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Scud   /skəd/   Listen
Scud

noun
1.
The act of moving along swiftly (as before a gale).  Synonym: scudding.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Scud" Quotes from Famous Books



... Martin was the first that was springing from the mists of sleep to my conscious mind, and I was asking myself how it happened that I was feeling so glad, while I had so many causes for grief, then suddenly—suddenly as the sun streams through the cloud-scud over the sea—I knew that what had long been predestined had happened, that the wondrous new birth, the great revelation, the joyous mystery which comes to every happy woman in the world had come ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... forced the stream far over against the westward rim, where it came roaring past the foot wall in a splendid cataract some three miles long. To the left of the river, looking up-stream at this point, the mountains slanted skyward like a roof, until lost in the hurrying scud four thousand feet above. To the right, however, was the old moraine, just mentioned, consisting of a desolate jumble of rock and gravel and silt overlaying the ice foot. On account of its broken character and the unstable nature ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... polish'd arms a glimmering splendor cast. No single breath the general stillness stirr'd; Their trampling feet alone the warder heard, And follow'd with his sight the dusty cloud, That in its mantle wrapp'd the marching crowd. O'er crackling bushes scud the warrior train And pass with haste the solitary plain; 'Till the broad sun discover'd from afar The dawning lustre of his golden car. Beneath the covert of a neighbouring wood They paus'd awhile, and their ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... tell, Amid the visioned strife from sea to sea, How oft the Patriot banners rose or fell, Still honoured in defeat as victory! For that sad pageant of events to be Showed every form of fight by field and flood; Slaughter and Ruin, shouting forth their glee, Beheld, while riding on the tempest scud, The waters choked with slain, ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott

... down the road to the valley-mouth in the green dusk. He walked between Jansen and Bill, a dozen men behind, and a flying scud of boys before. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... very narrowly for the hot mush; and after breakfast she caught a minute, when Phineas had gone to work, and Mrs. Polly was in the pantry, and Nabby down cellar. She had barely time to fill a bowl with mush, and scud. ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... fall, and a great mass of murky cloud began to bank up in the south-western quarter. This rapidly overspread the sky, until the whole of the visible heavens became obscured by a thick curtain of flying scud. The sea, inky black, suddenly became agitated, and formed itself into a confusion of irregular waves without any "run," but which reared themselves tremblingly aloft, and then subsided again, only to be instantly succeeded by others. The wind fell away to a dead calm, which continued for ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... midnight before a breeze sprang up and dispelled the ominous fog. The moon showed her wan face through the driving scud, the sail was at last hoisted, and cold and hungry, and sick at heart, our voyagers once more returned ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... the sun rose bright and joyous over this scene of anxiety and pain. On came the vessel flying before the gale, while the seas chased her as if they would fain overwhelm her. It was fearful to see her scud—agonising to know that she was rushing ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... lightnings, and the glad blue skies. Even the music of the bagpipes inspired lamentations only less sweet than notes of joy. Mr. Black still has lovely girls; his yachts still pitch and roll and scud over the tossed and misty Hebridean seas; there are the same magical splendors of air and sky and water and shores; the wail of the pibroch is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... rate, I shall tell the abbot that, if he will consent quietly to the monk's unfrocking himself, until he can obtain for him release from his vows; I will scud him away to one of the other castles, whence I can fetch him, if you need him to accompany you on any errand, and where he can form part of the regular garrison. But the knave must be informed that it were best that he say nought about his former profession, and that he comport himself ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty

... and tackle sway and strain; Wet to the skin We're sound within. Our sea-steed through the foam goes prancing, While shields and spears and helms are glancing. From fiord to sea, Our ships ride free, And down the wind with swelling sail We scud before ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... engineer reported that his senior was dead, the crown of two furnaces destroyed, and the engines clogged, if not irretrievably damaged, by fallen debris. None realized better than the young commander what a disastrous fate awaited his ship in the gloom of the flying scud ahead. There was a faint chance of encountering another steamship which would respond to his signals. Then he would risk all by laying the Kansas broadside on in the effort to take a tow-rope aboard. Meanwhile, it was best to bring her under some sort of control, the steam steering-gear, ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... the left. My father argued, and correctly, that the winds which filled our sails came from the warm climate "within." The time of the year was certainly most auspicious for us to make our dash for the "outside" world and attempt to scud our fishing sloop through open channels of the frozen zone which ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson

... Cable, and got up our Sheet Anchor, and cut away our best Bower, (for to have heav'd her up then would have gone near to have foundred us) and so put to Sea. We had very violent Weather the night ensuing, with very hard Rain, and we were forced to scud with our bare Poles till 3 a Clock in the morning. Then the Wind slacken'd, and we brought our Ship to, under a mizen, and lay with our Head to the Westward. The 27th day the Wind abated much, but it rained very hard all day, and the Night ensuing. The 28th day the Wind came about to the N.E. and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... might: Yea, by that law, another race may drive 230 Our conquerors to mourn as we do now. Have ye beheld the young God of the Seas, My dispossessor? Have ye seen his face? Have ye beheld his chariot, foam'd along By noble winged creatures he hath made? I saw him on the calmed waters scud, With such a glow of beauty in his eyes, That it enforc'd me to bid sad farewell To all my empire: farewell sad I took, And hither came, to see how dolorous fate 240 Had wrought upon ye; and how I might best Give consolation in this woe extreme. Receive the ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... monarch of the flood, How often have I cast for you— How often sadly seen you scud Where weeds and pussy willows grew! How often have you filched my bait! How often have you snapped my treacherous line!— Yet here I have you on this plate. You shall swim twice, and now ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... soon as he got his wind, looking with much increased respect at Tom, "you ain't a bad scud, not by no means. Well, I'm as ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... chopped round to the north-west, and blew more fiercely than ever, attended by squalls of hailstones as big as marbles, the knocks of which made my countenance look as if I had come off second-best in a middle-weight "scrap." We lowered the main-sail again, and set four reefs of fore-sail to scud under. At three o'clock the vessel took a tremendous lurch, and washed away our lee-quarter boat. It was dark, and the sea barely discernible at a distance of thirty yards, being blown into a thick mist. At six ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan

... Swift, storm-scud, raced the morning sky, As light along the road I fared; Stern was the way, yet glad was I, Though feet and breast and brow were bared; For fancy, like a happy child, Ran on before ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... appearance of the weather. Very high and dangerous sea. Storm of lightning. Severe fatigue of the crew at the pumps. Critical situation of the ship near the Island of Falconera. Consultation and resolution of the officers. Speech and advice of Albert; his devout address to heaven. Order given to scud. The fore stay-sail hoisted and split. The head yards braced aback. The ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... the stability of the ship prevailed, and she began to right. Then, Roger and Harry, rushing to Leigh's assistance, helped him to put the helm up, and the ship paid off and began to scud before the wind, while Cavendish, encouraging his little body of men up in the eyes of the ship, managed to get the foresail set, after having had it nearly ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... instantly all eyes were bent on her with suspicion; for in this latitude the hurricanes generally come at the full moon. She was tolerably clear, however; but a light scud sailing across her disc showed there was wind in the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... it was a world waiting chastely to be peopled! And now it was peopled, for there came from a cleft of the hills an army of buffaloes lounging slowly down the waste, with tossing manes and hoofs stirring the snow into a feathery scud. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... shrieking over the hills, and long before evening the little town lay dusky in a scud of snow mist. The old stairs were quivering in the storm as Trove ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... had come with the west wind. The hills were drawn back behind thick sheets of glassy rain. Shining spears of rain dashed themselves against the west windows. Jets of rain rose up, whirling and spraying, from the terrace. Rain ran before the wind in a silver scud along the flagged ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... was blowing, driving scud and sea-foam before it, while ever new armies of rain-clouds advanced threateningly across the shadowy waters—mighty, moving mists, whose grey-winged squadrons, swift and irresistible, enveloped ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall

... flying low. The mirror surface of the sea was now lashed with waves, extraordinarily high, whose white tops blew away in long streaks of scud. The girls fought sturdily against the wind and rain, carrying us steadily up until after a while I could ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings

... the flying scud and back at the storm-bewitched girl with laughter rippling from her throat and the wild joy of a ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... lowest step of the forecastle ladder and sat fast. Then as we dipped I saw all that they were seeing from the masts and rigging—the yet restless sea with fast-running waves, alternately inky black, and of a strange bright metallic lead-colour, on which the scud as it drove across the moon made queer racing shadows. And it was on this stormy sea that every eye from the captain's ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... up, we suddenly awoke to the fact that it was blowing quite a strong breeze, and that it had kicked up such a high, steep sea that it was no longer possible for us to round-to and ride to a sea anchor as we had done on the night but one before. We were therefore obliged to scud before the wind all night under whole canvas, to avoid being pooped and swamped by the breaking seas that ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... the scud of clouds thinned and broke, and in the dim glimmer of starlight loomed the jungle-clad coast. Ahead, and well on the lee-bow, appeared a jagged rock-point. ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London

... rebuked those whom he saw shirking and disinclined to fight. "Argives," he cried, "cowardly miserable creatures, have you no shame to stand here like frightened fawns who, when they can no longer scud over the plain, huddle together, but show no fight? You are as dazed and spiritless as deer. Would you wait till the Trojans reach the sterns of our ships as they lie on the shore, to see whether the son of Saturn will hold his hand over ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... chill and squally, with a low scud driving rapidly from the west. A drizzling rain was the result, which ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... the close of a threatening day, Mrs. Savine's party came winding down in a hurry from a bare hill shoulder and under the gray crags of Crosbie Fell. The hollows beneath them were lost in a woolly vapor, low-flying scud raked the bare ridges above, and even as they passed a black rift in the hillside the first heavy drops of rain fell pattering. Helen Savine had seen many a mining adit in British Columbia, and, turning to glance at the mouth ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... me and comment on my work. My methods of painting were my own, for I had never painted under any one except the few months with Church, whose method had taught me nothing; and I had a way of painting scud clouds, such as always hang around the Alpine peaks, by brushing the sky in thinly with the sky-blue, and then working into that, with the brush, the melting clouds, producing the grays I wanted on the canvas. It imitated the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... off to cat-land, and was never seen again, And the dog sneaked out beneath the bed to scud with might and main; While Polly sits upon her roost, and rolls her eyes in fear, And when she sees a bit of cake, she always says, ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... idle main, Where the sea-egg flames on the coral and the long-backed breakers croon Their endless ocean legends to the lazy, locked lagoon. "Strayed amid lonely islets, mazed amid outer keys, I waked the palms to laughter—I tossed the scud in the breeze— Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone, But over the scud and the palm-trees an English ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... and taking the poker under his arm, led the way into the yard. The scud had banked over the moon, and it was now quite dark. The wind, which only broke in puffs and draughts into that deep well of building, tossed the light of the candle to and fro about their steps, until they came into the shelter of the theatre, where they sat down ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

... thought, save that of compliance. She had that piquant imperiousness to which men are willing slaves when it is manifested graciously, and by a pretty woman. He was like a ship caught in a gale, and there was nothing to do but scud before it. At the same time, it seemed that she was driving him swiftly towards the haven and rest of a better and ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... street-doors, rescuing a prisoned master, defending oppressed innocence, or dying in the centre of the stage to slow music. Something of a part seemed promised him when the popular drama of "Flying Scud" was first represented; at least, he supplied that work with its title. But it was speedily to be perceived that animal interests had been subordinated to human. More prominent occupation by far was assigned to the rider than to the horse. A different plan of distributing ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... bail out the lobscouse. We sha'n't weigh anchor again until to-morrow morning; the wind's right in our teeth, and it will blow fresh, I'm sartain. Look how the scud's flying; so now we'll have a jolly time of it, and you shall have your allowance of grog on board ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... punishment Falls on your innocent children? it may hap Imperious Fate will make yourself repent. My prayers shall reach the avengers of all wrong; No expiations shall the curse unbind. Great though your haste, I would not task you long; Thrice sprinkle dust, then scud before ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... which from one moment to another was in danger of being swamped. However, I was certain that, being provided with two large beams of bamboos, it could keep its position in the current between two waters and not capsize, if we had the precaution and strength to scud before the wind, and not turn the side to a wave, for in such case we should all have been drowned. What I foresaw, happened. A wave burst upon us; for a few minutes we were plunged in the deep, but when the wave passed over we came ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... high we go, The whistling winds that scud along, And surges roaring from below, Shall my signal be to think on thee, And this shall be my song: Blow ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... immutable iron of Lapham's face betrayed his sense of triumph as the mare left everything behind her on the road. Mrs. Lapham, if she felt fear, was too busy holding her flying wraps about her, and shielding her face from the scud of ice flung from the mare's heels, to betray it; except for the rush of her feet, the mare was as silent as the people behind her; the muscles of her back and thighs worked more and more swiftly, like some mechanism responding to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the ship out of the ice, was as much as we could do. Yet no one forgot the day; and many were the wishes, and conjectures, and comparisons, both serious and ludicrous, which were made among all hands. The sun shone bright as long as it was up, only that a scud of black clouds was ever and anon driving across it. At noon we were in lat. 54 deg. 27' S., and long. 85 deg. 5' W., having made a good deal of easting, but having lost in our latitude by the heading of the wind. Between daylight and dark—that is, between nine o'clock and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... a body can now scarcely meet on the road wi' ony think waur than themsell. Mony a witch, de'il, and bogle, however, did my grannie see and hear tell of, that used to scud and ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... sullen clouds Scud black and swift across the sky; Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds Stand out the white lighthouses high. Almost as far as eye can reach I see the close-reefed vessels fly, As fast we flit along the beach,— One ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous

... it, and carried far to leeward. The heavens above were of a pitchy darkness, and the only light was from the creaming foam of the sea on every side. The shift of wind, which had been to the west-north-west, compelled them to alter the course of the vessel, for they had no chance but to scud, as they now did, under bare poles; but in consequence of the sea having taken its run from the former wind, which had been north-east, it was, as sailors call it, cross, and every minute the waves poured over the ship, sweeping all before their ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat

... when I reached the water-side, at a place where many pleasure-boats are moored and ready for hire; and as I went along a stony path, between wood and water, a strong wind blew in gusts from the far end of the lake. The sky was covered with flying scud; and, as this was ragged, there was quite a wild chase of shadow and moon-glimpse over the surface of the shuddering water. I had to hold my hat on, and was growing rather tired, and inclined to go back in disgust, when a little incident occurred to break ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Anjou invaded the liberties which he had been called to protect. In the midst of the tempest, too, the assassin's hand tore the steersman from the helm, and with William of Orange the career of the infant republic was seemingly at an end, and all her guardian angels fled. But the ship continued to scud along before the storm, and the swelling canvas carried her ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... The scud all a flyin', That's his flip only foamin'; When he stirs in the spicin',— Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... a box lying in the boat, oddly bound and clamped with metal which glistened like silver under the Eastern stars when the waves of the Bosporus dashed high, and the flying scud rained down on box and ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... rise of a squall cloud—its more or less disturbed look—that is, whether its body is much agitated, and changing form continually, with broken clouds, or scud, flying about—or whether the mass of cloud is shapeless and nearly quiet, though floating onwards across the sky—foretells more or less ...
— Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy

... scrambled round on little scratchy hands To peek at her about the other side. She lost him, bolting branch to branch, at last— The impudent brat! But still high overhead Flight on exuberant flight of opal scud, Or of dissolving ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... graves, Than live in slavery to slaves; Worse than the anarchy at sea, Where fishes on each other prey; Where every trout can make as high rants O'er his inferiors, as our tyrants; And swagger while the coast is clear: But should a lordly pike appear, Away you see the varlet scud, Or hide his coward snout in mud. Thus, if a gudgeon meet a roach, He dares not venture to approach; Yet still has impudence to rise, And, like Domitian,[2] leap ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... with great piles of storm-scud overhead, raved all the day before Christmas. It was one of those afternoons when the sombre atmosphere seems weighted with gloom and weariness. On Christmas eve Hamilton's brooding brought on acute delirium. He had been more depressed than ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... to shout, beating the sides of the boat with the wooden boat pins, and the birds, in affright, fly one by one into space until they reach the level of the waves. Then, moving their wings rapidly, they scud, scud along until they reach the open sea; if a shower of lead does not knock them into ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... and low and willowy bogs, all are kept wholesome and sweet the year round. Cloud and sunshine alternate in bracing, cheering succession, and health and abundance follow the storms. The outer sea margin is sublimely dashed and drenched with ocean brine, the spicy scud sweeping at times far inland over the bending woods, the giant trees waving and chanting in hearty accord as ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir

... black figure stooping and disappearing in one of those ditches, and reappearing the next moment with a motion which you would know meant the heaving out of a shovelful of snow. But you needed to be quick, for that black figure would not linger, but would soon drop that shovel and scud for the house, thrashing itself with its arms to warm them. Yes, it was too venomously cold for snow-shovelers or anybody else to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... broken, and a brisk wind had sprung up with the dawn. The sky was of the lightest, palest blue, with a scud of flying white clouds shredded out over the face of it, dividing, coalescing, overtaking one another, but sweeping ever from the pink of the east to the still shadowy west. The high, eager voice of the wind whistled and sang outside, rising ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... and hazy weather. At half-past 3 saw a single rock bearing south-south-west distance 9 or 10 miles, and an island on our beam south-east...haze very thick and scud flying thick. At 4 P.M. saw a rock lying to north of Kent's Group about 3 miles...At half-past 4 saw easternmost island of Kent's Group bearing west by south distance 8 miles, by half-past 5 P.M. having come nearly up with the land, passed in ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... in sharp snappings like castanets. You could hear the hiss and seething of the sea alongside, and see it flash by in sudden white patches of phosphorescent foam, while all overhead was black with the flying scud. The English second-mate was stamping with vexation, and, with all his ills misplaced, storming at the men:—"'An'somely the weather main- brace,—'an'somely, I tell you!—'Alf a dozen of you clap on to the main ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... them; and fled to Matul, the prince of Finmark. He, trusting in the great skill of his archers, harassed with impunity the army of Ragnar, which was wintering in Permland. For the Finns, who are wont to glide on slippery timbers (snowskates), scud along at whatever pace they will, and are considered to be able to approach or depart very quickly; for as soon as they have damaged the enemy they fly away as speedily as they approach, nor is the retreat they make quicker than their charge. Thus their vehicles and their bodies are so nimble ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... the third evening, just at sunset, came A scud of driving cloud; the lightning's flame; The sun glared from a vicious, misty socket, And in the moaning twilight curved a rocket While a blue flame blurred and frayed At Castle Pinckney; thus we knew the storm ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen

... young Hobbs. "I never seed a scud on the 'Banks' but 'ut it was allus follered by ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens

... always effulgent with thought and affection,—with conscience, courage, resource, decision, a penetrating and forecasting wisdom. Hence, to associates, her presence seemed to touch even common scenes and drudging cares with splendor, as when, through the scud of a rain-storm, sunbeams break from serene blue openings, crowning familiar things with sudden glory. By manifold sympathies, yet central unity, she seemed in herself to be a goodly company, and her words and deeds imparted the virtue of a collective life. So tender was ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... darker grew the sky, and the wind soon blew in furious gusts, raising a sea so heavy that the Saxons were obliged to lay in their oars. By nightfall it was blowing a furious gale. In the gathering darkness and the flying scud the ships of the Danes were lost sight of; but this was of little consequence now, for the attention of the Saxons was directed to ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... closed darkly around the becalmed ships, in sodden clouds which were suddenly obscured by mist and rain while the wind sighed in fitful gusts. It steadied into the southward and swiftly increased in force until the sea was whipped into foam and scud. ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... is a shoal sheet of water twenty-two miles long and nearly eight miles wide, a bad place to cross in a small boat in windy weather. We set our sail and sped merrily on, but the tempest pressed us sorely, compelling us to take in our sail and scud under bare poles until one o'clock, when we double-reefed and set the sail. We now flew over the short and swashy seas as blast after blast struck our little craft. At three o'clock the wind slackened, ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... while the swinging-lamp oscillated drearily overhead, and sent uncertain shadows into the state-room doors. There is the story which Vivian Grey told us of the beautiful clipper "Nighthawk,"—her who sailed with the "Bonita" and "Driving-Scud" and "Mazeppa," in the great Sea-Derby, whose course lay round the world. How, one Christmas-day, off the pitch of Cape Horn, he, standing on her deck, saw her dive bodily into a sea, and all of her to the mainmast was lost in ocean,—her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... quarter- deck, and there indeed was a change of days; for the sea was dark and tumbling mountain-high, and the white-horses were running down the valleys thereof, and the clouds drave low over all, and bore a scud of rain along with them; and though there was but a rag of sail on her, the ship flew before the wind, rolling a great wash of water from ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris

... swiftness of a mill-race, the men had literally to be held to the rudder at pistol point and beaten up the masts with the flat of the officers' swords. But while they skulked, a hurricane rolled up the fog; and the ship could but scud under bare poles before the wind. Rations were now down to mouldy sea-biscuits, and only fifteen casks of water remained for ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut

... Winds of the world, declare! * * * * * * * * * The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long Arctic night, The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern light. * * * * * * * * * Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone, But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag has flown. I have wrenched it free from the halliard to hang for a wisp on the Horn; I have chased it north to the Lizard—ribboned and rolled and torn; I have spread its folds o'er the dying, adrift in a hopeless sea; I have hurled it swift ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett

... enter the Pacific by the Barbara Channel, one very little known, and which passes close to the foot of Mount Sarmiento (the highest mountain in the south, excepting Mt.!! Darwin!!). We then shall scud away for Concepcion in Chili. I believe the ship must once again steer southward, but if any one catches me there again, I will give him leave to hang me up as a scarecrow for all future naturalists. I long to be at work in the Cordilleras, the geology of this side, which I understand pretty ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... p.m. the sand-mist began to clear off. Wind died away, then turned north and north-north-east. Light scud over moon, going slowly. Patches of blue, and stars. Barometer rising fast. Perfectly still night till midnight, when it began to blow, about the setting of the moon. At Suez, during the gale, red dust prevented ships seeing one another; and at ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... interblended in the composition. First that of a nature book, full of air, foliage and landscape—that English landscape art of Linnell and De Wint and Foster, for which he repeatedly expresses such a passionate tendre,[24] refreshed by 'blasts from the channel, with raining scud and spume of mist breaking upon the hills' in which he seems to crystallise the very essence of a Western winter. Secondly, a paean half of praise and half of regret for the vanishing England, passing so rapidly even as he writes into 'a new England which tries so hard to be unlike the old.' ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... lying bounden there In darkness through innumerable hours He heard the hollow-ringing heavens sweep Over him till by miracle—what else?— Heavy as it was, a great stone slipt and fell, Such as no wind could move: and through the gap Glimmered the streaming scud: then came a night Still as the day was loud; and through the gap The seven clear stars of Arthur's Table Round— For, brother, so one night, because they roll Through such a round in heaven, we named the stars, Rejoicing in ourselves and in our King— And these, like bright eyes of familiar ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... disrepair. For a moment I paused, thinking that even the salt-marsh might perhaps be a safer resting-place for the night than the headquarters of some desperate smuggler, for such I conjectured that this lonely dwelling must be. The scud, however, had covered the moon once more, and the darkness was so pitchy black that I felt that I might reconnoitre a little more closely without fear of discovery. Walking on tiptoe I approached the ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle

... was not there; nor did the sunshine fall upon the floor. The garden, with its muddy walks, and the chill, dripping foliage of its summer-house, was an image to be shuddered at. Nothing flourished in the cold, moist, pitiless atmosphere, drifting with the brackish scud of sea-breezes, except the moss along the joints of the shingle-roof, and the great bunch of weeds, that had lately been suffering from drought, in the angle ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... masses of snowy whiteness to leeward. I scarcely thought that a fabric formed by human hands could have sustained the rude shocks we encountered till the ship was got on her course, and we were able to scud before the gale. Often the sea rose up like a dead wall, and seemed as if it must fall over our deck and send us to the bottom. The scene was trying in the daytime, but still more so when darkness covered ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston

... seen before. Notwithstanding the embroidered silk and velvet hangings decorating the fronts of the rich people's houses, he caught glimpses of filthy side streets, squalid alleys, and tumble-down tenements. He saw forlorn little children scud away like rats into their holes as he drew near, and wretched, vicious-looking men and women fighting with each other for places in the crowd. Sharp, miserable faces peered round corners at him, and nobody smiled because every one hated or ...
— The Land of the Blue Flower • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... and "Cassandra" were celebrated heroic romances of the seventeenth century, the former (in ten volumes) written by Mdlle Scud'eri, the latter by the Sieur de la Calprende. One of the most constant and tiresome characteristics of the heroes and heroines of the romances of this school, is the readiness with which they seize every opportunity of recounting, or causing their ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... sou'west let go just as dusk shut down. A yellowish scud dimmed the stars. Mayo heard one of the mates say that the glass had dropped. He smelled nasty weather himself, having the sailor's keen instinct. The topsails were ordered in, and he climbed aloft and had ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... battle-ground, Where pots and weapons bang and scud, Where every dead man through some wound Doth ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier

... and crawled away from the wonderful, dying garden, oblivious to the pleadings floating, now weakly, in the torpid water. He scuffed up little motes of golden sand, leaving a low-lying scud along the bottom, back to the little black box in the garden. The plants, the box, all were forgotten by now. Cully crawled on, not knowing why. A rise appeared; surprise caught Cully unaware. ...
— Cully • Jack Egan

... cloud, shaped like a hawk's, hung over the low western hills across the bay. Then the hawk became an eagle, and the eagle a gigantic phantom, that hovered over half the visible sky. Beneath it, a little scud of vapor, moved by some cross-current of air, raced rapidly against the wind, just above the horizon, like ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... a fierce scud of hail, hitting rather than wetting, but Dolores had the satisfaction of declaring the edges of her dress to be damp and going off to change it, though Aunt Jane pinched the kilting and said the ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... alone. A midday meal, with liberal supply of wine, helped them somewhat, and they sat down to smoke in their bedroom. It rained harder than ever; from the window they could see the old tower on the crag smitten with white scud. ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... which ensued I heard the pines across the pond singing antiphonally. Black as it was under the trees, there was a moon behind the night. No suggestion of it showed through the clouds, yet from the pond surface itself came a weird twilight, filtered no doubt through a mile of flying scud a mile above, reflected from the wind-swept surface and showing these distant pines lifting heads of murk against the murky sky. But their antiphonal shout was no pine-voiced song of the sea, it was the sea itself. Again and again ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... blast. A terrific wind whipped the rain in level sheets over cove and beach and against the low cabin squat on the sea-wall. Great, white-maned surges came rolling in from the ocean to boom thunderously on the ledges round Brimstone. The flying scud made it impossible to see far to windward. It was the worst storm the boys had experienced since they came ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... vault. Even in the summer, in the full burst of nature revelling in her strength, the place was sad. But in the winter, when the wind came howling through the groaning trees, and drove the grey scud across an ashy sky, when the birds were dumb, and there were no cattle on the sodden lawn, its isolated melancholy was a ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... she cried as soon as she could speak; 'go home just as fast as you can scud; an' tell your folks,' she added with a gust of gratitude, 'that there's worse folks in ...
— Twilight Stories • Various

... an orchard on their way from school, in which there were some plum trees, full of nice fruit. "Come, Thomas," said Henry, "let us jump over and get some plums. Nobody will see us. We can scud along through the tall corn, and come out on the other side." Thomas replied, "It is wrong. I don't like to try it. I would rather not have the plums than steal them, and I will run along home." "You are a coward," said Henry. ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb

... magnificent. The African heavens are always widely spacious, but now they seemed to have blown even vaster than usual. In the sweep of the vision four or five heavy black rainstorms would be trailing their skirts across an infinitely remote prospect; between them white piled scud clouds and cumuli sailed like ships; and from them reflected so brilliant a sunlight and behind all showed so dazzling a blue sky that the general impression was of a fine day. The rainstorms' gray veils slanted; tremendous patches ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... and hasting fast away, He knowing it a fish of stubborn sway, Pulls up his rod, but soft, as having skill, Wherewith the hook fast holds the fish's gill; Then all his line he freely yieldeth him, Whilst furiously all up and down doth swim Th' insnared fish, here on the top doth scud, There underneath the banks, then in the mud, And with his frantic fits so scares the shoal, That each one takes his hide, or starting hole: By this the pike, clean ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)

