeller of 330 tons, was purchased and commenced to ply fortnightly; she has accommodations for fifty passengers, and two hundred tons of freight. She has seldom had less than fifty passengers upon any trip, and upon the last one from Halifax there were one hundred and sixty-three. The fare from Boston to Halifax is $10, meals included. She ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... guile;[32] With Peggy Dixon[33] thoughtful sit, Contriving for the pot and spit. Take down thy proudly swelling sails, And rub thy teeth and pare thy nails; At nicely carving show thy wit; But ne'er presume to eat a bit: Turn every way thy watchful eye, And every guest be sure to ply: Let never at your board be known An empty plate, except your own. Be these thy arts;[34] nor higher aim Than what befits a rural dame. "But Cloacina, goddess bright, Sleek——claims her as his right; ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... Round his chamber dance and play; Or from wine as courage springs, O'er his face extend my wings; And when feast and frolic tire, Drop asleep upon his lyre. 40 This is all, be quick and go, More than all thou canst not know; Let me now my pinions ply, I have ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... 8-ply bristol; packed in attractive, well-built box, six 18 x 12 inches, with handsome cover lithographed in ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... things:[205] nor can anyone say that there was ever a dissension in any city as to the pronunciation of Telchines: nor in a private house any difference between man and wife as to woof and warp. And yet no one without learning would undertake to ply the loom, or write a book, or play on the lyre, though he would thereby do no great harm, but he fears making himself ridiculous, for as Heraclitus says, "It is better to hide one's ignorance," yet everyone thinks himself competent to manage a house and wife and the state and hold any ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... was to be thus severely treated, he replied, "Until the death of Simeon the son of Shetach, who is to take the publican's place in Gehenna." "Why so?" "Because, though he knows there are several Jewish witches in Askelon, he idly suffers them to ply their infernal trade and does not take any steps to extirpate them." On the morrow the disciple reported this speech to Simeon the son of Shetach, who at once proceeded to take action against the obnoxious witches. He engaged eighty stalwart young men, ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... innovations and improvements in the navigation of the lakes of Italy and Switzerland, it is true; but time, even at this hour, has done little towards changing the habits and opinions of those who ply on these inland waters for a subsistence. The Winkelried had the two low, diverging masts; the attenuated and picturesquely-poised latine yards; the light, triangular sails; the sweeping and projecting gangways; the receding and falling stern; the high and peaked prow, ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... jocund wake of Whitsuntide, When happy Superstition, gabbling eld! Holds her unhurtful gambols. All the day The rustic revellers ply the mazy dance On the smooth shaven green, and then at eve Commence the harmless rites and auguries; And many a tale of ancient days ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... vigorous stroke the young heroes from Hellas ply their oars, and the blue waters of the Euxine are flecked with foam. Here is an ideal picture. A band of enterprising young men, alert, active, ambitions—a scene typical of the highest conception of life. It has ever been scenes ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given

