Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Batten   Listen
noun
Batten  n.  The movable bar of a loom, which strikes home or closes the threads of a woof.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Batten" Quotes from Famous Books



... high 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 ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... 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 to try ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... 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 which he was born. Mark me, man,—I am dying while I speak,—I know that I am a prophet in my ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Boy at Public Schools Regard his books with fear and loathing, From Latin's arbitrary rules Deriving practically nothing:— He said,—"O bounding human Boys, Of all the fare whereon you batten, What chiefly mars your simple joys?" With one ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... sports of 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 ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... and June putting the spinning wheel and the loom to actual use. Sometimes he found a cabin of unhewn logs with a puncheon floor, clapboards for shingles and wooden pin and auger holes for nails; a batten wooden shutter, the logs filled with mud and stones and holes in the roof for the wind and the rain. Over a pair of buck antlers sometimes lay the long heavy home-made rifle of the backwoodsman—sometimes even with a flintlock ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... 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, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... should summon them to the excellent band of music, provided by the calculating 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 hair and mustaches, marked features, spare person, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... possessed the sins of the butterfly and the latent possibilities of a Judith. She was the most interesting feminine problem he had in his long years encountered. The mother mildly amused him, for he could discern the character that she was sedulously striving to batten down beneath inane social usages and formalities. Some day she would revert to the original type, and then he would be glad to renew the acquaintance. In rather a shamefaced way (a sensation he could not quite analyze) he loved the father. The pugilist ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... in our minds as the 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 with ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... his 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 ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... 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

... gentleman opportunely came up within a minute or two to attend him to the Snuggery. It was the gentleman Clennam had seen on the night of his own accidental detention there, who had that impalpable grievance about the misappropriated Fund on which the Marshal was supposed to batten. He presented himself as deputation to escort the Father to the Chair, it being an occasion on which he had promised to preside over the assembled Collegians in the enjoyment ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... 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

... as belonging to covetousness which he calls illiberality, for he speaks of those who are "sparing, tight-fisted, skinflints [*kyminopristes], misers [*kimbikes], who do illiberal deeds," and of those who "batten on whoredom, usurers, gamblers, despoilers of the dead, and robbers." Therefore it seems that ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... sailing-master who seemed a sober and competent officer. They were seen to confer earnestly, as though the safety of the ship were uppermost in their minds. Soon the pirates of the prize crew were ordered to stow and secure all light sail and pass extra lashings about the boats and batten the hatches. They worked slowly, some of them shaking with fever, nor could kicks and curses and the sting of the whistling cat make them turn to smartly. The sailing-master signaled the Revenge to send off more hands but Blackbeard was either drunk ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... 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 Peleus drew his sharp sword from his thigh and ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... City 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 ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten

... I kin jus' see our old homeplace on de plantation down dar now. Lula a-washin' here, makes me study 'bout de old washplace on Marse Henry's plantation. Dere was a long bench full of old wood tubs, and a great big iron pot for bilin' de clothes, and de batten block and stick. Chillun beat de clothes wid de batten stick and kept up de fire 'round de pot whilst de 'omans leaned over de tubs washin' and a-singin' dem old songs. You could hear 'em 'most a mile away. Now and den one of de 'omans would stop singin' long enough ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... first 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 as a ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... there been seen. To send a true voice over, for delight and support of earnest workers who open their hearts wide to a good book in a way that we can hardly understand,—we who live wastefully in the midst of plenty, and are apt sometimes to leave to feed on the fair mountain and batten on the moor,—is worth the while of any man of genius who puts his soul into his ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner

... around her deck—that was no harm. "Tarpaulin her hatches, clamp 'em down, and let her roll!"—that had been Captain Norman's word coming out of Hampton Roads. And "Batten her down and let her plug into it!" had come roaring across to us at almost the same moment from the deck of the Orion. And no more than into the open Atlantic than we were plugging into it. The sea came mounting up over our low lee-rails—up, up our swash-swept decks, clear across us sometimes, ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly

... Riis calls the gang a club run wild. They have their own ideality and a gaudy pinchbeck honor. A young tough, when arrested, wrenched away the policeman's club, dashed into the street, rescued a baby from a runaway, and came back and gave himself up. They batten on the yellowest literature. Those of foreign descent, who come to speak our language better than their parents, early learn to despise them. Gangs emulate each other in hardihood, and this is one cause of epidemics in crime. They passionately love ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... complained of the Plague that is Scarlet—moaned and cried out and turned in her misery.... But ye failed me. Then my peoples were weaklings and their hearts all were craven; the Scarlet Evil dismayed them; they fled from its power and left it to batten on ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... 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 one of three topics: first and highest, his music, at which he had begun again to work; ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... Hoe, one point after another that catches the eye suggests a fresh train of ideas. To the east is Sutton Pool, with its coasting vessels and fishing-boats; south, across the Cattewater, lies Mount Batten, whose round tower recalls the long and resolute defence of the town in the Civil War. Still farther south are the high grounds of Plymstock and Bovisand, with their modern fortifications; to the north stretches the town ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... 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 ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... Zoeth! I'll calm down. But as for swearin'—well, if you knew how full of cusswords I was there one spell you wouldn't find fault; you'd thank me for holdin' 'em in. I had to batten down my hatches to do it, though; I ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... 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)