... him the caller breeze that has blown across the Border hills. In a lonely little graveyard in the Debatable Land, close to the Water of Sark, and near the March dyke between the two countries, his body is said to rest. Does there never come a night, when the moon is hidden behind a dark scud of clouds, and the old reiver, growing restless in his grave, finds somewhere the shade of a horse that, in its day, could gallop with the best, and rides again across the Border, to meet once more his "auld enemies" of England, and, to the joyous accompaniment ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... drifts the incense of hala. Mana sees the rain-whirl of Eleao. The robe of Ka-u sways in the wind, That dashes the waves 'gainst the sea-wall, 10 At Honu-apo, windy Ka-u; The Pai-ha'a palms strive with the gale. Such weather is grievous to you: The sea-scud is flying. My little i-ao, O fly 15 With the breeze Koolau! Fly with the Moa'e-ku! Look at the rain-mist fly! Leap with the cataract, leap! Plunge, now here, now there! 20 Feet foremost, head foremost; Leap with a glance and a glide! Kauna, opens the dance; ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... and the speedy dart! He, the fortune-reader, read poor Helen's heart; And a face created for the hearthstone's light— Fishers tell its ruin as they scud ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... Away we scud, passing ships that think they are going pretty fast, but, O Neptune! our fins and tails take us along at a spanking rate, which makes the ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever

... way as to carry the craft clear of the rocks, and in three hours after the Neshamony was lifted out of her cradle, she was in the open ocean, to leeward of all the dangers. It blew too hard, however, to make sail on her, and Bob was obliged to scud until the gale broke. Then, indeed, he passed a week in endeavouring to beat back and rejoin his friend, but without success, 'losing all he made in the day, while asleep at night.' Such, at least, was Bob's account of his failure to find the Reef again; though Mark thought it probable ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... along, dark clouds began to scud across the sky overhead, and the low mutterings of thunder came from the distance. It may have been the thunderings of nature, or of war—she did not heed them; her heart was filled with bitter, rebellious ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus

... perfect gale; we are lying under a long hill, and the narrow bay is scarcely rippled by the blast that rushes over us, thick with flying-scud. Captain resolves to await better weather; some of the boys go on shore, and wander out to a kind of reef at the mouth of the bay, where in a short time they succeed in gathering a fine mess of mussels; ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... and, when the sea was sufficiently calm, in fishing. Needham kept up his own spirits, and did his best to keep up that of his messmates. However, they were to be again severely tried. One evening, early in October, scud was seen flying rapidly across the sky, while thick masses of cloud banked up densely in the horizon. It was Adair's first watch; Murray had been about to turn in. He ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... nebulosity, rack; cirrus, cat's-tail, mare's-tail; cumulus, stratus, nimbus; cirro-cumulus, cirro-stratus, cumulo-stratus; storm scud, wane cloud; tarnish, blemish; eclipse, obscurity. Associated Words: nephology, meteorology, nubiferous, nephelodometer, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... Miss Wren, "I have to scud about town at all hours. If it was only sitting at my bench, cutting out and sewing, it would be comparatively easy work; but it's the trying-on by the great ladies that ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... and a fine flying scud that whipped stingingly over the side had driven most of the passengers on the Atlantic to the shelter of their staterooms or to the warm stuffiness of the library. It was the fifth evening of the voyage. For five days and four nights the ship had been racing through a placid ocean on her way to ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... proceeding from the ash trees planted in or near the site of murders or suicides, and as I sit here writing, a scene opens before me, and I can see a plain with one solitary tree—an ash—standing by a pool of water, on the margin of which are three clusters of reeds. Dark clouds scud across the sky, and the moon only shows itself at intervals. It is an intensely wild and lonely spot, and the cold, dank air blowing across the barren wastes renders it all the more inhospitable. No one, no living thing, no object is visible ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... mourning for his dead son. In another lament a grieving mother is compared to the drooping fronds of the tree-fern. The maiden keeping tryst bids the light fleecy cloudlets, which in New Zealand so often scud across the sky before the sea-wind, to be messengers to her ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... clean canvas, and all smart, we were rather proud of that boat. But we'd only just got beyond the Lizard when it came on to blow, just as it can blow off there in February, with rain, and snow, and hail; and we were at last glad to scud before the ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn

... and tugged away it seemed as if it would fly from the bolt-ropes. The first lieutenant anxiously watched it. Should it be carried away it was scarcely possible that another could be set, and though the ship might still scud under bare poles, there was a great risk of her broaching to, and if so, the seas breaking over her sides might disable her completely. Suddenly there was a loud clap like that of thunder, and what looked ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston



Words linked to "Scud" :   hurrying, hie, pelt along, sail, pilotage, shoot down, buck, tear, navigation, step on it, speeding, race, rush, hasten, belt along, charge, cannonball along, speed, plunge, piloting, hotfoot, bucket along, rush along



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