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Nail   Listen
noun
Nail  n.  
1.
(Anat.) The horny scale of plate of epidermis at the end of the fingers and toes of man and many apes. "His nayles like a briddes claws were." Note: The nails are strictly homologous with hoofs and claws. When compressed, curved, and pointed, they are called talons or claws, and the animal bearing them is said to be unguiculate; when they incase the extremities of the digits they are called hoofs, and the animal is ungulate.
2.
(Zool.)
(a)
The basal thickened portion of the anterior wings of certain hemiptera.
(b)
The terminal horny plate on the beak of ducks, and other allied birds.
3.
A slender, pointed piece of metal, usually with a head (2), used for fastening pieces of wood or other material together, by being driven into or through them. Note: The different sorts of nails are named either from the use to which they are applied, from their shape, from their size, or from some other characteristic, as shingle, floor, ship-carpenters', and horseshoe nails, roseheads, diamonds, fourpenny, tenpenny (see Penny, a.), chiselpointed, cut, wrought, or wire nails, etc.
4.
A measure of length, being two inches and a quarter, or the sixteenth of a yard.
Nail ball (Ordnance), a round projectile with an iron bolt protruding to prevent it from turning in the gun.
Nail plate, iron in plates from which cut nails are made.
On the nail, in hand; on the spot; immediately; without delay or time of credit; as, to pay money on the nail; to pay cash on the nail. "You shall have ten thousand pounds on the nail."
To hit the nail on the head,
(a)
to hit most effectively; to do or say a thing in the right way.
(b)
to describe the most important factor.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Nail" Quotes from Famous Books



... the fleet at anchor waiting for them. Just at that period the Dutch had formed a settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, where the Indian fleets used to water and obtain cattle from the Hottentot tribes who lived on the coast, and who for a brass button or a large nail would willingly offer a fat bullock. A few days were occupied in completing the water of the squadron, and then the ships, having received from the Admiral their instructions as to the rendezvous in case of parting company, and made every preparation ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... via Rouen as the best, though there is a shorter cut, and about two kilometres beyond the quaint old city, just as it was getting light, I got a puncture on the off back tyre. A horse-nail it proved, and in twenty minutes I was on the road again, running at the highest speed I dared along the Seine valley towards Paris. The wind had dropped with the dawn, and the snow-clouds had dispersed with the daybreak. Though grey and very ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux

... being hatched, of picking up small particles of food, seems to be started into action through the sense of hearing; for with chickens hatched by artificial heat, a good observer found that "making a noise with the finger-nail against a board, in imitation of the hen-mother, first taught them ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... is "good dusk" the storekeeper closes the wooden shutters and fastens them by looping a small cotton string over a nail. All the mountaineers are on their way home, but they had not parted without an interchange ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan

... she would there was eagerness in her tone. Remarking this, I decided to give another and closer look at the floor and the nails. I found the latter had not been properly inserted; or rather that there were two indentations for every nail, a deep one and one quite shallow. This caused me to make some examination of the others, those which had not been drawn from the floor, and I found that one or two of them were equally insecure, but not all; only those ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... You may kiss my thumb-nail with the white spot in it for luck. No, sir. That is presuming. Now I am ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... these trees, though so low, are many centuries old. Their growth is almost imperceptible, being scarcely to be noticed in the lapse of twenty or thirty years. The wood of the palma de cobija is excellent for building. It is so hard, that it is difficult to drive a nail into it. The leaves, folded like a fan, are employed to cover the roofs of the huts scattered through the Llanos; and these roofs last more than twenty years. The leaves are fixed by bending the extremity of the footstalks, which ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... disheartened, and they forthwith set to work to manufacture a new line out of the rope which they still had in the boat; Tom carefully unlaying the strands and jointing the yarns, whilst George tried his best to manufacture a hook out of a nail drawn from the gunwale of the boat. This task occupied them for the remainder of the day, and when it was completed the hook and line together constituted such a very make-shift, hopeless-looking affair that George, in spite of his hunger, could not repress ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... cast myself adrift from Wapping with a psalm of thankfulness. The Sea Queen was to sail on Friday, and so I had little time left; yet by a lucky chance I was enabled to dispose of my practice "on the nail," to use a convenient colloquialism, and, with that adventitious sum of money, equipped and fortified myself for my voyage. I paid two preliminary visits to the yacht, but found no one of importance on ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... of course," said Mrs. Melbury, taking off her silk train, hanging it up to a nail, carefully rolling back her sleeves, pinning them to her shoulders, and stripping Giles of his ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... what she sees, her eyes are in the right place," remarked the grandfather to himself, as he continued his way round the hut, knocking in a nail here and there, or making fast some part of the door, and so with hammer and nails and pieces of wood going from spot to spot, mending or clearing away wherever work of the kind was needed. Heidi followed him step ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... go to them this minute," said Elizabeth tying on her hood, which she had taken down from its nail. "No man nor woman shall say such words of me. Good-night, Aunt; I thank you for all your goodness, and may the good Lord bless you and yours for ever Farewell!" And amid a shower of exclamations and entreaties from her startled relatives, ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt

... Commonwealth, had, in his hatred of royalty, proposed to make one great heap of them and burn them up in Smithfield. In that way he hoped to clear the ground of many mischievous traditions. This desperate act of Communism that tough-headed old lawyer, Prynne, opposed tooth and nail. In 1656 he wrote a pamphlet, which he called "A Short Demurrer against Cromwell's Project of Recalling the Jews from their Banishment," and in this work he very nobly epitomizes the value of these treasures; indeed, there could not be found a more lucid syllabus of the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... nothin' to a time I had in a brig off Hatteras," observed Teddy, who had somewhat recovered his composure; "we had to cut away both masts, you persave, and to scud under a scupper nail driv into the deck, wid a man ready to drive it ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... cherished years; But love, whose speechless ecstasy Had overborne the finite, now Throbs through thy being, pure and free, And burns upon thy radiant brow. For thou those hands' dear clasp hast felt, Where still the nail-prints are displayed; And thou before that face hast knelt, Which wears the scars ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams

... in a transient world is terrifying. A permanent husband is a bore, and we do not know what to do with him. He cannot be put on a shelf. He cannot be hung on a nail. He will not go out of the house. There is no escape from him, and he is always the same. A smile of a certain dimension, moustaches of this inevitable measurement, hands that waggle and flop like those of automata—these are his. He eats this way and he drinks that way, and he ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... know how to harden it) about ten inches long, an inch and a half wide at the top or broadest end, where it is shaped and sharpened like a chisel, only with the edge not straight but sloping, and from thence tapering to a point at the other, the pointed part being four-sided, like a nail. ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies

... he, and hands over all he had in stock. I went back on the jump. We made a wad half as big as your head, soaked it in the clove oil and rammed it down with a nail-hammer. It was the fromage, all right. And say! Ever see an elephant grin and look tickled and try to say thank you? The way he talked deaf and dumb with his trunk and shook hands with us and patted us on the back ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... was in a state of collapse that silenced all scruples. Mrs. Treacher—a powerfully-built woman—caught up the all but inanimate lady in both arms, and bore her into the passage, nodding to Miss Gabriel to unhitch from its nail a lamp which hung, backed by a tin reflector, just within ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... them were far from home, and, like myself, they were all runaways, and their horses, like mine, had to be home and cleaned before their masters were up in the morning. In getting my horse close up to the fence a nail caught my trousers at the thigh, and split them clean up to the seat; of course my shirt tail fell out behind, like a woman's apron before. This dreadful misfortune almost unmanned me, and curtailed ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green

... put his things in order, to nail his pictures on the walls and ring forth his books again, he was seized with such utter discouragement that he let a volume drop from his hand and threw himself into a seat. A moan escaped his lips—'That ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... us a couple of suits of fairly heavy steel armor, so that we'll have real protection if we should need it. You see, we don't know what we are apt to run up against out here. Then, with that much done, it'll be up to you to provide, since I'll have to work tooth and nail at the forges. You'll have to bring home the bacon, do the cooking and so on, and see what you can find along the line of edible roots, grains, fruits, and what-not. Sort of reverse the Indian idea—you be the hunter and I'll keep the home fires ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail; When blood is nipped and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, "Tu-who! Tu-whit! tu-who!" a merry note, While greasy Jean ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets

... villages are occupied with the manufacture of axes; round about Pavlovo, in the same province, eighty villages produce almost nothing but cutlery; and in a locality called Ouloma, on the borders of Novgorod and Tver, no less than two hundred villages live by nail-making. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... Look to it, my fine fellow. There's more than me knows how Mr. Nutter threatened to cane you that night—and a good turn 'twould have been—and 'twouldn't take much to persuade an honest jury that you wanted to pay him off for that by putting a nail in his coffin, you young miscreant! Go on—do—and I promise you'll get an airing yet ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... care is the ruin of many; for, 'In the affairs of this world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the want of it; but a man's own care is profitable, for, 'If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself. A little neglect may breed great mischief; for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost,' being overtaken and slain by the enemy; all for want of a little ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... tooth and nail as the worst of all infidelity. It exposed Genesis and put Moses out of court. It destroyed all special creation, showed man's' kinship with other forms of life, reduced Adam and Eve to myths, and exploded the doctrine of the Fall. Darwin was for years treated as Antichrist, and Huxley ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... life's enamored spring, So true, so confident, so passing fair, That thought of Love as some sweet, tender thing, And not as war, red tooth and nail laid bare, How in that hour its innocence was slain, How from that hour our disillusion dates, When first we learned thy sense, ironical refrain, She will not come, ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger

... has hit the nail squarely on the head," he stated. "We have here in this room a representative gathering from the whole world. If there is any one of you who can say that this mystery ship was built and manned by your people, let him speak, and we will send you at once a commission to acknowledge ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... often repeated, which refers the motives of Pizarro's conduct, in some degree at least, to personal resentment. The Inca had requested one of the Spanish soldiers to write the name of God on his nail. This the monarch showed to several of his guards successively, and, as they read it, and each pronounced the same word, the sagacious mind of the barbarian was delighted with what seemed to him little short of a miracle,—to ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... founder whom they called Romulus had according to the Etruscan forms traced the circuit with the plough. Every year, on the 21st of April, the Romans celebrated the anniversary of these ceremonies: a procession marched about the primitive enclosure and a priest fixed a nail in a temple in commemoration of it. It was calculated that the founding had occurred in the year ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos

... interesting men.... Of these outstanding figures there are full length portraits—biographies, indeed, in ample detail strung on a long thread of politics, while very many minor characters have thumb-nail sketches. Few of the good anecdotes available, it would seem, have escaped Mr. Alexander, and good stories do not suffer at his hands."—The New ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... fire, where the smoke blew over my body. My host wondered at my want of taste, and I at his want of feeling; for, to our astonishment, he and the other inhabitants had actually become used to what was at least equal to a nail through the heel of one's boot, or ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... pleasure from the thought that her mother, with her Aragonia pride, had given the King some ill hours before he had put her away to her death. Katharine of Aragon had been no Katharine Howard to study her lord's ways and twist him about her finger; and Mary took her rosary from a nail beside her and told her beads for a ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford

... was altogether too hoary a sinner. So we made him chief mourner instead, along with Flo—the more by token that he's the only citizen with a black coat to his back. As for Flo, she's got to attend in colours, having cut up her only black gown to nail on the casket for a covering. Foolishness, of course; but she was set on it. But see here, you've only to say the word, ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... and stretched out his foot. The cobbler took down from its nail his tape line and measured him. And the twilight deepened and the room ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... scarcely a greater one than the occurrence of puberty, or the revolution which comes with any new emotion or influx of new knowledge. I am heterodox about sepulchres, and believe that no part of us will ever lie in a grave. I don't think much of my nail-parings—do you?—not even of the nail of my thumb when I cut off what Penini calls the 'gift-mark' on it. I believe that the body of flesh is a mere husk which drops off at death, while the spiritual body (see St. Paul) emerges in glorious resurrection at once. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... "swallow down his spittle" (Job 7:19). This the church in Ezra's time took as an exceeding favour. "And now [say they] for a little space, grace hath been shewed from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage" ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... Through the thick gloom he saw the mutilated figure of the Christ hanging on its cross beside the crumbling altar. It reflected the broken image of the Christ-principle in the hearts of men. And was he not again crucifying the gentle Christ? Did not the world daily crucify him and nail him with their false beliefs to the cross of carnal error which they set up in the Golgotha of their own souls? And were they not daily paying the awful penalty therefor? Aye, paying it in agony, in torturing agony of soul ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... to see her mother off. There were no words spoken on the way, and so quietly did they move that Robert had no suspicion that anyone was near, as he took off his shoes in the cloak-room opening off the hall. He tossed his cap on to a nail, picked up his book, and was just about to sally forth, when the sound of a woman's voice sent a chill through his veins. The tone of the voice was low, almost a whisper, yet he had never in his life heard anything so thrilling as its intense and yearning tenderness. "Oh, my Peggy!" it said. "My ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... darkened room, lighted only by a few rays filtered between the slats of the shutters, sat a young girl. Her hat was hung upon a nail above her head; one arm rested on a wretched white wood table; her head was bent forward in mournful resignation. On the other side of the table, her father was leaning back in his chair against the whitewashed wall, with ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin

... probably aware of the cause. But Rose Flammock, unbidden, followed her mistress without hesitation, as Berwine conducted her through a small wicket at the upper end of the apartment, clenched with many an iron nail, into a second but smaller anteroom or wardrobe, at the end of which was a similar door. This wardrobe had also its casement mantled with evergreens, and, like the former, it was ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... faint whiff of his breath, but of course this was not to be remembered against him in his great trouble now. His troubles had greatly changed him. From the aristocratic exclusiveness of the ice-board he had been reduced to being strung up by a string through his gills to a nail in the wall. The brightness of his scales was gone, and as far as rank went, he looked as ordinary as the bunch of humble hickory shad that hung near him. "What do you think of this way of treating a fish that has come three hundred miles from the coast to help you out in Lent? What ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley

... the clay books.—Cuneiform writing: its hieroglyphic origin; the Protean character of the sounds which may be assigned to the ideograms, grammatical tablets, and dictionaries—Their contracts, and their numerous copies of them: the finger-nail mark, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... its close rolls up the century; And still the Church of Christ upon the earth Which marks the Christmas of His lowly birth, Contains the selfish Scribe and Pharisee. O Christ of God, exchanging gain for loss, Would men still nail thee ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon

... slabs set upright in the ground, and nailed on to a wall-plate. You will first plant large posts at each of the corners, and one at either side every door, and four for the chimney. At the top of these you will set your wall- plates; to the wall-plates you will nail your slabs; on the inside of the slabs you will nail light rods of wood, and plaster them over with mud, having first, however, put up the roof and thatched it. Three or four men will have split the stuff and put up the hut in a fortnight. We will suppose it to be ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... blindly and weakly, and with an abominable lack of moral courage, followed their leadership, which has kept one hundred thousand tenants still under the heel of landlordism in Ireland. These men, in driving a nail into the policy of Conciliation, drove a nail far more deeply into their own coffin. In burying the Land Act of 1903 they were only opening graves for themselves, but, in the words of Mr Redmond, they were "so short-sighted and unwise" they could not see the inevitable ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... the dingeys clear of the tide and join me here," Slade directed. "Send one boat back to the Bennington and have the skipper move her around to the goose-neck in ten minutes. Tell him to nail anything that's at anchor ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... with every part of our life, apparently so infinitely the most real part of us, that we often think of it as being our true self. Yet every cell and fibre of it changes in the course of seven years. Therefore in itself it cannot maintain our identity. Have you ever pinched your nail, right down at its base, and watched the dark mass of congealed blood making its way to the tip of the finger, and then dispersing? This gives you some idea of the pace at which the body is being burned up ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter

... projects, ambitions, setting forth clearly all that one may, or may not, attempt in common life, and, above all, in heroism—heroism understood truly, not the false ideals of idle, untaxed sentiment. Robert shrank from examining the sharpest nail of the several which had been piercing his heart for weeks—from the day when he had first received the news of Parflete's death. Had he not often suspected, until then, that, for some reason, he had been called to renounce the hope of marriage? True, he had never been certain of this, and, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... network of nervures proceeds the species of puffing sound which I have compared to the hissing of an adder in a posture of defence. To imitate this curious sound it is enough rapidly to stroke the upper face of an outstretched wing with the tip of the finger-nail. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... fellow fine, Can you shoe this horse of mine, So that I may cut a shine? Yes, good sir, and that I can, As well as any other man; There a nail, and here a prod, And now, good sir, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... her; and Molly made a deep mark in the paper under them with her nail; so deep as to signify that she meant to have them for present study or future reference or both. Then, as Molly seemed to have said her say, Daisy said no more and ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... hours, and so had commenced the day at the right moment, I noticed the twig of a lilac bush had intruded into the porch. It directly indicated me with a black finger. What did it want? I looked intently, sure that an omen was here. Aha! So that was it! The twig was showing me that it had a green nail. ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson

... dear, I like to have you. And now, for fear the kit will want to jump up in my lap to get at my ball, just tie this bit of tape to this cork, and hang it on that nail in the wall. Now, give it a toss to and fro, and you will see kit jump at once to bite it, and tap ...
— The First Little Pet Book with Ten Short Stories in Words of Three and Four Letters • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... it up again, for the thread caught on a nail in the wall and broke. And at the same time there was a knock at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... and elders, which were all Satan's seed, to have Him put to death. The cry "Away with Him! Crucify Him!" was inspired by himself. He used man to dishonor the Son of God, to revile Him, spit in His face, to scourge Him and finally to nail Him to the Cross. Did he think that he might yet get the victory and keep the Lord Jesus from finishing the work the Father gave Him to do? We do not know if such was the case, but we know that while the Son of God gave Himself, Satan had ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein

... Jack Dillard gits de 'state," she proceeded, as though she had not heard my eager question, "wy, den Sabra Smif am as dead as a door-nail from dis time to de day ob judgment, an' de ole man 'll have to git anoder 'fectionate companion, I'se mity sorry for de poor ole soul, but I a'n't gwine to put myself in Jack Dillard's claws, not ef I knows myself. ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... split straw into patterns, nor any of the other amateur handicrafts of the day. But they were clever with their fingers, and could copy almost anything that they had seen done. 'We could buckle flax or spin a rope,' writes Mary. 'We could drive a nail, put in a screw or draw it out. We knew the use of a glue-pot, and how to paper a room. We soon furnished ourselves with coloured paper for plaiting, and straw to split and weave into net; and I shall never forget my admiration of a pattern of diamonds ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... and especially at Matelle, the colours being mixed with a resinous exudation collected from a shrub called by the Singhalese Wael-koep-petya (Croton lacciferum). The coloured varnish thus prepared is formed into films and threads chiefly by aid of the thumb-nail of the left hand, which is kept long and uncut for the purpose. It is then applied by heat and polished. It is chiefly employed in ornamenting the covers of books, walking-sticks, the shafts of spears, and ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... foresight, directed her eyes, from within the folds of the cloth that covered them, to the tip of Yudhishthira's toe, as the prince, with body bent forwards, was about to fall down at her feet. At this, the king, whose nails had before this been all very beautiful, came to have a sore nail on his toe. Beholding this, Arjuna moved away to the rear of Vasudeva, and the other sons of Pandu became restless and moved from one spot to another. Gandhari then, having cast off her wrath, comforted the Pandavas as a mother should. Obtaining her leave, those heroes of broad chests ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... blessed Crosse We are impressed and ingag'd to fight, Forthwith a power of English shall we leuie, Whose armes were moulded in their Mothers wombe, To chace these Pagans in those holy Fields, Ouer whose Acres walk'd those blessed feete Which fourteene hundred yeares ago were nail'd For our aduantage on the bitter Crosse. But this our purpose is a tweluemonth old, And bootlesse 'tis to tell you we will go: Therefore we meete not now. Then let me heare Of you my gentle Cousin Westmerland, What yesternight our Councell ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... about its being locked, as Mr. Mark knows, so that it could not be used by any ill disposed chaps who might come along at night. The key of the padlock was always hung on a nail round the other side of the shed. The Squire knew of it, and so did Mr. Mark and me; so that while it was out of the way of the eyes of a thief, any of us could run and get it and undo the padlock ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... on his heels. "I'm coming," he answered out of the darkness, "I'm coming." And after a slight delay he appeared with the lantern and hung it from a nail in the front pole of the tent. The shadows of a hundred trees shifted their places quickly as he did so, and when he stumbled over the rope, diving swiftly inside, the whole tent trembled as though a ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood

... the closed door. "Rann's with him now," he replied; "they're having it hot in there. Rann may bluster till he's blue, but he won't make the governor give an inch. That bill's as dead as a door nail. The governor's got a fit of ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... back his cough with real violence, and he was sent to bed; Albinia went up with him to see that his fire burnt. He set Mr. Ferrars's drawing of the alms-houses over his mantelshelf. 'I shall nail it up to-morrow,' he said. 'I always wanted a picture here, and that's a jolly ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and Haman, setting the royal seal to his decree, made it one of the unalterable Persian laws. The day was fixed for the massacre, and Haman prepared an enormous gallows on which to hang Mordecai, or as is supposed, to nail him up alive. But Mordecai contrived to warn Esther, and order her to persuade the king to save their lives. She was in a great strait, for it was death to enter the king's presence unbidden, unless he were in the mood to show mercy, and should hold ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... in quality, for the season was winter, and all of them uncooked. In the centre of this fodder—whether placed there in obedience to some religious tradition or by way of ornament, or perhaps to assist the digestive process of the god, as a tenpenny nail is said to assist that of an ostrich—was a fine ruby stone; not so big, indeed, as that which Soa had given to Leonard, but still of considerable size and value. Leonard saw it with delight, but not so the dwarf, the selfish promptings ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... eye, in that mood of mind which sports with bitterness, he exclaimed, "I really do not see the signal!" Presently he exclaimed, "Damn the signal! Keep mine for closer battle flying! That's the way I answer signals! Nail mine to the mast!" Admiral Graves, who was so situated that he could not discern what was done on board the ELEPHANT, disobeyed Sir Hyde's signal in like manner; whether by fortunate mistake, or by ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... song. There is no little thing In nature: in a raindrop's compass lie A planet's elements. This Wyndham's woe Was one Griselda, daughter to a man Of Bideford, a shipman once, but since Turned soldier; now in white-haired, wrinkled age Sitting beneath the olive, valiant still, With sword on nail above the chimney-shelf In case the Queen should need its edge again. An officer he was, though lowly born. The man aforetime, in the Netherlands And through those ever-famous French campaigns (Marry, in what wars bore he not a hand?) In Rawdon Wyndham's ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... hammer with a note, "hit the nail on the head"] signifies that the student makes a capital hit; in other words, a decided ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... cash on the nail if I were you," suggested the crippled officer who had been so useful in advising them before. "Half down, and the rest when you land in England. Jan might object, but he'll give in. No Dutchman of his standing would shut his eyes to twenty ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... door nail," Jim Goban replied. "Guess he's been dead fer some time by the look of things. Mighty bad piece of business this, I ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... the nail on the head with a violence that brought his audience to an upright position, "ain't nothing short of, to my mind, than"—he glanced at Teale—"well, she ain't, and that's my opinion! She comes loaded with facts up to her teeth. ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... laughing softly as a boy in the midst of a prank, and busily throwing off the robe of serge. Fumbling through the night he located the shirt and trousers he had seen hanging from a nail on the wall. Into these he slipped, and then went out under the ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand

... shingle, so gently that not a pebble was disturbed. He rose, a gaunt scarecrow, stepped off, and drew the shallow craft somewhat further up the sloping beach. Then he helped Iris to her feet. She became conscious at once that his thumb-nail was of extraordinary length, and—so strangely constituted is human nature—this peculiarity made a lasting ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... my appreciation of your talk to boys on Sexual Hygiene. I listened with the greatest of interest to your presentation before the Boys' Conference at Lake Geneva the past summer and it seemed to me that both in substance and in form of presentation you hit the nail on the head in a way I had never before seen it done. I believe that your contribution to boys in this direction is to be even greater than that which you have ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall

... "The lady in the case is a swell who is away up in the top rank of the 'two-hundred-and-fifty;' and the man—well, he is up in high C, too, for that matter. One of the newly-rich, you know, lately materialized out of the wild and woolly. Fine stunt, that story; only, I can't seem to nail the few additional facts I need," Radnor continued, while Duncan listened with all his ears. "There are certain elements connected with the story that make it especially attractive to me, for, in addition ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman

... nail on the head," Polly exclaimed. "We'll find some new idea of doing things so that the new girls will really feel it's their dance. ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill

... unpleasant nights then; each night meant a nail in his coffin. Even the constant rain the burghers bore cheerfully, and many a joke was passed along during an interval in the downpour. But in the morning, as we dragged our weary limbs out of our mud-baths, shivering from cold, ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo

... time to Ahura, the royal wife, was born a child, a girl with a fresh and lovely face and waving hair and eyes that from the first were blue like the summer sky at even. Also on her breast was a mole of the length of a finger nail, which mole was shaped like ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... may start straight for the flowers, nor are any sown for him. He has no shelter if the storm descends suddenly; he has no dome of twisted straw well thatched and tiled to retreat to. The butcher-bird, with a beak like a crooked iron nail, drives him to the ground, and leaves him pierced with a thorn; but no hail of shot revenges his tortures. The grass stiffens at nightfall (in autumn), and he must creep where he may, if possibly he may escape the frost. No one cares for the humble-bee. But down to the flowering ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... with his friend the Lascar, but this fault was soon remedied, and he was seized and searched, without anything being found which could incriminate him. There were, it is true, some blood-stains upon his right shirt-sleeve, but he pointed to his ring-finger, which had been cut near the nail, and explained that the bleeding came from there, adding that he had been to the window not long before, and that the stains which had been observed there came doubtless from the same source. He denied strenuously having ever seen Mr. Neville St. Clair and swore that the presence of the clothes ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... and at length reached a room where he beheld Petrovich seated on a large unpainted table, with his legs tucked under him like a Turkish pasha. His feet were bare, after the fashion of tailors as they sit at work; and the first thing which caught the eye was his thumb, with a deformed nail thick and strong as a turtle's shell. About Petrovich's neck hung a skein of silk and thread, and upon his knees lay some old garment. He had been trying unsuccessfully for three minutes to thread his needle, ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... Pip; visit the mouth, and examine what hinders your Cocks, Hen, or Chicks feeding, and you'll find a white thin Scale on the Tip of the Tongue, which pull off with your Nail, and rubbing the Tongue with Salt, ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett

... shaver, in 1906, the fog signal was a bell, rung with a clapper. In July of that year the clapper broke and couldn't be used. A heavy fog came down and blanketed the island so that you couldn't see anything a foot away. That woman light-keeper stood there with a watch in one hand and a nail-hammer in the other and struck that bell once every twenty seconds for twenty hours and thirty-five minutes until the fog lifted. She didn't stop for meals or sleep. Two days later, the bell not having yet been fixed, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... destroyed many thousands of Pheasants, Partridges and Wood-cocks. His Stable Doors are patched with Noses that belonged to Foxes of the Knight's own hunting down. Sir ROGER shewed me one of them that for Distinction sake has a Brass Nail struck through it, which cost him about fifteen Hours riding, carried him through half a dozen Counties, killed him a Brace of Geldings, and lost above half his Dogs. This the Knight looks upon as one of the greatest Exploits of his Life. The perverse Widow, whom I have ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... to the encounter, fighting with Sala and Tala trees and stones. And they struck each other down on the earth. And leaping high into the air, they struck each other with their fists. And mangled by each other's nail and teeth, both of them were covered with blood. And the two heroes shone on that account like a pair of blossoming Kinshukas. And as they fought with each other, no difference (in aspect) could be observed so as to distinguish them. Then Hanuman placed on Sugriva's neck a garland of flowers. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... I returned him two or three books he had lent me. In the volume of Shelley I underlined with my nail the last two lines of a certain verse and put a mark ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... doctor shortly, and turned hurriedly to go. Other huts were crying out for him; he could hear the voice of some of them through their mud partitions. As he passed out he caught a glimpse of himself in a little square looking-glass that hung on a nail on the wall, and it made him start nervously and then smile grimly. He saw the face of a man who had not slept three hours in as many days and nights—a haggard, unshaven face, drawn as much with the pain of others as with its own weariness. His hair stood up in long tufts, ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... with two and a half gallons of water; then cover the vessel, and continue the steaming for several hours, or until the saponification shall be completed. This may be known when a sample of the soap when cold gives a smooth and bright surface on being scraped with the finger-nail, and at the same time, breaks with a crackling noise. By this process the fat or oil is decomposed, its acids uniting with the lime to form insoluble lime-soap, while the eliminated glycerine remains ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... organs of generation of a female. A little over three inches from the anus was a rudimentary limb with a movable articulation; it measured five inches in length and tapered to a fine point, being furnished with a distinct nail, and it contracted strongly to irritation. Marie, the left child, was of fair complexion and more strongly developed than Rosa. The sensations of hunger and thirst were not experienced at the same time, and one might be asleep while the other was crying. The pulsations and the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... secret door in that back wall, but I have never been through it, so I do not know its exact position. But it is opened by pressing a spring, the head of which is formed like an ordinary nail- head, differing from the others only in that it projects a little more from the woodwork than the others. Do you think you ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... the skipper will be back asking me what I have been about. Do you know what I'm about? About off my head. A man can't make something out of nothing. Where's my tools? says you. Aboard the schooner. Where's the stuff to work with? Nowhere. Why, I aren't got so much as a tenpenny-nail. It's onreasonable; but I suppose it aren't no use to talk. Come on, my lads, and let's see. Axes here. Get one in between them two floor-boards and wedge one of them out—that's the style!" And as he spoke, rip, ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... [Sidenote: Murder of Gracchus.] The next day dawned, and with it occurred omens full of meaning to the superstitious Romans. The sacred fowls would not feed. Tiberius stumbled at the doorway of his house and broke the nail of his great toe. Some crows fought on the roof of a house on the left hand, and one dislodged a tile, which fell at his feet. But Blossius was at his side encouraging him, and Gracchus went on to the Capitol and was greeted with a great cheer ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... was a descent into another room; and therefore, thinking to conceal his fault either wholly or in part, he threw himself into the opening, telling the lady to go and open the door. But his hope did not turn out as he expected; for the hem of a mantle which he had on caught upon a nail, and the lady opening the door meantime, in the belief that all would be well by reason of Polo's not being there, Gianciotto caught sight of Polo as he was detained by the hem of the mantle, and straightway ran with his dagger in his hand to kill him; whereupon ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... Frenchman Martin, the master builder, was another character in his way; a lively, energetic little fellow, whose eyes were everywhere. Not the driving in of a single nail escaped him. Yet, with all his watchfulness, he did more work than any three of his men. The habitual use of salt pork and beans, added to the total absence of vegetable diet during the long winter and summer, had caused ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon

... became quite hot. If you have brought up a family for years on the proceeds of such jobs as driving a ten-penny nail in here or there, tinkering a hole in a cottage roof, knocking up a shelf in the vicarage kitchen, and mending a panel of fence, to be suddenly confronted with a proposal to engage workmen and undertake "contracts" is shortening to the breath and ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... an old empty nail-keg near the improvised cot and looked at the child; while Laughing Anne, moving to and fro, preparing the hot drink, giving it to the boy in spoonfuls, or stopping to gaze motionless at the flushed ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... trembled, in the approach, with the measure of its power to dissipate. Everything indeed grew in a flash terrific and distinct; her old uncertainties fell away from her, and, since she was so familiar with fate, she felt as if the very nail that fixed it were driven in by the hard look with which, for a ...
— In the Cage • Henry James