... stranger 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 ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... 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, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... 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 ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... greets me now. Probably the Free Libraries have supplanted the flickering shop lights; and every lad and lass can enter and call for Miss Braddon and batten thereon "in luxury's sofa-lap of leather''; and of course this boon is appreciated and profited by, and we shall see the divine results in a year or two. And yet sometimes, like the dear old Baron in the "Red ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame

... men 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

... 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, to words from me. And yet It shows ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... 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

... shouted Dan as they struggled out of the hold. "You've done all I can ask. Hurry! Get out!" and they got out and then turned to batten the hatch cover down. But the rush of fire was too swift to be denied. A thick-bodied pillar choked through the opening and spouted to the top of the funnel—great gouts of the devouring element pulsed softly, but with lightning swiftness, down ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry

... getting up now to do the business of a man; and am I out of humor for going about that which I was made for, and for the sake of which I was sent into the world? Was I then designed for nothing but to doze and batten beneath the counterpane? I thought action had been the end ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... been steamed. The boards were steamed by wrapping them in burlap 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 ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond

... 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 young ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins

... sometimes of opulence, through the unlatched wicket in some porte-cochere—red-painted brick pavement, foliage of dark palm or pale banana, marble or granite masonry and blooming parterres; or through a chink between some pair of heavy batten window-shutters, opened with an almost reptile wariness, your eye gets a glimpse of lace and brocade upholstery, silver and bronze, ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... 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

... 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 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, ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... knife he pried up the end of a batten until he could get his fingers beneath it. Then he pulled, and it came away. A light strip from side to side marked where it had been. Three times more he pried and pulled, and the outer transverse pieces lay on the snow. ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... Batten, University of California, Los Angeles George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles Nancy M. Shea, William Andrews Clark ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)

... farm-houses in the parishes nearest to the town. Yet, as a warning that all was not their own, four frigates and two line-of-battle ships, with a commission from the rebel government of London, and flying the broad pennant of Admiral Batten, cruised between Jersey and Guernsey, never far from sight, although giving for the most part a wide berth to both the island castles, whose gunners watched them night ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene

... no less provocative of the appetite, than he is satisfactory to the criticalness of the censorious palate. The strong man may batten on him, and the weakling refuseth not ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... governments 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 ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... (see Indian Fairy Tales, pp. 305 ff.), the Philippines may easily have derived it directly from India along with other Buddhistic fables (e.g., "The Monkey and the Crocodile," No. 56, below). Indeed, Batten's ingenious explanation that the Brer Rabbit of Negro lore is a reminiscence of an incarnation of Buddha may be applied equally well to the monkey in our Visayan tales, for the monkey is a much more common form ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... 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 of a shrub ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... 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 ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd

... she has two maids 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 ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger

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

... 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 shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, If thou canst ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare

... Colonel Baum, who, with about a thousand Germans, Indians, Canadians, and refugee loyalists, started out from camp on his maraud, on the eleventh, halted at Batten-Kill on the twelfth, and reached Cambridge on the thirteenth. He was furnished with Tory guides, who knew the country well, and with instructions looking to a long absence from ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake

... 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 ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White

... through the list of Mayors of the city from 1654 to 1887, we notice nearly twenty of the names as having been given by Dickens to his characters, viz. Robinson, Wade, Brooker, Clarke, Harris, Burgess, Head, Weller, Baily, Gordon, Parsons, Pordage, Sparks, Simmons, Batten, Saunders, Thomson, Edwards, and Budden. The name of Jasper also occurs as a tradesman several times in the city, but we are informed that this is a recent introduction. In the Cathedral burying-ground occur the names of Fanny Dorrett and Richard Pordage. Dartle, ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... 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 ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... 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

... 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 at a ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... understanding of the proud and ardent 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 civil ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... 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

... 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

... past had been very unsettled. This afternoon the wind blew fresh from the north-west, which occasioned the sea to break very high across the Dolphin bank; and in the night such a heavy broken sea came into the bay that we were obliged to batten all the hatchways down, and to keep everybody upon deck all night though the rain came down in torrents. The ship rolled in ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh

... 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 like point ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... spread of canvas that we are showing. But it will be bad enough when it comes, I doubt not; so go below and call Murdock, the cook, and the cabin boy, and say I want them to come on deck, as I am about to batten down the fore scuttle. And when eight bells comes, you will have to go aft and stretch yourselves out on the cabin lockers, for the forecastle will be closed until ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... 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 ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... 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

... 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 ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... 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 ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... 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 subjects as much as we are, and treat them accordingly," ruled Amherst; and General ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... Sweep to accordant tones thy tuneful harp, And, 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 ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... Business men, although Home Rulers, agree that the 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 in the principle. But I want such men as Andrew Jameson, or Jonathan ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... harbour, were fishing canoes. These canoes were of unequal sizes, some thirty feet long, two broad, and three deep; and they are composed of several pieces of wood clumsily sewed together with bandages. The joints are covered on the outside by a thin batten champered off at the edges, over which the bandages pass. They are navigated either by paddles or sails. The sail is lateen, extended to a yard and boom, and hoisted to a short mast. Some of the large canoes have two sails, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... 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 the beam or the quarter would very ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... bo'sun had started to cut through the topmast, about fifteen feet beyond the first cut, for that was the length of the batten he required; yet so wearisome was the work, that we had not gotten more than half through with it before the man whom the bo'sun had sent, returned to say that the dinner was ready. When this was dispatched, and we had rested a little over our pipes, ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson

... been 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, for I cannot recollect what happened. I ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston

... younger John Winthrop, who was still governor of Connecticut. Plymouth was represented by 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 ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... 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 ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... lord and lady's passion, And fostered every vice in fashion. But Jove was wrath—loves not the liar— He sent me here to cool my fire, Retained my nature—but he shaped My form to suit the thing I aped, And sent me in this shape obscene, To batten in a sylvan scene. How different is your lot and mine! Lo! how you eat, and drink, and dine; Whilst I, condemned to thinnest fare, Like those I flattered, feed on air. Jove punishes what man rewards;— Pray you accept ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... I want you to keep cool and 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

... 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 sumptuous Building that allow'd you shelter: you stick like running ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... 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 are something more than Celtic ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs

... was 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 before the nation ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... my meaning will shortly appear. We have more 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 in town ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... by side, 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 ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... throw that lady into the sea, living or dead," said Mr. Thompson, with an ominous lift of his eye, "you go with her, Mr. Batten. Remember who brought her ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... which there are man, wife, young woman, and a daughter of about fourteen years of age; the young woman and daughter sleep in a kind of box under the man and his wife. In another part of the yard is a Gipsy tent, where God's broad earth answers the purpose of a table, and a "batten of straw" serves as a bed. There is a woman, two daughters, one of whom is of marriageable age and the other far in her teens, and a youth I should think about sixteen years of age. I should judge that the mother and her two daughters sleep on one bed at one end of the tent ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... continued, "that scoundrels exist in our country who are viler than the most cowardly murderers,—men who trade in the shameful secrets that they have learned, and batten upon the money they earn by their odious trade? I heard of such creatures before, but declined to believe it; for I said to myself that such an idea only existed in the unhealthy imaginations of novel writers. It seems, however that I was in ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... 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 ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... legs of exactly the same length, and square top and bottom. Then cut off two 22-inch lengths of the 6 by 1 inch wood, squaring the ends carefully. Two of the legs are laid on the floor, one end against the wall or a batten nailed to the floor and arranged parallel to one another, as gauged by the piece C, which is nailed on perfectly square to both, and with its top edge exactly flush with ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams

... "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" ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen

... 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 it ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... justification. The Army Commander's opinion was 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 way both armies desired it, and the quiet, beautiful ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... 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 ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the man 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?) ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... 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 ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... spoke, When I did see her weep so ruefully; For sure my love should ne'er induce the front 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 thy power, ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... supped with him 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 ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... 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 brightness ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... 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 ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell

... maid and nurse, A Governess help'd to make still worse, Giving an appetite so perverse Fresh diet whereon to batten— Beginning with A B C to hold Like a royal playbill printed in gold On a square of ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... the twinkling of an eye. But, strangely enough, one grows to understand the Mountain better from a distance and by watching its moods from afar, like the Neapolitans themselves, who never ascend to probe its mysteries, except a few vulgar guides and touts who batten on the curiosity of ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... 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 ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... 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 ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... Well, I 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 whom, then, shall ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... fire was replenished. The door to the closet was gone, 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

... 4, 1666, Pepys recorded the burying of his pet Parmesan, "as well as my wine and some other things," in a pit in Sir W. Batten's garden. And on the selfsame fourth of September, more than a century later, in 1784, Woodforde in his Diary of ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown

... into Plymouth 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, she lay rolling heavily with her ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... parasitical and inquisitive mob. Why! they will rouse us at midnight next, and throw stones at our rotten old shutters. The effects of my last greeting lasted you for three weeks—to-day's I hope may act a little longer. You, gentlemen there, listen to me. Just as the raven follows an army to batten on the dead, so that fellow there stalks on in front of strangers in order to empty their pockets—and you, who call yourself an interpreter, and in learning Greek have forgotten the little Egyptian you ever knew, mark this: When you ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... 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 in ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... 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 ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... the common potato and gave up its old food-plants some years ago. Then perhaps a school or pack or flock of Octopus gigas would be found busy picking the sailors off a stranded ship, and then in the course of a few score years it might begin to stroll up the beaches and batten on excursionists. Soon it would be a common feature of the watering-places—possibly at last commoner than excursionists. Suppose such a creature were to appear—and it is, we repeat, a possibility, if perhaps a remote one—how could it be fought against? ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... 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 opportunity of seeing, I read Captain Hutton's paper ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... Indians, a hearty 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 ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... owners of slum property, all the grasping shipowners, all those who batten and fatten on other people's welfare in a most favourable light. We have been thinking them almost criminals when they were in reality public benefactors. They lead to many improvements, and even though the improvements come too late to benefit those who suffer from the evils, yet they ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... 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

... wet," 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 ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss

... When on the point of trying the virtue of a few kicks, I overheard a low laugh on deck, and that let me into the secret of the state of the nation at once. I suppose you will all admit, gentlemen, when sailors laugh at their officers, as well as batten them down, that they must be somewhat near ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... to their crews. The Porpoise was a fair sample of the type; a full-rigged brig of one hundred and thirty tons, heavily sparred, deep waisted, and carrying a battery of eight twenty-four-pound carronades and two long chasers; so wet that even in a moderate breeze or sea it was necessary to batten down; and so tender that she required careful watching; only five feet between decks, her quarters were necessarily cramped and uncomfortable, and, as far as possible, we lived on deck. With a crew of eighty all told, Lieutenant Thompson was in command, Lieutenant ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... recommends, amongst other things, that His Excellency should be allowed to choose his own advisers. By this Mr. Froude certainly does not mean that the advisers so chosen must be all pure-blooded Englishmen who have rushed from the destitution of home to batten on the cheaply ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... fiddler fiddle? I have. I heard a fiddler fiddle, and the hey-dey-diddle of his frolicking fiddle called back the happy days of my boyhood. The old field schoolhouse with its batten doors creaking on wooden hinges, its windows innocent of glass, and its great, yawning fireplace, cracking and roaring and flaming like the infernal regions, rose from the dust of memory and stood once more among the ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... careless as 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 ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... McNash Missions from the Home Base 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 State Samuel ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen

... Burgoyne moved down the east side of the Hudson, and threw a bridge of rafts over that river for the passage of his van, which took post at Saratoga. At the same time Lieutenant Colonel Brechman, with his corps, was advanced to Batten Hill, in order, if necessary, to ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... asparagus-berry, which becomes an opal globe when the grub has emptied it, has failed to save the recluse. The Tachina-midge drains her victim by herself; this other, tinier creature feasts in company. Twenty or more of them batten on ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... deer were kept a few miles from Winterbourne Bishop and were fed by the keepers in a very primitive manner. Old, worn-out horses were bought and slaughtered for the dogs. A horse would be killed and stripped of his hide somewhere away in the woods, and left for the hounds to batten on its flesh, tearing at and fighting over it like so many jackals. When only partially consumed the carcass would become putrid; then another horse would be killed and skinned at another spot perhaps a mile away, and the pack would start feeding afresh there. The result of so much ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the dust. And let him send the 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 to-morrow ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... for he was one of those 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 hungry, baffled ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... As soon as we're out of the dangerous passages we've got to batten him down in the hold, and that's the end of ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... the fork of a tree, alias a wheel-less water-trolly. The horse was hitched to the butt end, and a batten nailed across the prongs kept the cask from slipping off going uphill. Sandy led the way and carried the bucket; Dad went ahead to clear the track of stones; and Joe straddled the cask ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... morning Sir 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 ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... methods of those who batten on others' goods, the plunderers who know no rest till they have wrought the destruction of the worker, it would be difficult to find a better instance than the tribulations suffered by the Chalicodoma of the Walls. The Mason who builds ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... 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 to ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... Fright'ning old Father 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 General Birnie musters all his forces Of foot Police, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... Mrs Donnithorne, as the voice at that moment broke out into a lively carol in the region of the kitchen, whither its owner had gone to superintend culinary matters. "But tell me, Oliver, have you heard of the accident to poor Batten?" ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... 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 leave ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... for two hundred years: the Athenian populace knew little 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 ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various

... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various



Words linked to "Batten" :   batten down, beef up, strip, strengthen



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org