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Batten   Listen
noun
Batten  n.  A strip of sawed stuff, or a scantling; as,
(a)
pl. (Com. & Arch.) Sawed timbers about 7 by 2 1/2 inches and not less than 6 feet long.
(b)
(Naut.) A strip of wood used in fastening the edges of a tarpaulin to the deck, also around masts to prevent chafing.
(c)
A long, thin strip used to strengthen a part, to cover a crack, etc.
Batten door (Arch.), a door made of boards of the whole length of the door, secured by battens nailed crosswise.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Batten" Quotes from Famous Books



... and curious selection which will be welcomed by readers of all ages.... The illustrations by Mr. Batten are often clever and irresistibly humorous. A delight alike to the ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow

... skipper will order his men to trim, batten down the hatches, and clear the deck of all litter. The barometer says nothing, neither the sky nor the water; the skipper has the "feel" that out yonder there's a big blow moving. Now the doctor had the "feel" that somewhere ahead lay danger. It was below ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... shown not alone by his congratulatory message, but by the immediate honours awarded. To the Leicestershires fell one Military Cross[4] and four Military Medals, one of the latter going to Sergeant Batten, Marner's platoon-sergeant. The water-tank leans against the station no longer, and they have repaired the crumbled walls. But the cracks and fissures in the great fort lift eloquent witness to the ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... glimpse of conventuals in Latin countries, had deeply shocked him. The vows of a monastic poverty that was kept carefully beyond the walls of the monastery offended his sense of propriety. That men who had vowed themselves to pauperism, who wore coarse garments and went barefoot, should batten upon rich food and store up wines that gold could not purchase, struck him ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... come, Dogs shall devour it in the fleet of Greece. So they with prayers importuned, and with tears Their son, but him sway'd not; unmoved he stood, Expecting vast Achilles now at hand. 105 As some fell serpent in his cave expects The traveller's approach, batten'd with herbs Of baneful juice to fury,[3] forth he looks Hideous, and lies coil'd all around his den, So Hector, fill'd with confidence untamed, 110 Fled not, but placing his bright shield against A buttress, with his noble heart conferr'd. [4]Alas for me! should I repass ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... Anarchism, is that close relation of the ideal to the present sufferings of men, which has enabled powerful political movements to grow out of the hopes of solitary thinkers. It is this that makes Socialism and Anarchism important, and it is this that makes them dangerous to those who batten, consciously or unconsciously upon the evils of our present ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell

... strife and despair; the torrent of human activity is everywhere seething and foaming. Here ignorance buries its victims in a noisome den of slime and filth; there, the strong and ruthless, veritable vampires, batten on the labour and drain away the very life of the weak and helpless; farther away, science stumbles against the wall of the Unknown; philosophy takes up its stand on the cold barren glacier of intellectualism; religions are stifled and struggle for existence beneath ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal

... nation is encouraged and justified. It is then that the diplomatists who lied and schemed to bring on the monstrous event, that all the politicians who exploit and foster the nation's madness and misery to enhance their own reputations, that those who batten on the slaughter, and that those who glorify the carnage at a safe distance and fight the enemy with their lying tongues, are justified. They all are justified. But if, instead of victory, there is defeat, then they tremble lest they should be disgraced and lose their places, lest ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt

... wort, or beet, Whatever comes, content makes sweet. Here we rejoice, because no rent We pay for our poor tenement, Wherein we rest, and never fear The landlord or the usurer. The quarter-day does ne'er affright Our peaceful slumbers in the night. We eat our own and batten more, Because we feed on no man's score; But pity those whose flanks grow great, Swell'd with the lard of others' meat. We bless our fortunes when we see Our own beloved privacy; And like our living, where we're known To very few, or ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... steady, and remember there's no danger, for we can make land any time in the boats if worse comes to worse. Mr. Gibbs, have the men get their dunnage up out of the forecastle, and then close the hatch and batten it." ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe

... blood and marrow and life of the struggling people, you heartless extortioner! Begone, sirra; a foot of land upon the property for which I am agent you shall never occupy. You and your tribe, whether you batten upon the distress of struggling industry in the deceitful Maelstrooms of the metropolis, or in the dirty, dingy shops of a private country village, are each a scorpion curse to the people. Your very existence ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... discovered it and given it the marginal brand, but the substitutory n had not yet appeared. I accompanied his notice with a most pathetic address to the Printer not to neglect the Correction. I know how such a blunder would "batter at your Peace." [Batter is written batten and corrected to batter in the margin.] With regard to the works, the Letter I read with unabated satisfaction. Such a thing was wanted, called for. The parallel of Cotton with Burns I heartily approve; Iz. Walton hallows any page in which ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... forcibly driven against the skull, the weapon simply crashes through the bone, disintegrating it at the point of entrance, and cracking or splintering it for a variable, but limited, distance beyond. On the other hand, when the head is struck by a "blunt" object—for example, a batten falling from a height—the force is applied over a wider area and the elastic skull bends before it. If the limits of its elasticity are not exceeded, the bone recoils into its normal position when ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man; This was your husband.—Look you now, what follows: Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear, Blasting his wholesome brother.[124] Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor?[125] Ha! have you eyes? You cannot call it love; for, at your age The hey-day in the blood[126] is tame, it's humble, And waits upon the judgment: And what judgment Would step from this to this? O ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare

... people over whom he was to rule. He spoke no Spanish, and he was surrounded by greedy Flemish courtiers dressed in outlandish garb, speaking in a strange tongue, and looking upon the realm of their prince as a fat pasture upon which, locust like, they might batten with impunity. The Spaniards had frowned to see the great Cardinal Jimenez curtly dismissed by the boy sovereign whose crown he had saved; they clamoured indignantly when the Flemings cast themselves upon the resources of Castile and claimed the best offices ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... I weepe to thyncke, What foemen[19] riseth to ifrete[20] the londe. Theie batten[21] onne her fleshe, her hartes bloude dryncke, And all ys ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton

... been absent on the Continent selling her jewels and endeavoring to raise a force, landed at Burlington, with four ships, having succeeded in evading the ships of war which the Commons had dispatched to cut her off, under the command of Admiral Batten. That night, however, the Parliament fleet arrived off the place, and opened fire upon the ships and village. The queen was in a house near the shore, and the balls struck in all directions round. She ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... fish took shelter from the intense light. Some hung motionless in the water; others nibbled daintily the green and lazy slime on the batten at the bilge, their gently waving shadows being barely perceptible, for their delicate, semi-transparent bodies absorbed but the merest particle of the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... news to the Mullahs in the Hills. I know that soft-handed brood with their well-fed bodies and their treacherous mouths. If only they would let me carry on the road!" he cried passionately, "I would drag them out of the houses where they batten on poor men's families and set them to work till the palms of their hands were honestly blistered. Let the Mullahs have a care, Safdar Khan. I go North ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... And mask of Hate, whom woful ailments Of unavailing tears and heart deep moans Feed and envenom, as the milky blood Of hateful herbs a subtle-fanged snake. Shall Love pledge Hatred in her bitter draughts, And batten on his poisons? Love forbid! Love passeth not the threshold of cold Hate, And Hate is strange beneath the roof of Love. O Love, if thou be'st Love, dry up these tears Shed for the love of Love; for tho' mine image, The subject of ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... mourning over the mistakes of misspent lives, larrup disconsolate horses over stony streets as they creak and jog and wheeze ahead of the invisible crows that seem always to be hovering above ready to batten upon their rightful provender. For an hour in the morning before our train left for Paris we chartered one of the ramshackle cabs of the town and took in Bordeaux. It was vastly unlike either Emporia or Wichita, or anything in Kansas, or anything ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White