... strong enough.' 'Twas thus, in terms of insolence, Complain'd the fretful spider, once Of palace-tapestry a weaver, But then a spinster and deceiver, That hoped within her toils to bring Of insects all that ply the wing. The sister swift of Philomel, Intent on business, prosper'd well; In spite of the complaining pest, The insects carried to her nest— Nest pitiless to suffering flies— Mouths gaping aye, to gormandize, Of young ones clamouring, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... and the keel. Each stitch or tie was six inches apart, and was formed thus: Three holes were bored in the upper plank and three in the lower—the holes being above each other, that is, in a vertical line. Through these holes the cord was passed, and, when tied, formed a powerful stitch of three-ply. Besides this, we placed between the edges of the planks layers of cocoa-nut fibre, which, as it swelled when wetted, would, we hoped, make our little vessel water-tight. But in order further to secure this end, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... light bark conveys On Fame's mad voyage by the wind of praise, With what a shifting gale your course you ply, For ever sunk too low, or borne too high! Who pants for glory finds but short repose, A breath revives him, and a ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... was loaded with its twenty, but the rope-ladder was as full as ever. Out from the ship's side shoved the big canoe, its captain shaking his head vigorously at the passengers above and yelling: "No! No!" while his men began to ply their paddles. ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... her into the little house, which consisted of a sitting room "with bedroom off," and a kitchen whose floor was sand scoured; the few pieces of tinware could be used as mirrors. Miss Rhody seated herself by the open window and began to ply her needle. She did not sew swiftly and smoothly, in feminine fashion, but drew her long-threaded needle through the fabric in abrupt and forceful jerks. A light breeze fluttered in through the window, ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... I come by. I muse at how its being puts blissful back With yellowy moisture mild night's blear-all black, Or to-fro tender trambeams truckle at the eye. By that window what task what fingers ply, I plod wondering, a-wanting, just for lack Of answer the eagerer a-wanting Jessy or Jack There God to aggrandise, God ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... thought of setting up three or four courses of five-ply screen on the board—a detector screen on the outside of each course, next to it a repeller, then a full-coverage ether-ray screen, then a zone of force, and a full-coverage fifth-order ray-screen as a liner. Then, with them all set up on the board, but not out, throw out a wide detector. ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... fled, and it seemed to me it had fled forever. A life of living death, beset with the innumerable horrors of the cotton field, and the sugar plantation, seemed to be my doom. The fiends, who rushed into the prison when we were first put there, continued to visit me,{233} and to ply me with questions and with their tantalizing remarks. I was insulted, but helpless; keenly alive to the demands of justice and liberty, but with no means of asserting them. To talk to those imps about justice and mercy, would have been as absurd as to reason with bears and tigers. Lead and steel ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... without his being accosted by one of these girls, who, instead of asking him to purchase flowers, would invariably remark, "Give me a penny, mister?" by which term, afterwards, all these girls of loose character were known to ply their trade. Many of these girls were so exceedingly handsome as to be taken by gentlemen of means and well cared for, and one instance is known where a flower girl married a very wealthy ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... "Charles, who was ever astir," says he, "arrived by mere hap and unexpectedly, in a certain town of Narbonnese Gaul. Whilst he was at dinner, and was as yet unrecognized of any, some corsairs of the Northmen came to ply their piracies in the very port. When their vessels were descried, they were supposed to be Jewish traders according to some, African according to others, and British in the opinion of others; but the gifted monarch, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... Minstrelsy, ascribes to the clan of Tweedie, a family once stout and warlike, a descent which would not have misbecome a hero of antiquity. A baron, somewhat elderly we may suppose, had wedded a buxom young lady, and some months after their union he left her to ply the distaff alone in his old tower, among the mountains of the county of Peebles, near the sources of the Tweed. He returned after seven or eight years, no uncommon space for a pilgrimage to Palestine, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... of electorates on a population basis. This meant that a city electorate covered a very small area, and that practically all its wants were attended by the municipality, so that the city member had leisure to ply the trade of merchant, doctor, or barrister within a few minutes of the house of parliament; whereas the country member, to become acquainted with the vast area he represented and the requirements of its inhabitants and attend parliamentary sittings, had no time left ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... vehicles that ply in the environs of Paris. They are a sort of cross between a cab and ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... did. And I presume to say that my good three-ply carpet that mother gave me when we was married is jest reddled with moths—if they're in that closet. If it wasn't for keepin' that spare room ready for the cousins in Maine when they come to the buryin', I'd have you take up that carpet and beat it good and store it in the garret. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... added a sauce to the viands more potent than any Frenchman's skill, for my appetite had come back with a rush, and for the first time in many days I ate like a well man, and a very hungry one. So well, forsooth, did I ply my knife and fork that Pierre Chouteau could not forbear congratulating me, in his polished French manner, on my prowess as a trencherman; at which I had the ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... Sundays this was doubled, for the purpose of raising a fund of L62 a year, which was divided annually between the widows and children of poor watermen belonging to Putney and Fulham as a recompense to the fraternity, who were not allowed to ply on Sundays after the building of the bridge. This bridge was purchased by the Corporation of London, and by them transferred to the Board of Works, who erected in the years 1884-1886 the present substantial stone bridge on the site formerly ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... candles, and vinegar were manufactured. Agricultural implements were then few and simple, and farmers made as many of them as they could. Every farmhouse was a creamery and cheese factory. As there were no sewing machines, the farmer's wife and daughters had to ply the hand needle most of the time when they were not engaged in more laborious pursuits. During the long evenings they generally knit socks and mittens or made rag carpets. [Footnote: Nourse, Agricultural Economics, p 64, from "The Farmer's Changed Conditions," ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn

... tools with which children ply their trades; the instruments with which they carry on their professions; the goods which they buy and sell in their business, and the paraphernalia with which they conduct their toy society. They are ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland

... black Saxony cloth, and wearing a spotless white kerchief around their necks, offer lead-pencils for sale. So respectable are they, that you start to see them, and are almost ashamed to offer them a dollar; but they will accept a cent, and will ply the same trade for years to come, in a suit equally as respectable. It is one of the mysteries connected with them, that their clothes never wear out. I grew familiar with the features of one of these respectable men, from seeing him almost daily in some quarter of London. During the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... considerable doubt in regard to the best method of shipping the treasure; should he be so fortunate as to find it as he had left it. The cove was a quiet harbor in which the small boats could easily ply between the vessel and the shore, but, in this case, the gold must be carried by tedious journeys along the beach. On the other hand, if the brig lay too near the entrance to the caves, the treasure-laden boats must be launched through the surf, and, in case of high seas, this operation ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... to ply his hammer, and speedily unriveted the chains. The first stroke appeared to arouse all the vindictive passions of Jonathan. Fixing a ferocious and exulting look upon Jack Sheppard, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... the Fly rabble, of other batteners on the toil of their fellow insects. Whatever the job, whatever the plunder, you will find parasites there. And yet, for all my daily visits, I never catch one of these in the neighbourhood of the summer burrows. How cleverly the rascals ply their trade! How well aware are they of the guard who keeps watch at the Halictus' door! There is no foul deed possible nowadays; and the result is that no Fly puts in an appearance and the tribulations of last spring ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... at sea a fleet descried Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles Of Ternate or Tidore, whence merchants bring Their spicy drugs; they on the trading flood, Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape, Ply stemming nightly towards the pole: so seemed ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... son, ply his old task, Turn the stale prologue to some painted mask; His absence in my verse is all ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... is the name imposed on a romantic defile, whose rocky walls, rising perpendicularly to the height of sixty or eighty feet, hem in the stream for three quarters of a mile, in many places so narrowly, that there is a want of room to ply the oars. In passing through this chasm we were naturally led to contemplate the mighty but, probably, slow and gradual effects of the water in wearing down such vast masses of rock; but in the midst of our speculations, the attention ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... Less heard and less, the faint remonstrance falls; Tir'd with contempt, she quits the slipp'ry reign, And pride and prudence take her seat in vain. In crowd at once, where none the pass defend, The harmless freedom, and the private friend. The guardians yield, by force superiour ply'd: To int'rest, prudence; and to flatt'ry, pride. Here beauty falls, betray'd, despis'd, distress'd, And hissing infamy proclaims the rest. [ff]Where then shall hope and fear their objects find? Must dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind? Must helpless man, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... as he sat behind his little marble-topped table, smoking and sipping a liqueur, his eyes fell upon something across the square which brought him to his feet with a sudden exclamation. One of the big electric trams that ply between the Place St. Germain des Pres and Clamart, by way of the Porte de Versailles and Vanves, was dragging its unwieldy bulk round the turn from the rue de Rennes into the boulevard. He could see the sign-board along the ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... huge stones which broke and overturned them, and with their spears despatched the seamen as they struggled in the water. All the vessels with their crews were destroyed, except Ulysses' own ship, which had remained outside, and finding no safety but in flight, he exhorted his men to ply their oars vigorously, and ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... fleets. Destroy that, and you destroy what supports the people and the government which is over the people. But if commerce is to be protected, war-ships must not hug timidly the shore. They must put boldly out to sea, and be wherever commerce is. They must range the stormy Atlantic. They must ply to and fro over that primitive home of commerce, the Mediterranean. Doubling the Cape, they must visit every part of the affluent East and of the broad Pacific. With restless energy they must plough every sea and explore every water where the hope of honest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... all in a goare of blood, which I wondered at, and tells me that he is afeard that the Captain is killed by the watermen at Towre Stayres; so I presently went thither, and found that upon some rude pressing of the watermen to ply the Captain, he struck one of them with his cane, which they would not take, but struck him again, and then the German drew his sword and ran at one of them, but ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... gardens, fields, ponds, reeds, are carefully represented; wild animals are introduced, as stags, boars, and antelopes; birds fly from tree to tree, or stand over their nests feeding the young who stretch up to them; fish disport themselves in the waters; fishermen ply their craft; boatmen and agricultural laborers pursue their avocations; the scene is, as it were, photographed, with all its features—the least and the most important—equally marked, and without any attempt at selection, or any ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... the song, how these must ply From the harbours of home to the ports o' the sky! Do ye dream none knoweth the whither and why On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, The three great ships go sailing by On Christmas Day in ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... contrary, the most irrelevant things were sufficient to send her thoughts flitting—like homing pigeons that can ply their swift wings in but one direction—toward Millard, or toward that past so thickly peopled by memories of him. Now that Eleanor Arabella Bowyer, Christian Scientist and metaphysical healer of ailments the substantial ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... of rest; though dreams be sweet, Start up, and ply your heavenward feet. Is not God's oath upon your head, Ne'er to sink back on slothful bed, Never again your loans untie, Nor let your torches waste and die, Till, when the shadows thickest fall, Ye hear your Master's ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble

... one of your Polish nobles, Whose presence their country somehow troubles, And so our cities receive them; Nor one of your make-believe Spanish grandees, Who ply our daughters with lies and candies, Until the poor girls believe them. No, he was no such charlatan, Count de Hoboken Flash-in-the-pan. Full of Gasconade and bravado, But a regular, rich Don Rataplan, Santa Claus de la Muscavado, ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice

... father of the bridegroom, struck me as more sympathetic. He was a gentle old man, proud of his many prosperous, laborious sons. They, like the rest of the gentlemen, were gondoliers. Both the Vecchi, indeed, continue to ply their trade, day and night, at ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... other people—lead to confusion in the artist's spirit, and to the making of dust castles. To please your best self is the only way of being sincere. Most weavers of drama, of course, are perfectly sincere when they start out to ply their shuttles; but how many persevere in that mood to the end of their plays, in defiance of outside consideration? Here—says one to himself—it will be too strong meat; there it will not be sufficiently convincing; this natural length will be too short, that end too appalling; in such ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... o' le'rnin' into a lawyer or parson or somethin' like, and my lads'll be skippers like their dad, with no le'rnin' to speak on. I'll warrant this lad could get off more book-stuff in five minutes 'an mine ever heerd on." His eyes followed the boy as he went out to stand by Jack's elbow and ply this slow-witted gentleman with quick, eager questions. He was slender and rather tall for one of his age, but lithe and agile, as the skipper noted. "One o' mine could jes' trip him with a turn o' his ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord

... 'tis time, our heads in mantles hiding, 2 Our feet on some stol'n pathway now to ply, Or with swift oarage o'er the billows gliding, With ordered stroke to make the good ship fly Such threats the Atridae, armed with two fold power, Launch to assail us. Oh, I sadly fear Stones from fierce hands on us and him will shower, Whose heavy plight ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... well you gave no thought To such idle company; Shun these gossips, care for nought But the business that you ply. You who chatter, you who cry, Heed my words; be wise, I pray: Fewer, shorter stories say: Bide at home, and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... yet to learn that perfidy is not a trait of any class? This gowned traitor hath a key to all the gates. Hear him—I will ply the superstition of the Greeks, and draw them from ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... of Arc. But "Mad Anthony Wayne," and that fearless fighting youth, Decatur, are absolutely forgotten. Doctor Benjamin Rush, patriot, the near and dear friend of Franklin, and the man who welcomed Thomas Paine to Pennsylvania and gave him a desk where he might ply his pen and write the pamphlet, "Common Sense," sleeps in an unknown grave. You will look in vain for effigies of Edgar Allan Poe, who was once a Philadelphia editor; of Edwin Forrest, who, lionlike, trod her boards; ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... was the hour of the outcry, announced by a blast of trumpets and the thudding of tom-toms. The traders that until then had been licensed to ply within the enclosure now put up the shutters of their little booths. The Hebrew pedlar of gems closed his box and effaced himself, leaving the steps about the well clear for the most prominent patrons of the market. These hastened to assemble there, surrounding it and facing outwards, whilst ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... behaved carelessly, remained sober and watchful. And the police soon drove out of the city all mimes and dancers and singers of the Anartta country. And all the bridges over rivers were destroyed, and boats forbidden to ply, and the trenches (around the city) were spiked with poles at the bottom. And the land around the city for full two miles was rendered uneven, and holes and pits were dug thereon, and combustibles were secreted below the surface. Our fort, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... It arouses him, Heard far aloof! He laughs on us hammering The sword, the clear harness of iron, Armipotent paramour o' Venus.—— Red glows the charcoal. Bend to the task, my boys, Time flies apace, and speedily night cometh, When we no more may ply the anvil; Fate cometh eke, i' the murky midnight. Mark ye the pines, which rooted i' rocky ground,(17) Brave Euroclydon's onset at evening. Day dawns. The tree, which stood the tallest, Preeminent i' the leafy greenwood, Now ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... St. Saviour's in the summer just before the marriage, and lodged with Jean Jacques. Jean Jacques, having spent a year at Laval University at Quebec, had almost a gift of thought, or thinking; and he never ceased to ply the visiting philosopher and musician with questions which he proceeded to answer himself before they could do so; his quaint, sentimental, meretricious observations on life saddening while they amused his guests. They saddened the musician more than ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the poor like ony whunstane, [any whinstone] And haud their noses to the grunstane; [hold, grindstone] Ply ev'ry art o' legal thieving; No matter—stick ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... these letters to my sonne, And this same mony with my blessing to him, And bid him ply his ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... a considerable traffic. Bayonne furnishes carts, Biarritz carriages. Omnibuses ply to and fro; market-barrows are drawn frequently past; burden-bearers and peasants are met or overtaken trudging contentedly on. The latter cheat both the omnibus and themselves, for the fare is but a trifle, and the road hot and sandy. It is abundantly shaded ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... called upon to give Swartboy a help with the leading oxen when those became obstinate or restive, and would turn out of the track. At such times either Hans or Hendrik would gallop up, set the heads of the animals right again, and ply the "jamboks" upon ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... reserving to myself the dignified sinecure of steering. All would have gone on well, were it not that my paddler made such clumsy work that the water spattered, and showered down upon us without ceasing. Continuing to ply his tool, however, quite energetically, I thought he would improve after a while, and so let him alone. But by and bye, getting wet through with this little storm we were raising, and seeing no signs of its clearing off, I conjured him, in mercy's name, to stop short, and let me wring ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... winged youth in dreamful thought, With eyelids weighed with utter sweetness, who art thou, With garments by the breezes caught, Whose hands with drowsy motion ply the bellows now? ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... night under a tree, he feels sure of making himself comfortable on the sofa, or on the hearth-rug before the fire. And then the girls, who have no affectation or nonsense about them, crowd round the new-arrived, and ply him with questions about their young friends in other parts of the colony, and whether he was at the last ball at Government House, and what was most worn on that occasion — until the good man, laughing, breaks through the circle, declaring he will answer no more questions till ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... hand, and the toes are European distortions. The lady writing (i. 581) lacks all local colour; she should sit at squat, support the paper in the hollow of her left instead of using a portfolio, and with her right ply the reed or "pen of brass." In vol. ii. 57 the lion is an absurdum, big as a cow or a camel, and the same caricature of the King of Beasts occurs elsewhere (i. 531; ii. 557 and iii. 250). The Wazir (ii. 105) wears the striped caftan of a Cairene scribe or shopkeeper. The two ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... exact nicety that will insure the edges of all three being caught in one seam; a process difficult enough on any sewing-machine, under any circumstances, but doubly so when the lightest touch sends the three-ply fabric under the needle with an incalculable velocity. Result of my first hour's work: I had spoiled a dozen garments. Try as I would, I invariably lost all control of my materials, and the needle plunged right and left—everywhere, in fact, except along the straight ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... of Ferrara in honour of their illustrious Sorrentine guest, for the Ferrarese delighted in the handsome stranger who could in an emergency wield the sword as skilfully as he could ply his quill. Twice only however did Tasso revisit the city of his birth, and each return home was occasioned by deep tragedy. In 1577, wounded by the attacks of his literary rivals and humiliated by the Duke Alfonso's discovery of his infatuation for the Princess ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... of those magnificent steamers that ply regularly between Panama and California. She had rather more than her full cargo of freight and passengers; but, among the hundreds of the latter, we have ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis

... leaving the meadows and the marsh land, and recks not of herdsmen or herd, but presses on, now without cheek, now standing still, and raising his broad neck he bellows loudly, stung by the maddening fly; so he in his frenzy now would ply his swift knees unresting, now again would cease from toil and shout afar with ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... time, when three out of every five journalists attached to our chief London newspapers are Inns-of-Court men; when many of our able and successful advocates are known to ply their pens in organs of periodical literature as regularly as they raise their voices in courts of justice; and when the young Templar, who has borne away the first honors of his university, deems himself the object of a compliment on receiving an invitation ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... it was only natural that Toby should be eager to learn of their adventures during the long day; but he knew nothing could induce them to talk until at least the raw edge of their clamorous appetites had been taken off; so he continued to ply them with more food. ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton

... was passed, the whispering seethed over like a boiling pot. The knots were sundered; and gradually, one following another, the whole mob began to form into a procession and escort the curtained litter. Soon spokesmen, a little bolder than their mates, began to ply the Chancellor with questions. Never had he more need of that great art of falsehood, by whose exercise he had so richly lived. And yet now he stumbled, the master passion, fear, betraying him. He was pressed; he became incoherent; and then ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... boarder had joined the circle about Mrs. Pedagog's breakfast-table. He had what the Idiot called a three-ply name—which was Richard Henderson Warren—and he was by profession a poet. Whether it was this that made it necessary for him to board or not, the rewards of the muse being rather slender, was known only ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs

... merely to guard against exaggeration but because the superlative degree lacks conviction. The statement that "This is the best collar ever made" is not believed, but to say that it is a "fine" collar or a "good" collar for it is five-ply, and so forth, rings true. It is a better selling talk and so the ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous

... Scourge, dungeon, halter, axe, and wheel. Go, hearts of sin and heads of trifling, From your vile streets, so foul and stifling, They sweep the dirt—no useless trade! But when, their robes with ordure staining, Altar and sacrifice disdaining, Did e'er your priests ply broom and spade? 'Twas not for life's base agitation That we were born—for gain nor care— No—we were born for inspiration, For love, for music, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... stone of offense, they immediately descended on that. Not only was the prohibition of commodities from the islands strengthened, but their quantity was limited, reducing it to a fixed amount that was permitted, and a certain form. It was ordered that only four ships should ply in that trade-route—two which should sail to Nueva Espaa, and two to the islands, and all at the account of the royal treasury. In these could be carried two hundred and fifty thousand pesos' worth of such merchandise as they should have in Manila; and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various

... Hongkong on the Quong Si, one of the Chinese boats that ply between Hongkong and Canton, under the British flag. A half-dozen American tourists were also on the boat, ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch

... disappointed at first, I had chiefly in mind the impression that assails me to-day in the whole precinct of St. Mark's. The condition of this ancient sanctuary is surely a great scandal. The pedlars and commissioners ply their trade—often a very unclean one—at the very door of the temple; they follow you across the threshold, into the sacred dusk, and pull your sleeve, and hiss into your ear, scuffling with each other for customers. There ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... exhausted, and biting her lips in the effort to keep up. He at once ordered a halt, and, as quickly as possible, made a fire and tea, adding to this slender menu boiled fish. Not until he saw the warm color glow once more in her cheeks did he cease to ply her with food ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... and during all this time Beltane spake word to no man. Every evening came Sir Pertolepe leaning on the arm of Raoul the esquire, to view his prisoner with greedy eyes and ply him with jovial talk whiles Beltane would lie frowning up at the mighty roof-beams, or sit, elbows on knee, his fingers clenched upon that lock of hair that gleamed so ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... single log of timber, but a galley could not keep up with them in rowing, for their motion is a thing beyond belief. And with these, they navigate through all those islands, which are numberless, and ply their traffic. I have seen some of those canoas with seventy and eighty men in them, each one with his oar. In all those islands, I saw not much diversity in the looks of the people, nor in their manners and language; but they ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... double are the horrors of them that have fallen by mutual slaughter; doubly shared are these consummated sufferings. What shall I say? What, but that of a certainty troubles on troubles are constant inmates of this house? But, my friends, ply the speeding stroke of your hands about your heads, before the gale of sighs, which ever wafts on its passage the bark, on which no sighs are heard, with sable sails, the freighted with the dead, untrodden for Apollo, ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus

... talents, who condescends to be the wit of private circles and of public dinners. Still he met with many competitors in this line. In the metropolis, the mendicants for fame, like the professional beggars, portion out the town among them, and whoever ventures to ply beyond his allotted walk is immediately jostled and abused; and the false pretensions of the wit, and all the tricks to obtain admiration, are as sure to be exposed by some rivals of the trade, as the false legs, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... of late years owing to the better paving, yet in day hours the roar of the streets is heard up to a great height as a hard, harsh, grinding din. But at night, after the last 'bus has ceased to ply, and before the market carts begin lumbering in, the balloonist, as he sails over the town, might imagine that he was traversing a ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon

... things we discussed together four or five and thirty years ago. We were then, and at bottom ever since, of the same opinion on the justice and policy of the whole and of every part of the penal system. You and I, and everybody, must now and then ply and bend to the occasion, and take what can be got. But very sure I am, that, whilst there remains in the law any principle whatever which can furnish to certain politicians an excuse for raising an opinion of their own importance, as necessary to keep their fellow-subjects ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... submitting; in return for which he said he would try to obtain the release of the General from Lord Roberts. The troop is then escorted by a frantic populace to their camping ground; willing hands off-saddle the horses, while others ply the tired heroes with refreshments. The town is in transports of joy. Days pass. The news spreads, and burghers come in from all sides to deliver up their arms to the Captain. He soon has no fewer ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers

... purse. They cannot give the price of anything upon inquiry; and as the paroxysm of longing cannot abide delay, orders are given by the feeble light of an approximate estimate of cost. The same people never send in the bills at once, but ply the purchaser with furniture till his head spins. Everything is so pretty, so charming; and everyone ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... Kirkwall now sail’d they all, And to Bergen o’er their course they ply; They laid in grave the Monarch brave, In the spot where the ...
— King Hacon's Death and Bran and the Black Dog - two ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise

... alone—if none more worthy—forbade an attempt to replenish his pocketbook by revisiting the little rez-de-chaussee in the rue Roget and realizing on its treasures, he had determined to have a taximeter fitted to his car and ply for hire until time or chance should settle the ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... this part; I couldn’t see before my nose, and must burst my way through by main force and ply the knife as I went, slicing the cords of the lianas and slashing down whole trees at a blow. I call them trees for the bigness, but in truth they were just big weeds, and sappy to cut through like carrot. From all this crowd and kind of vegetation, I was ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson

... he mutely held out his arms. Louis flew into the proffered embrace, and kissed him twice with the ardor of a boy. The affectionate touch of his lips quite unmanned Arthur, who was silent while the young fellow sat on the side of the bed with one arm about him, and began to ply him with questions. ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... lie a-dying, I will you messengers make: You ply you so fast, you are too-too diligent. Whoop how, Master Zeal, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... to enforce completely its policy of commercial exclusion. Europe could not dispense with British goods or colonial produce carried in British vessels. The law was deliberately set aside by a regular licensing system, and evaded by wholesale smuggling; neutral ships continued to ply between continental ports, and Napoleon did not disdain to clothe his troops with 50,000 British overcoats during the Eylau campaign. Still, Great Britain was enabled to cripple, if not to destroy, the merchant shipping of all other countries, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... side of the larger canoe. "The hatchets of the Pamunkeys were sharp. They fought like real men. This canoe could go no further. See, it is wet within—they had to ply the gourd very fast to keep afloat so far. One canoe would not hold them all, so they hid both here. They knew the palefaces would follow up the river, so they cared not to stay upon its banks; the ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... tongue. This she did until her husband appeared on the scene with Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt, whom he had known in Washington. The moment the fond mother discovered this gentleman to be her son's superior officer, she neglected every one else to ply ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe

... an enormous canvas, representing a brawny and gigantic Achilles perforating a brown Trojan with a small mast.) Not a dining-room picture. Still, I like his independence—work up rather well in a sonnet. Let me see. (He takes out note-book and scribbles.) "He scorned to ply his sombre brush for hire." Now if I read that to PODBURY, he'd pretend to think I was treating of a Shoe-black on strike! PODBURY is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various

... after I heard of this piece of good luck I was traveling across Victoria Nyanza on one of the little steamers that ply the lake. My cabin mate was a stoical Englishman who told me quite calmly that he had just killed a large bull bongo a few days before. He had been visiting Lord Delamere, and after a few hours in the forest had succeeded in doing what only two white ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon

... her, and continued to ply her with questions concerning Mr. Harrington, asking if he had formerly lived near Geneva, in western New York, if he had a crazy father, and if he ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... custom-house officer, and take it out in the day time. Sixty Spanish dollars is the bribe paid for each chest of opium sold at Macao; and if it goes to Canton, it pays sixty more on its arrival there. Large boats armed, and having from thirty to forty men, called opium boats, ply between Macao and Canton, when that market offers an advantage in price. These boats carry this drug, and are sanctioned by the custom-house officers, who, of course, receive for this ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... not intended by Messrs. Delavan and Moddridge that Tom Halstead and Joe Dawson should be able to keep their new prize and property running for their own pleasure. On the contrary the givers of this splendid present believed that the two boys would ply under charter for wealthy pleasure seekers, thus making a splendid living. In summer there were the northern waters; in winter the southern waters. Thus it was believed that Captain Tom Halstead and Engineer Joe Dawson would be in a position to earn a handsome income from their boat ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock

... land. So, bidding his weeping wife farewell, the lover-husband sorrowfully crossed the River of Heaven, and all the magpies instantly flew away. But the two were separated, the one to lead his ox, the other to ply her shuttle during the long hours of the day with diligent toil, and the Sun-king again rejoiced in ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... manfully; determined to await the issue. Margaret welcomed him with more restraint than was her wont, but not—he thought and hoped—less cordially. Maidens are wilful and perverse. Why should she hold her head down, as she had never done before? Why strain her eyes upon her work, and ply her needle as though her life depended on the haste with which she wrought? Thus might she receive a foe; better treatment surely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... upper Slantwise shoaling against, but not touching by two foot, the water, and the Strings which bear up this upper side fastned to small yielding sticks prickt in the Bank, that as the Fowl strike may ply to the Nets to intangle them. And thus lay your Nets (as many as you please) about twelve score one from another, as the River or Brook will afford. And doubt not your success. To expedite it however, ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett

... railways, and the roads where diligencias ply their lumbering and dusty course, the saddle is the only, and indeed the most characteristic, mode of travel; and the arriero and his string of pack-mules is the common carrier, and the mountain road or dusty desert trail the means of communication from place ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... and impulsive psychophysical organism whose springs of action the teacher must divine, and to whose ways he must become accustomed. He must start with the native tendencies, and enlarge the pupil's entire passive and active experience. He must ply him with new objects and stimuli, and make him taste the fruits of his behavior, so that now that whole context of remembered experience is what shall determine his conduct when he gets the stimulus, and not the bare immediate impression. ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... 72 ft. from the center of the boat, consists of a 5 ply rubber belt 36 in. wide; running over iron drums at each end and intermediate iron friction rollers at 3 foot centers. Ratchet and pinion on each side of conveyer ladder give means for taking up the slack of the belt and adjusting ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various

... superior force they flew, As Norsemen fly, They but retired, the fight anew Unawed to ply. Now o'er the bodies of his slain His way Carl makes; He thinks he has the city ta'en, But he mistakes. Thus ...
— Tord of Hafsborough - and Other Ballads • Anonymous

... negotiated between the two countries, and my patron was appointed one of the plenipotentiaries on the part of the Shah. Although this was matter in which one of my insignificance could not expect to be employed, yet I did not cease to ply about the negotiators, like a dog at an entertainment seeking for a chance bone; and every now and then I got so much of the scent as to make me almost sure of ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... with the clergy of England. But in the way of making proselytes they do as little as those who preceded them. An enmity of three hundred years separates the nation from those who should be its teachers. In short, it is plain that the mind of Ireland has taken its ply, and is not to be bent in a different direction, or, at all events, is not to be so bent by ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... nothing these gifts are shown By such as delight our dead. They must twitch and stiffen and slaver a groan Ere the eyes are set in the head, And the voice from the belly begins. Therefore We pay them a wage where they ply ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling

... ever crown'd with altars, ever blest, Lovely Asteria, in how high repute Stands thy fair temple 'mid the various tribes Who ply the AEgean. Though their business claims Dispatch immediate; though the inviting gales Ill brook the lingering mariners' delay: Soon as they reach thy soundings, down at once Drop the slack sails, and all the naval gear. The ship is moor'd: nor do the crew ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant

... courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, Where most may wonder at the workmanship. It is for homely features to keep home; They had their name thence: coarse complexions And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply The sampler, and to tease the huswife's wool. What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that, Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn? There was another meaning in these gifts; Think what, and be advised; you are but young yet. LADY. I had not thought to have unlocked ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton

... Action's storm, I walk and work, above, beneath, Work and weave in endless motion! Birth and Death, An infinite ocean; A seizing and giving The fire of Living: 'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply, And weave for God the Garment ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... which appeared and disappeared and reappeared again, flickering faintly from floor to ceiling. There seemed no explainable origin for it, and Evelyn's mind at once turned to the supernatural. A silly maidservant at home had been accustomed to ply her with ghost stories, all of which now recurred to her memory. What was it, that unnatural, luminous halo on the opposite wall? It was moving nearer to her, and had almost reached the curtain of her cubicle, when, with a choking little gasp, she sprang out of ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... of Trengganu are of a very different type. First and foremost, they are men of peace. Their sole interest in life is the trade or occupation which they ply, and they have none of that pride of race and country, which is so marked in the Pahang Malay. All they ask is to be allowed to make money, to study, or to earn a livelihood unmolested; and they ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... high, Above the roofs and near the sky, My ill-rewarding pen I ply To win me bread. This little chamber, six by four, Is castle, study, den, and more,— Altho' no carpet decks the ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... Satan, I shall be too hard for you; I will cool you insensibly, by degrees, by little and little. What care I, saith he, though I be seven years in chilling your heart if I can do it at last? Continual rocking will lull a crying child asleep. I will ply it close, but I will have my end accomplished. Though you be burning hot at present, yet, if I can pull you from this fire, I shall have you cold ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... jibe and joke And quip and crank For lowly folk And men of rank. I ply my craft And know no fear. But aim my shaft At prince or peer. At peer or prince— at prince or peer, I aim my shaft and ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan



Words linked to "Ply" :   fill, layer, shower, fulfil, strand, treat, jaunt, nurture, combining form, black market, drench, horse, board, utilize, plier, trip, wield, dish out, dish, cross-ply, employ, satisfy, staff, gutter, dish up, bring together, procure, join, fix up, use, pimp, utilise, gratify, nourish, fulfill, underlay, bed, meet, accommodate, serve up, travel, do, serve, pander, feed, perform, manage, give, sustain, regale, indulge, power, help, handle



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org