... chief picture of this pleading call. But there's another bit of picture talking that will help. That is the picture of a weaver's loom, with the warp threads running lengthwise, the shuttle threads running crosswise, and the cross beam (or batten) driving each shuttle thread into place in the cloth ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... be clean? Is human nature normally and habitually corrupt when it comes to governing a city? The Mayor and all his appointees are simply wading through the vast quagmire of the common citizen's indifference, fought every step by the vile creatures who batten on the administration of the city's affairs. Do you suppose that if the schools laid tremendous stress on clean citizenship and began in the kindergarten to teach children how to govern in the most practical way, it would help? I believe it would. I'm going to tuck ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... when Bill gets his paper back finally—which is often only after much bush grumbling, accusation, recrimination, and denial—he severely and carefully re-arranges theme pages, folds the paper, and sticks it away up over a rafter, or behind a post or batten, or under his pillow where it will safe. He wants that paper to ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... accounts. The Dutch hamlet of Saratoga, surprised by Marin, was near the mouth of the Fish Kill, on the west side of the Hudson. There was also a small fort on the east side, a little below the mouth of the Batten Kill.] Albany was left uncovered, and the Assembly voted L150 in provincial currency to rebuild the ruined fort. A feeble palisade work was accordingly set up, but it was neglected like its predecessor. Colonel Peter Schuyler was ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman

... that they never drove a-field and had no flocks to batten; and though it be allowed that the representation may be allegorical, the true meaning is so uncertain and remote that it is never sought, because it cannot be known ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... means of slotted lead strips (known as "cames"). The window frames used in a few of the Jamestown houses were handwrought iron casements. Most of the humbler dwellings had no glass panes in the windows. The window openings were closed by batten shutters, operated by hinges of wood and ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter

... replied Tressilian, "what make you here? Are you come to triumph over the innocence you have destroyed, as the vulture or carrion-crow comes to batten on the lamb whose eyes it has first plucked out? Or are you come to encounter the merited vengeance of an honest man? Draw, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... at the sledge. It is extremely difficult even to take one's place on a board a dozen inches wide. My petticoats have to be firmly wrapped around me, and care taken that no fold projects beyond the sledge, or I should be soon dragged out of my frail seat. I fix my feet firmly against the batten, and F—— cries, "Are you ready?" "Oh, not yet!" I gasp, clinging to Mr. U——'s hand as if I never meant to let it go. "Hold tight!" he shouts. Now what a mockery this injunction was. I had nothing to hold on to except my own knees, and I clasped them convulsively. Mr. ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... get the better of his passion, which latter, being deserted by his breath, began a little to retreat, the following accents, leapt over the hedge of his teeth, or rather the ditch of his gums, whence those hedgestakes had long since by a batten been displaced in battle with an ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... Joe Batten was the youngest member of the Athletic team and at that time quite a promising young player. He did not last long with the Athletics, however, and after playing on one or two other league teams he dropped out sight. He was a bricklayer ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... which belonged to the royal family had been confiscated to the state. I had just seen the belongings of the royal family trampled as by cattle. First one tyrant and then another rose up to tell us what we should do, to batten himself off the wretched commonwealth, and then go to the guillotine before his successor. As a good citizen I should have turned these jewels and stones and coins over to the state. But I was acting the part of Jacquot, and as an honest ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... happy!" she broke out at last, with a sob, almost drawing her hand away. "Such a life as mine seems to absorb and batten upon other people's dues—to grow rich by robbing their joy, joy that should feed hundreds and comes all to me! And that besides I should actually bruise ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... leaving vain laments, arouse thy soul To exultation. Sing hosanna, sing, And halleluiah, for the Lord is great, And full of mercy! He has thought of man; Yea, compass'd round with countless worlds, has thought Of us poor worms, that batten in the dews Of morn, and perish ere the noonday sun. Sing to the Lord, for he is merciful: He gave the Nubian lion but to live, To rage its hour, and perish; but on man He lavish'd immortality and Heaven. The eagle falls from her aerial tower, And mingles with irrevocable dust: But man from death ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... thence my best London-made and only remaining tooth-brush; and, after polishing his own diminutive teeth, and committing other pranks with it, such as the scrubbing of the deck, and currying of Sailor's back, left it to batten on the fish-bones in the said Sailor's hutch; and was, moreover, seen by the aforesaid complainant to remove R——'s small ivory box of cold cream from the dressing-case, and, ascending the deck,—not as human creatures do by the companion-stairs, but along the companion-banisters, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... these famous Oriental stories most acceptably, and Mr. Batten's remarkable illustrations are all that can be desired. His genii are genii indeed, and his fairy princesses ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold

... returning to the tower and removing the traces of the two murders, the frightful punishment of climbing that tower, of touching those skeletons, of undressing them and burying them. That will be enough. We will not ask for more. We will not give it to the public to batten on and create a scandal which would recoil upon M. d'Aigleroche's niece. No, let us ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... clergyman in Waverley was a Laud; but they soon became tired of being Lauds, for Laud's Church, gewgawish and idolatrous as it was, was not sufficiently tinselly and idolatrous for them, so they must be Popes, but in a sneaking way, still calling themselves Church of England men, in order to batten on the bounty of the Church which they were betraying, and likewise have opportunities of corrupting such lads as might still resort ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... were as follows: Acting Master Commanding, John A. J. Brooks; Acting Ensign and Executive Officer, Milton Webster; Acting Master's Mates, Charles F. O'Neill and John Maddock; Acting Assistant Paymaster, J. Woodville Sands; Acting Assistant Surgeon, John M. Batten; Engineers—Second Assistant in charge, James M. Battin; Acting Third Assistant, John Minton; Acting Master and Pilot, John ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten

... to have been inventors of the loom. There were two kinds in use, one horizontal and the other perpendicular. Instead of a shuttle they used a stick with a hook at one end, which was used also as a batten. Herodotus says that it was the practice of the Egyptians to push the woof downwards, and this method is pictured in many paintings; but one representation found at Thebes shows a man pushing it upwards. The former method is, I believe, the one generally used by all nations, and ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd

... scorned to use their wings, they preferred walking to flying; one might kill them in millions, yet other, and hungrier millions would still come on, rejoicing in the death of their predecessors, as they now had not only men's eyes and wounds to eat, but could batten upon the bodies of their slaughtered friends also. Strange to say, we were not troubled here with ants; had we been, we should only have required a few spears stuck into us to complete our happiness. A very pretty view was to be obtained from the summit of any of the flat-topped hills ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... text reads "perenials" a seeming humility text reads "humilty" the fancy shops of Paree printed "Pare'" with accent on "e" tool-house, piggery, poultry-house, corn-crib text reads "con-crib" about the size of a common window button text unchanged: error for "batten"? to support the comb as it is built text reads "as t is" with blank space and why not hen's? apostrophe in original what she lays in winter must be subtracted text reads "substracted" should then be placed one inch below text reads "theu" the collections ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen

... George and Lady Kirkbank, with Lady Lesbia, should stay at his Berkshire place during the Henley week. He had a large steam launch, and the regatta was a kind of carnival for his intimate friends, who were not too proud to riot and batten upon the parvenu's luxurious hospitality, albeit they were apt to talk ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... January, 1844) of MacClelland and Griffith's 'Calcutta Journal of Natural History' contains, however, a very remarkable and decisive notice of the determination of the snow-line in the Himalaya. Mr. Batten, of the Bengal service, writes as follows from Camp Semulka, on the Cosillah River, Kumaon: "In the July, 1843, No. 14 of your valuable Journal of Natural History, which I have only lately had the ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... Wombold broke in. "Five thousand acres of prime valley land, all for a lot of failures to batten on, to farm, if you please, on salary, ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... consciousness of being considered a hero. Ducks and onions are the grand staple of Bermuda, but there was a fearful dearth of both at the time I speak of; a knot of young West India merchants, who, with heavy purses and large credits on England, had at this time domiciled themselves in St George's, to batten on the spoils of poor Jonathan, having monopolized all the good things of the place. I happened to be acquainted with one of them, and thereby had less reason to complain, but many a poor fellow, sent ashore on duty, had to put up with but Lenten fair at the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... I could. It seemed a rash thing to go down to the afterhold, where any one might batten me down. But, there being no help for it, I took the bucket and went. I filled it well up to the brim from the second cask, returned to deck, and handed it to the man who stood behind Martin. They took it, pretty respectfully, and went below, Martin still standing amidships, where he had ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... Wretch! I hurl back on you the denunciation with which, when we met three nights since, you would have crushed the victim of your own perfidy. You shall tread the path of your ambition childless and objectless and hopeless. Disease shall set her stamp upon your frame. The worm shall batten upon your heart. You shall have honours and enjoy them not; you shall gain your ambition, and despair; you shall pine for your son, and find him not; or, if you find him, you shall curse the hour in ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... profession of a sea-robber, for he was an out-and-out landsman and knew nothing whatever of nautical matters. He had been at sea but very little, and if he had heard a boatswain order his man to furl the keel, to batten down the shrouds, or to hoist the forechains to the topmast yard, he would have seen nothing out of the way in these commands. He was very fond of history, and very well read in the literature of the day. He was accustomed to the habits of good society, and knew a great deal about farming and horses, ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton

... and speak ill of her business. But she will be able to console herself for those and similar bitternesses by the knowledge that on the whole the world honours those who battle against ill-fortune without complaint far above the needy crowd of spongers who strive to batten without effort on the crumbs that fall from the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various

... indeed! She is the finest little craft that ever floated; and I shall love her as long as I live. In that great gale a week ago, she was under water half the time, I believe. We had to batten down everything, and lash ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic

... applied one end of the fife to his mouth, blew out all the flour, and in this humble imitation of the smoke of a gun, poor puss was run up to the batten, where she hung till she was dead. I am ashamed to say I did not attempt to save the kitten's life, although I caused her foul murder to be revenged ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... bore three Dane-axes or battle-axes in their coats armorial were very numerous in ancient times. It may chance to be of service to your Querist A.C. to be informed, that those of Devonshire which displayed these bearings were the following: Dennys, Batten, Gibbes, Ledenry, Wike, Wykes, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various

... a lifting of the eyebrows, and a pursing of the mouth, in an anxiety not altogether burlesque. He knew himself the prey of any one who chose to batten on him, and his hospitality was subject to frightful abuse. Perhaps Mr. Norton has somewhere told how, when he asked if a certain person who had been outstaying his time was not a dreadful bore, Longfellow answered, with angelic patience, "Yes; ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... credulity, has made Russia for two hundred years the happy hunting-ground of charlatans and impostors of various sorts claiming supernatural powers: clairvoyants, mediums, yogis, and all the rest of the tribe who batten on human weaknesses, and the perpetual desire to tear away the veil from the Unseen. It so happened that my chief at Lisbon had in his youth dabbled in the Black Art. Sir Charles Wyke was a dear old man, who had spent most of his Diplomatic career ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... for a distance of 2 feet from the forward end, and pouring boiling water over them, as was done with the snow shoes (page 39). Before bending the boards we had fixed screw eyes in the ends of each batten, except the forward one; a rope had been strung through these screw eyes and the ends were now tied to the head piece and drawn tight so as to bend the boards into a graceful curve. In this way the ropes were of service not only for curving ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond

... mad to batten on their own devilries, And mark what heaven-born splendours they could quell, She held him quivering ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... sheets of newspaper laid on the slab mantleshelf under the row of biscuit tins that held the groceries. I thought that his wife, or housekeeper, or whatever she was, was a clean and tidy woman about a house. I saw no woman; but on the sofa—a light, wooden, batten one, with runged arms at the ends—lay a woman's dress on a lot of sheets of old stained and faded newspapers. He looked at it in a puzzled way, knitting his forehead, then took it up absently and folded it. I saw then that it was a riding skirt and jacket. He bundled them into the newspapers ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson

... rapidly on the schooner. I could see the brass glisten on the tiller as it banged about; and still no soul appeared upon her decks. I could not choose but suppose she was deserted. If not, the men were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down, perhaps, and do what ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... garotter, or, indeed, a common thief Is very glad to batten on potatoes and on beef, Or anything, in short, that prison kitchens can afford, - A cut above the diet in a common ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert

... will draw all men unto Me?" There are times when the mind is lifted up by a master-emotion, arising one hardly knows how, nor whither leading; a feeling that takes charge of one, as a big wave is said to take charge of a boat when it destroys steerageway; an emotion so powerful that it does but batten on all which might be expected to clash with it. These are the periods when day and night are enveloped in one large state of mind, and life ceases to be a collection of discrete, semi-related moods. These are the dawns of the ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... act—that is to say, must make our escape—that same night, although the hatches were off, and all the boats were ashore. Of course the fact that the hatches were off was the merest trifle, for Gurney and I could soon clap them on and batten them down; but I did not at all like the idea of going to sea without even so much as a single boat on board; while, of all the boats belonging to the ship, I should most have preferred the longboat, because she was a fine, wholesome boat, and in the event of anything untoward happening we should ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... kinds,—political and social. The majority of the nation is certainly not, at the present day, Tory in political preferences, though there is still a large leaven of that feeling also. But very many persons who are political Liberals are social Tories: they venerate the aristocracy; they batten daily upon the "Court Circular"; they cling to class distinctions in theory, and still more in practice; they strain towards "good society" and social conformity; their ideal is "respectability." Indeed, it appears to me that comparatively very few English people ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... shrivelled rhizome—"was not identified. It may be a Palaeonophis—or it may not. It may be a new species, or even a new genus. And it was the last that poor Batten ever collected." ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... beef being apt to batten or fatten those that eat it. The cove has hushed the battner; i.e. has ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... world assurance of a man: This was your husband.—Look you now, what follows: Here is your husband; like a mildewed ear, Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes? You cannot call it love: for, at your age, The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have, Else, could you not have motion: but, sure, that sense ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... while I nailed a fifth athwartships on the deck at the point where I intended to rear my planks. The length of the battens being three inches more than the combined width of the three planks, the projecting ends of the top batten afforded me a very convenient shoulder for the support of my shrouds and stay, which I cut from my coil ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... cellar notice the windows. Does cold air leak through joints of sash and frame? If so, make them tight with batten strips or, if very loose, calk them with oakum. The window through which coal is delivered, of course, cannot be sealed so thoroughly as it may have to be opened now and then for additional fuel. Weatherstripping it as well as the ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... at their wheel's our meat, and anyone else who comes to take his place. Minus a steersman they're helpless; and then, Gates, if we can run alongside and batten down (is that what you call it?) their ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... the features you see here never were common—locks seven inches across; several windows without sashes, but with sturdy iron gratings and solid iron shutters. On the fourth floor the doorway communicating with the main house is entirely closed twice over, by two pairs of full length batten shutters held in on the side of the main house by iron hooks eighteen inches long, two to each shutter. And yet it was through this doorway that the ghosts—figuratively speaking, of course, for we are dealing with plain fact and history—got into ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... good to have been kept waiting ten years or more. You're spoilt; that's what's the matter with you. You got your heart's desire too easily. You think this world is your own damn playground. And it isn't. Understand? You're put here to work, not play; to develop yourself, not batten on other people. You won her like a man in the face of desperate odds. You paid a heavy price for her. But even so, you don't deserve to keep her if you forget that she has paid too. By Heaven, Piers, she must have loved you a mighty ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... among the disorderly and brutal classes as in dealing with the crimes of cunning and fraud of which certain wealthy men and big politicians were guilty. Mr. Sims in Chicago was particularly efficient in sending to the penitentiary numbers of the infamous men who batten on the "white slave" traffic, after July, 1908, when by proclamation I announced the adherence of our Government to the international agreement for the suppression of ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... the night when Lady Darnley and the Russian Prince and the Sneyds were there? and Davy saying that this Cornish friend was a very clever man, and that he was anxious to do him honour, and be kind? This Cornish friend was Mr., now Dr. Batten, at the head of Hertford College. He had with him a rosy-cheeked, happy-looking, open-faced son, of nine years old, whom we liked much, and whose countenance and manner gave the best evidence possible in favour ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... see, as I've told you, the convent isn't far from Monaco. I got off the Laconia there, to visit Esme, and when I came on board again, Monny and Mrs. East and Rachel came with me. They'd been in Italy and France, and had picked up Miss Guest, who was only too enchanted to batten on Monny's kindness and dollars. It was I who had engaged their staterooms, on a cable from Monny, long before. And if there were a spy anywhere, he might have the idea that I wanted to smuggle Esme out of her convent by ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... spanner, and bang me over the head. Not too hard; I don't want a cracked skull, only a splashed scalp. Then pile me where it will seem I crashed against a projection of some kind when the grapples took hold. That bunk edge will do. Batten the hatch, and cast off the grapples. I hope their automatic control is still working, otherwise my ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... of camp life proved to be monotonously dreary. Ivan was not of the type of man to press his popularity and batten upon it. Rather, flattery, and the inevitable toadyism of weaker natures, revolted him; and he began once more to retire into himself, and to live again with dreams, which now formed themselves round any ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... and apparently an industrious and willing race, do most of the work about here. A few boats and canoes are drawn up upon the beach. The atmosphere is heavy with the odor of ancient fish. The water-line is strewn with cast-off salmon heads and entrails. Indian dogs and big, fat flies batten there prodigiously. Acres of salmon bellies are rosy in the sun. The blood-red interiors of drying fish—rackfuls of them turned wrong side out—are the only bit of color in all Alaska. Everybody and everything is sombre ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... ourselves of the opportunity this number affords of upholding the poor author's right, of censuring the greedy spoliation of publishing tribe, who would live, batten, and fatten upon the despoiled labours of those whom their piracy starves—snatching the scanty crust from their needy mouths to pamper ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... madam,' he cried. 'You have made your choice, and shall abide by it; and those who, by their looks, indicate their resolution to abet your folly, shall not fare the better for their interference. Mate, call the crew! force the palantines below; and batten them down, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... glazedly Reflected. Upwards, upwards through the shadows, Through the lush sponginess of deep-sea meadows Where hare-lipped monsters batten, let me ply ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley

... shall have none of them. They and their like are the curse of Kosnovia. Who will pay taxes to keep me in the state that becomes a King? Not they. Who will benefit by good government and honest administration of the laws? Assuredly not they, for they batten on corruption; they are the maggots not the bees of industry. Over ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... feeling. Only this very morning, while passing the city hall, on his way to the office, he had seen the steps of that noble building disfigured by a fringe of job-hunting negroes, for all the world—to use a local simile—like a string of buzzards sitting on a rail, awaiting their opportunity to batten upon the helpless corpse of a ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... and in its recess a pair of trousers hung limply, while Henrietta's scant wardrobe was ranged along the black-painted wall outside. The long, cobweb-hung windows, bare of blind or curtain, showed a black-mirrored surface against the batten shutters. ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... Fell to dancing, the first time that ever I did in my life Have been so long absent that I am ashamed to go I took occasion to be angry with him Justice of God in punishing men for the sins of their ancestors Lady Batten to give me a spoonful of honey for my cold My great expense at the Coronacion She hath got her teeth new done by La Roche That I might not seem to be afeared The monkey loose, which did anger me, and so I did strike her Was kissing my wife, which ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger

... was having a hard time of it in Paris. There was no travelling public such as usually thronged Paris in search of pleasure and excitement and upon which she had been accustomed to batten. She was therefore forced to take up with an older and often inferior class of men which she would have scorned ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... uprose That obscure heritage of foes, The exceeding bitter heritage Which still a jealous God bestows From inappellable age to age, The ghostly worms that softly move Through every grey old corse of love And creep across the coffined years To batten on our blood and tears; And there were hooded shapes of death Gaunt and grey, cruel and blind, Stealing softly as a breath Through the woods that loured behind The City; hooded shapes of fear Slowly, slowly stealing near; While all the gloom that round them rolled With intertwisting ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... fancy: though ten times told, the tale to them never can be tedious; though dull "as the fat weed that grows on Lethe's bank," the jest for them has all the poignancy of satire: on the very offals, the garbage of wit, they can feed and batten. Happy they who can find in every jester the wit of Sterne or Swift; who else can wade through hundreds of thickly-printed pages to obtain for their reward such witticisms ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... fork, repeated it. "One thing! In Potsdam, on that cloudless July night, when the world, on which he proposed to batten, slept, toiled, feasted, fasted, occupied with its futile loves and hates, that thing must ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... fourteen inches wide, and at least one and a-half inches thick. These are to be tongued and grooved, so as to make a close joint, and nailed to the frame in a vertical manner. The joint is to be covered with a narrow strip, or batten, of one and a-half inch plank. These unplaned plank may be painted with two good coats and sanded, or they may be left to take such tints and complexion as time and the ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward

... are finely varnished, and packed in boxes or bundles for the market. Many sawn sticks, however, are supplied with bone and horn handles, which are fastened on with glue; and then of course there is less wood waste, as a larger number of them may be cut from one batten. ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... is dawning, Let her have a weaver's shuttle, 60 And a batten that shall suit it, And a loom of best construction, And a treadle of the finest. Make the weaver's chair all ready, For the damsel fix the treadle, Lay her hand upon the batten. Soon the shuttle shall be singing, And the treadle shall be thumping, Till the rattling fills ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... want to be a demagogue of a new sort: an honest one, if possible, who will tell the people they are blind and foolish, and neither flatter them nor batten on them. I have my heritage—an order I belong to. I have the blood of a line of handicraftsmen in my veins, and I want to stand up for the lot of the handicraftsmen as a good lot, in which a man may be better trained to all the best functions of his nature, than ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... again to congratulate myself an the co-operation of my friend Mr. J. D. Batten in giving beautiful or amusing form to the creations of the folk fancy of the Hindoos. It is no slight thing to embody, as he has done, the glamour and the humour both of the Celt and of the Hindoo. It is only a further proof that Fairy Tales ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs

... Gains overweening bulk. Prague harbored, first, Out of contemptuous ruth, a wretched band Of outcast paupers, gave them leave to ply Their money-lending trade, and leased them land On all too facile terms. Behold! to-day, Like leeches bloated with the people's blood, They batten on Bohemia's poverty; They breed and grow; like adders, spit back hate And venomed perfidy for Christian love. Thereat the Duke, urged by wise counsellors— Narzerad the statesman (half whose wealth was pledged To the usurers), abetted by the priest, Bishop of Olmutz, who had visited The Holy ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... gets good an' hard, this arsenic-tallow does, an' then Coyote drags the timber thus reg'lated out onto the plains to what he regyards as a elegible local'ty an' leaves it for the wolves to come an' batten on. Old Coyote will have as many as a dozen of these sticks of timber, all bored an' framed up with arsenic-tallow, scattered about. Each mornin' while he's wolfin', Coyote makes a round-up an' skins an' ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... Sposi in English, and I found and read it when I was a small girl. It was very long, and perhaps I should find it a little dull now though I hope not, for I loved it then, reading in delicious secrecy and stealth, because the Sisterhood doesn't allow youthful pupils to batten on love stories, no matter how old-fashioned. I hadn't thought of the book for years; but evidently its story had been lying all this time carefully put away in a parcel, gathering dust on some forgotten shelf in my brain, for down it tumbled at the mention of ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... by stress of weather. She had been out seven weeks, and had many sick on board. The gale increasing in the afternoon, it was determined to run for greater safety to Catwater; but the buoy at the extremity of the reef off Mount Batten having broke adrift, of which the pilots were not aware, she touched on the shoal, and carried away her rudder. Thus rendered unmanageable, she fell off, and grounded under the citadel, where, beating round, ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... W. Batten, Pen, and myself, went to church to the churchwardens, to demand a pew, which at present could not be given us; but we are resolved to have one built. So we staid, and heard Mr. Mills, a very good minister. Home to dinner, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... feather of a thing that ever sat upon water. It had a complete flushed deck, with only a small hatch near the bow, and this hatch it had always been our custom to batten down when about to cross the Strom, by way of precaution against the chopping seas. But for this circumstance we should have foundered at once—for we lay entirely buried for some moments. How my elder brother escaped destruction I cannot say, for I ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... Thames from shore to shore;— For King or etiquette while nobles caring, To Buckingham-house by hundreds are repairing, With gorgeous Dames, to whom this day a bliss is; Accompanied by smiling lovely misses Of eager appetite, who long to gorge And batten on the favours of King George; While London's Mayor and Aldermen set out In Civic state, to grace the royal rout; While strut the Guards in black straps and white gaiters In honour of their Patron and Creators;{1}— While ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... of her except that she had been great and that she had been unhappy; and the descendants of the men who had thronged the theatre to see the Oedipus of Sophokles, sickening with that strange disease which makes the soul crave to batten on the fruits that are its poison, found a rare feast furnished forth in the imaginary history of the one great woman ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various

... frequent evils should have sprung from the inauguration of a system such as this. It became almost a religion to every Spanish official and trader to batten upon the unfortunate colonial, quite regardless of the fact that the pioneer settler was being strangled during the process. Since the hapless dweller in South America was not allowed to bargain or haggle, and was forced to take whatever was graciously ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... We had blown out ever clip, 'N' 'blooed the hammunition for the little box of tricks. Each took a batten in his fist. Sez Billy "Let 'er rip!" But Son he claws his stubble. Sez—he: "Hold a brace of ticks." Then "Yow!" he pipes 'n' "Strewth!" he sez, "it's bricks, ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... smallest advantages they afford him. Or, if I might here be indulged in a pastoral allusion, Paine tries to enclose his ideas in a fold for security and repose; Cobbett lets his pour out upon the plain like a flock of sheep to feed and batten. Cobbett is a pleasanter writer for those to read who do not agree with him; for he is less dogmatical, goes more into the common grounds of fact and argument to which all appeal, is more desultory and various, and appears less to be driving at a present conclusion than urged on by the ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... Lister agreed with a smile. "Last run we couldn't keep the water out of the stokehold. Had to cover and batten gratings, and then a boat fetched adrift and ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss

... the Vineyard; they might have taken it into their lonely old heads to run off with me. But heigh-ho! there are no caps at sea but snow-caps. Let me see. Nail down the lid; caulk the seams; pay over the same with pitch; batten them down tight, and hang it with the snap-spring over the ship's stern. Were ever such things done before with a coffin? Some superstitious old carpenters, now, would be tied up in the rigging, ere they would do the job. But ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... wits; it was tenderness which brought tears. She was not going to allow the brazen little beast to know or see what her words meant to her; she was not going to tell her of Michael's disappointment. If she had betrayed him and robbed him of Akhnaton's treasure, she was not going to let her batten on the suffering she ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... sketch is introduced here to show the method of using the batten stick represented in Fig. 546. There is not a family among the Pueblos or Navajos that does not possess the necessary implements for weaving blankets, belts and garters. Figs. 500-502 will convey an idea of the variety in design and coloring which prevails in this class ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Indians of New Mexico in 1880 • James Stevenson

... of Sabbath days. The devil himself, by virtue of his rank, takes his place in the east, rising we have no doubt from the very spot on which the pulpit once had stood. In the church had superstition exorcised this hellish legion out of the dead mass of ignorance into the swarming maggots that batten on corruption; and it was in accordance with the eternal fitness of things that here their spirits should abide, and, when they took bodily shape, that they should assume the form and feature in which their mother Superstition ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

... bookmakers; we have then an outer circle, composed partly of stainless gentlemen who do not bet and who want no man's money, partly of perfectly honest fellows who have no judgment, no real knowledge, and no self-restraint, and who serve as prey on which the bookmakers batten. ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... he said, "high water soon, and den ship go in smooth—batten down hatches though, case sea ...
— The African Trader - The Adventures of Harry Bayford • W. H. G. Kingston

... was drawing the batten blinds together. Her ivory-white arms gleamed in the sun. For a moment they could see her face shining like a star against the dusky glooms within; then the bolt was shot sharply to ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... her womanhood, that the red cross of Cain blazes upon her brow. Realizing that she is a social outcast, a moral pariah, she becomes reckless, defiant, and finally glories in betraying the fool who trusts her. No matter how fair the mountain upon which she has leave to feed, she will batten on the moor. Love was her excuse when first she went astray, and she hugs the delusion to her heart that Cupid can sanctify a crime; but where honor spreads not its wings of snow love perishes in the fierce simoon of lust. The man with whom she enters the ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... to batten down the curtains on the weather side. But the boat rose gracefully on the billows, and did not scoop up any water in doing so. Boxes, barrels, and other movable articles were secured, and the captain was delighted with the working ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... would turn from his course for them! Spiders o' hell! I'll strike my topmast to Death himself first—so the devil go with them! The blind gods may crush—they shall not conquer! They may kill—but I snap my fingers in their faces to the death! A pretty pickle, indeed! Batten down the hatches, Ramsay. Lend Jean a hand to get the guns ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... not the poor; we only rob the rich—those arrogant, purse-proud rogues who batten and fatten on what they wring from the poor," answered, in quick, scornful accents, the man who appeared to be the leader of this little band. "On them we have scant pity. They have but stolen, in cunning though lawful fashion, what we wrest from them, lawlessly it may be, yet ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... I find it very convenient not to have it made all of one plate of glass, but to divide it so that about four plates make the whole easel of five feet high. These plates slip in grooves, and can be let in either at the top or bottom, the latter being then stopped by a batten and thumbscrews. By this means a light of any length can be painted in sections without a break. For supposing you work from below upwards, and have done the first five feet of the window, take out all the glass except the top plate, shift this down to the bottom, and place three ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall

... five hundred English adventurers who swarmed to Canada on the heels of the English army thought to batten on the sixty thousand defeated French inhabitants, far otherwise thought and decreed the English generals, Sir Jeffrey {277} Amherst, and Murray, who succeeded him. "You will observe that the French are British ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... till hair had clothed his cheek, * And gloom o'ercrept that side-face (sight to stagger!) A fawn, when eyes would batten on his charms, * Each glance deals thrust ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... that. But look, sir; if you should be late, and they come up with us in boats, or warn the forts at the entrance, mind, we cannot fight; you must send us all below, with your swords and pistols, you see, and batten us down, so that we shan't be responsible, else I could never show my face in a French ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... "Clasp not my knees, vile dog! nor speak to me of parents! Such evil hast thou done me, that I could devour thee raw! Not for thy weight in gold would I give thee to thy queenly mother, to mourn over thee; but dogs and birds shall batten on thy flesh!" ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... a sectional view of the bearer joint to front leg, and also the half-round seat battens resting on the bearer, also showing them with their edges planed. It is advisable to have a space between the edges of each batten, say about 1-8 in., to allow rainwater to drain. The ends of the seat battens are pared away to fit the transverse rails neatly as shown in Fig. 2. The struts for the post range in diameter from 1-1/2 in. to 2 in. The ends ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... placed over the hatchway. Perhaps the crew were about to batten down the hatches. In vain I tried, while this was going forward, to strike the cask. I had not sufficient strength to do it. A fearful faintness was coming over me. Perhaps the movement of the ship contributed to this. I think I must have fainted, ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston

... at Sutter's Fort was part of a long, low, single-story adobe building outside the fortification walls, and like others that were occupied by belated travellers, was the barest and crudest structure imaginable. It had an earthen floor, a thatched roof, a batten door, and an opening in the rear wall ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... liberality of the gaming-house keepers, and to loiter round the brunnens of more or less nauseous flavour, the pretext of resort to this rendezvous of idlers and gamblers. The waiters had disappeared to batten on the broken meats from the public table, and to doze away the time till the approach of supper renewed their activity. My interlocutor, with whom I was alone in the deserted apartment, was a man of about thirty years of age, whose dark ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... a daughter, but she had run away from them to batten on the husks of city life, and had prospered exceedingly. It was her parents who heard of her fame and had journeyed to the city to ask her forgiveness and throw themselves on her neck. Kedzie was now wonderful ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... they never drove afield, and that they had no flocks to batten; and, though it be allowed that the representation may be allegorical, the true meaning is so uncertain and remote, that it is never sought, because it cannot be known when ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... your true Creole was, and still continues to be, properly, yea, delightfully un-American; the outside of his house may be as rough as the outside of a bird's nest; it is the inside that is for the birds; and the front room of this house, when the daughter presently threw open the batten shutters of its single street door, looked as bright and happy, with its candelabra glittering on the mantel, and its curtains of snowy ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... was his reply, 'but the country's at stake, the Empire's at stake! Truth, righteousness, liberty are at stake! If we don't win in this war, German devilry will rule the world, and shall the country allow the Trade, as it calls itself, to batten upon the vitals of the nation? That's why I am bewildered. I told you just now that perhaps I look at things differently from what I ought to look at them. I have lost all memory of my past life, and I judge these things by their face value, without any preconceived notions ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking

... that," he whispered back; "there's a crack like this with a movable batten over on the other side. You can stand on the platform, pull down the strip of wood, and get in quite a decent light from the other cell. It is a light cell like mine; and right above it you'll find the board ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung

... and Tories, vibrates between coffee-house and tea-table. He annoys his daughter by sometimes calling her 'Belinda,' and astonishes his wife with his mock-heroic apostrophes to her hood and patches. He reads his Spectator at breakfast while other people batten upon newspapers only three hours old. He smiles over the love-letters of Richard Steele, and reverences the name and the writings of Joseph Addison. Indeed, his devotion to Addison is so radical that he has actually been guilty ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... destinies of the country should not be trusted to either or any of the jarring factions, which like unclean birds of evil omen hover darkling around, already disputing with horrid dissonance possession of the carcase on which they hope to batten. At the Station Hotel, Limerick Junction, a warm Nationalist said to me, "The country will be ruined with those blackguards. We have a right to Home Rule, an abstract right to manage our own affairs, and I believe ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... its governor, Josiah Winslow, with the younger William Bradford; Massachusetts by William Stoughton, Simon Bradstreet, and Thomas Danforth. These strong men were confronted with a difficult problem. From Batten's journal, kept during that disastrous summer, we learn the state of feeling of excitement in Boston. The Puritans had by no means got rid of that sense of corporate responsibility which civilized man has inherited from prehistoric ages, and which has been one of the ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... get down, gulp down; lay in, tuck in*; lick, pick, peck; gormandize &c. 957; bite, champ, munch, cranch[obs3], craunch[obs3], crunch, chew, masticate, nibble, gnaw, mumble. live on; feed upon, batten upon, fatten upon, feast upon; browse, graze, crop, regale; carouse &c. (make merry) 840; eat heartily, do justice to, play a good knife and fork, banquet. break bread, break one's fast; breakfast ,lunch, dine, take tea, sup. drink in, drink up, drink one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... while he lived And flourished. Heaven hath turned this turbulence To fall instead upon the harmless flock. Wherefore no strength of man shall once avail To encase his body with a seemly tomb, But outcast on the wide and watery sand, He'll feed the birds that batten on the shore. Nor let thy towering spirit therefore rise In threatening wrath. Wilt thou or not, our hand Shall rule him dead, howe'er he braved us living, And that by force; for never would he yield, Even while he lived, ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... I've tried other things, but my thoughts always come back to the Hands. I'm proud of your success you know. I want to—to batten on it. And I want to carry it on. I have ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... Codrington's fleet just home from the battle of Navarino. Even then, as a mere boy, I was struck by the grand symmetry of that ample basin: the break water—then unfinished—lying across the centre; the heights of Bovisand and Cawsand, and those again of Mount Batten and Mount Edgecumbe, left and right; the citadel and the Hoe across the bottom of the Sound, the southern sun full on their walls, with the twin harbours and their forests of masts, winding away into dim distance on each side; and behind all and above all, the purple range of Dartmoor, with the ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... I wrote a book for your Mummey—when she was my little May—telling the fairy tales which the little boys and girls of England used to hear from their mummeys, who had heard them from their mummeys years and years and years before. My friend Mr. Batten made such pretty pictures for it—but of course you know the book—it has "Tom, Tit, Tot" and "The little old woman that went to market," and all those tales you like. Now I have been making a fairy-tale book ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs

... I have it, leave me; y'are infectious, the plague and leprosie of your baseness spreading on all that do come near you; such as you render the Throne of Majesty, the Court, suspected and contemptible; you are Scarabee's that batten in her dung, and have no palats to taste her curious Viands; and like Owles, can only see her night deformities, but with the glorious splendor of her beauties, you are struck blind as Moles, that undermine the ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... gentle badinage. "I love the plot-interest of the game," he said, "and so does dear Jessie here. We both of us adore it. As long as I find such good pickings upon you, I certainly am not going to turn away from so valuable a carcass, in order to batten myself, at considerable trouble, upon minor capitalists, out of whom it is difficult to extract a few hundreds. It may have puzzled you to guess why I fix upon you so persistently. Now you know, and understand. When a fluke finds a sheep that suits ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... to get at the fire on account of the small hatchway, and notwithstanding the laboured efforts of all hands, we were at last obliged to batten the hatches down and to trust to a lucky 'slant' to put us within hail of assistance. The water which we had so fruitlessly poured below had all to be pumped out again to get the ship in sailing trim; and heart-breaking work it was, with the wheezy old pump sucking every time the ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone

... way the Irish representation now stands, eighty-six men in favor of making Ireland a nation, eighteen wanting to keep her a province, and a province on which they can selfishly batten. The elections in every way have borne out the forecast of the Irish leaders, who calculated eighty-five as the minimum strength of the National party. Mr. Gladstone will now be gratified to learn that in response to his late Midlothian addresses, this nation has spoken out in a manner which cannot ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various

... sacrifices could not be carried on into his cult, if Waitz-Gerland (vi. 811) are right in saying that the Australians have no ancestor-worship. The Kurnai ghosts 'were believed to live upon plants,'[13] which are not offered to them. Chill ghosts, unfed by men, would come to waning camp-fires and batten on the broken meats. The Ngarego and Wolgal held, more handsomely, that Tharamulun (Darumulun) met the just departed spirit 'and conducted it to its future home beyond the sky.'[14] Ghosts might also accompany relics of ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... otherwise have possessed. There was loss, there was discredit, in having recourse to such characters, when honest wants could be fairly supplied by upright men, and on liberal terms. Such reptiles have been confined in Scotland to batten upon their proper prey of folly, and feast, like worms, on the corruption ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... with the one spear smote the shield, but pierced it not right through, for the gold stayed it, the gift of a god; and with the other he grazed the elbow of Achilles' right arm, and there leapt forth dark blood, but the point beyond him fixed itself in the earth, eager to batten on flesh. Then in his turn Achilles hurled on Asteropaios his straight-flying ash, fain to have slain him, but missed the man and struck the high bank, and quivering half its length in the bank he left the ashen spear. Then the son of ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... early on this day; and the vain fellow says he made himself as fine as could be, putting on his velvet coat for the first time, though he had it made half a year before. "And being ready," he continues, "Sir W. Batten, my lady, and his two daughters, and his son and wife, and Sir W. Pen and his son and I, went to Mr. Young's, the flag-maker, in Corne-hill; and there we had a good room to ourselves, with wine and good cake, and saw the show very well. In which it is impossible to ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... ill-omened creatures who feed upon the misfortunes of their kind, and stand on shore in foul weather hoping the worst, instead of praying for the best: briefly, a wrecker. He and his comrade, Jacques Moinard, had heard the Agra's gun fired, and came down to batten on the wreck: but ho! at the turn of the tide, there were gensdarmes and soldiers lining the beach, and the Bayonet interposed between Theft and Misfortune. So now the desperate pair were prowling about like ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... Unfortunately no such records as to height, etc., are kept about officers, and my search proved fruitless, more especially as the records at Woolwich for the period required were destroyed by fire some years ago. The best evidence I have obtained is that of General Gordon's tailors, Messrs Batten & Sons, of Southampton, who write: "We consider, by measurements in our books, that General Gordon was 5 ft. 9 in." As he had contracted a slight stoop, or, more correctly speaking, carried his head thrown forward, he looked in later life ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... and sickly, and therefore in most need of attention. But he greatly improved his acquaintance with William Webster; and although he had now so much to occupy him, would not be satisfied until he was able to drive the shuttle, and work the treadles and the batten, and, in short, turn out almost as good a bit of linen as William himself—only he wanted about twice as ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald

... batten' des like lightnen', 'Ef I ketch you hangin' 'roun' dis place agin', Gus, I'll jump on you en stomp ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... protective duties were for "the people" of the United States. She might not know how Hood, employed to evade the laws enacted to hedge and restrain his master, bribed and bought, schemed and contrived, lobbied, traded, and manipulated, that his owner might batten on his blood-stained profits, while he kept his face turned away from the scenes of carnage, and his ears stopped against the piteous cries of his driven slaves. But she did know how needless it all was, and how easy, oh! how pitiably easy, it would be to remedy every such condition, would the master ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... McAfee Missions Striking Home McAfee The Church and the New Age Henry Carver American Social and Religious Conditions Charles Stelzle The Church of To-morrow J. II. Crooker The Social Task of Christianity Samuel Zane Batten The Christian ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen

... He, the son of honorable parentage, was feeding pigs and eating with them, while even the hired servants at home had good food in plenty and to spare. He realized not alone his abject foolishness in leaving his father's well-spread table to batten with hogs, but the unrighteousness of his selfish desertion; he was not only remorseful but repentant. He had sinned against his father and against God; he would return, confess his sin, and ask, not to be reinstated as a son, but to ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... Red Doctor diagnosing internal complications in a doodle-bug; of MacLachan (drunk) singing "The Cork Leg" and MacLachan (sober) repenting thereof; of Bartholomew Storrs offering samples of his mortuary poesy to a bereaved second-cousin; and, having decked out her chin in cotton-batten whiskers (limb of Satan!), of myself proffering sage counsel and pious admonitions to Our Square at large. Having concluded, she sat down on a bench and coughed. And the Little Red Doctor, who, from the shelter ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... was not displeased to keep the lad in low conversation. The song had let loose a flood of jest and anecdote which lost none of their ribaldry in the telling. They were ill suited for a boy to hear and batten on. ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... all this without any the least blur or obstruction in the world, that could give an offence to any, and with the great honour he thought it would be to him. Being overtook by the brigantine, my Lord and we went out of our barge into it, and so went on board with Sir W. Batten, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... aboard, and a jolly, turbulent set they were. They decorated the ship from stem to gudgeon in all sorts of unexpected places, and almost disorganized my Lascars, snatching them off duty to pose as models. I had to threaten to driven 'em below at the rope's end, and batten down the hatches, to bring them to reason. But they made fun for us the whole voyage, and I was sorry to see the last of ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... communications became one of the decisive factors in Russia's disasters. And it was heightened by the conduct of, shall we say, the prussianized officials,[123] who are reported to have disposed of waggons for large sums to greedy merchants, who used to raise the prices of the merchandise and batten on ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... bay. At half-past two on July 12th, the anchor was raised, the cat falls manned, and we bade New York good-by once more. A brisk northeast breeze was blowing, kicking up an uncomfortable sea, and when Sandy Hook was passed it became necessary to close all ports and batten down hatches. ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... to lie to. Ask old D. what that means, if you can't understand my description of it. The principle of it is to set two small sails, one fore and one aft, lash the rudder (wheel) amidships, make all snug, put on hatches, batten everything down, and trust to ride out the storm. As the vessel falls away from the wind by the action of one sail, it is brought up to it again by the other-sail. Thus her head is always kept to the wind, and she meets the seas, which if they caught her on ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... readers and fewer students. The person known as "the general reader" is nowadays fond of literary dram-drinking—he wants small pleasant doses of a stimulant that will act swiftly on his nerves; and, if he can get nothing better, he will contentedly batten on the tiny paragraphs of detached gossip which form the main delight of many fairly intelligent people. Books are cheap and easily procured, and the circulating library renders it almost unnecessary for any one to buy books at all. In myriads of houses ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... fertility of his invention and his consistent improvement in technique. The series, "Fairy Tales of the British Empire," collected and edited by Mr. Jacobs, already include five volumes—English, More English, Celtic, More Celtic, and Indian, all liberally illustrated by J. D. Batten, as are "The Book of Wonder Voyages," by J. Jacobs (Nutt), and "Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights," edited by E. Dixon, and a second series, both published by Messrs. J. M. Dent and Co. "A Masque of Dead Florentines" (Dent) can hardly be brought ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White

... Sometimes also the juices oozing from the putrid meat soak a small extent of the sandy floor. That is enough for the maggot's first establishment. These causes of failure are avoided with a layer of sand about an inch thick. Then the bluebottle, the flesh fly and other flies whose grubs batten on dead bodies are kept ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... world assurance of a man. This was your Husband. Looke you now what followes. Heere is your Husband, like a Mildew'd eare Blasting his wholsom breath. Haue you eyes? Could you on this faire Mountaine leaue to feed, And batten on this Moore? Ha? Haue you eyes? You cannot call it Loue: For at your age, The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waites vpon the Iudgement: and what Iudgement Would step from this, to this? What diuell was't, That ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... with a thin layer of damp kelp and put in the potatoes. Another layer of sea-weed, then the roasting-ears. After that come the fish, wrapped in paper. Then the mussels, clams or anything else you want. When you get them all in, cover the whole thing with a lot of heavy kelp and batten it down with a big piece of canvas. The whole trick is knowing just when to open the oven. Nothing can burn so it's better to leave it too long than ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... old Lincolnshire family. Beyond the fact that he was knighted by Charles I., nothing is known of his career until in 1646 he received a naval command. Through the latter years of the first civil war, Ayscue seems to have acted as one of the senior officers of the fleet. In 1648, when Sir William Batten went over to Holland with a portion of his squadron, Ayscue's influence kept a large part of the fleet loyal to the Parliament, and in reward for this service he was appointed the following year admiral of the Irish Seas. For his conduct at the relief of Dublin he ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... arose and hung about us in clouds, with a humming sound as of sawmills far away. But this was long before you took your malaria of mosquitoes, and we minded them no more than little children mind them to-day. Indeed, I can keep peacefully still even now to watch a mosquito batten and fatten upon my hand, to see his ravenous, pale abdomen swell to a vast smug redness—that physiological, or psychological, moment for which you wait ere ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... do this? It is most unreasonable to flee the knowledge of good like the infection of a horrible disease, and batten and grow fat in the real atmosphere of a lazar-house. This was my first thought; but my second was not like unto it, and I saw that our satirist was wise, wise in his generation, like the unjust steward. He does not want light, because the darkness is more pleasant. He does not wish ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson



Words linked to "Batten" :   batten down, batting, strip, fortify, stuffing, beef up



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