... faint, fine smile on his face, all the time, as if, somewhere, he knew so much better than Birkin, all about this: as if his own knowledge were direct and personal, whereas Birkin's was a matter of observation and inference, not quite hitting the nail on the head:—though aiming near enough at it. But he was not going to give himself away. If Birkin could get at the secrets, let him. Gerald would never help him. Gerald would be a dark ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... dear, not all the King's army and navy can't make the smallest bit of a child obey them if he won't. You can tell a child what's right and punish him if he does wrong, but you can't make him do what you want, like you can drive a nail into a board. I'll warrant you've told him he's been a bad boy and put you ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham

... blushing still. Thurnall, be it understood, was (at least, while his face was in the state in which Heaven intended it to be, half hidden in a silky-brown beard) a very good-looking fellow; and (to use Mark Armsworth's description) "as hard as a nail; as fresh as a rose; and stood on his legs like a game-cock." Moreover, as Willis said approvingly, he had spoken to her "as if he was a duke, and she was a duchess." Besides, by some blessed moral law, the surest way to make ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... appointed time, there entered to us the man of the Sultan's guards, who had accompanied the Jew, when he came to complain of the loss of the money,[FN107] and said, 'The Sultan sayeth to you, Nail up[FN108] the Jew and bring the money, for there is no way by which five thousand gold pieces can be lost.' Wherefore we knew that our device did not suffice. So I went forth and finding a young man, a Haurani,[FN109] passing along the road, laid hands on him forthright and stripped him, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... on. "Your name, I'm told, carries everything before it. But what I want to suggest now is simply this— How much will you take, money down on the nail, this minute, to withdraw your own ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen

... Mr. Innes,' said MacGregor, 'that ye hae hit the nail, but no upo' the heid. What mak' ye o' the phrase, no confined to the Scots tongue, I believe, o' an eaves-drapper? The whilk, no doobt, represents a body that hings aboot yer winnock, like a drap hangin' ower ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... nearly every place and carry a particularly malicious germ that gives one "tick fever." It is not a deadly fever, but it is recurrent and weakening. There are all kinds of ticks, from little red ones no bigger than a grain of pepper to big fat ones the size of a finger-nail, that are exactly the color of the ground. They seem to have immortal life, for they can exist for a long time without food. Doctor Ward told us of some that he had put in a box, where they lived four years without ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon

... he justified his hospitality in finally asking them to take seats on a nail-keg apiece. "You mustn't think you're interruptin'. Look 'round all ye want to, or set ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... set us on a Beast which he had there ready, and carried us over Churches and high walls ... he gives us a horn with a Salve in it, wherewith we do anoint our selves; and then he gives us a Saddle, with a Hammer and a wooden nail, thereby to fix the Saddle; whereupon we call upon the Devil, and away we go.... For their journey they said they made use of all sorts of Instruments, of Beasts, of Men, of Spits and Posts. What the manner of their ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray

... Anne Shirley, and I was relieved. I didn't want to marry Max but it was pleasant and convenient to have him around, and we would miss him dreadfully if any other girl snapped him up. He was so useful and always willing to do anything for us—nail a shingle on the roof, drive us to town, put down carpets—in short, a very present help ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... to preach the theory of direct inspiration,' said the Nilghai, returning Torpenhow's large and workmanlike bellows to their nail on the wall. 'We believe in cobblers' wax. ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... of canvas and converted into a storeroom. We had almost to get down on our knees to the quartermaster before he would give us the canvas. He is in the quartermaster's department and is most arrogant; seems to think that every nail and tack is his own personal property and for his ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... said, looking down bashfully and making little marks with her finger-nail in the pole on which they were leaning, "I never told anyone before, and nobody in the world knows it except he and I, and he doesn't know it now either, because I killed him.... I had to ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... Pharaoh knew that none of these explanations hit the nail on the head. He issued a decree summoning all interpreters of dreams to appear before him on pain of death, and he held out great rewards and distinctions to the one who should succeed in finding the true meaning of his dreams. In obedience to his summons, all the wise men ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... teaches a literal resurrection of the body it is not necessary to insist on the literal resurrection of the identical body—hair, tooth, and nail—that was laid under the ground. The idea that at the resurrection we are to see hands flying across the sea to join the body, etc., finds no corroboration in the Scriptures. Such an idea is not necessary in order to be true ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans

... the grinder, as he gave him a common rough stone that lay by his side, "this is a most capital stone. Do but manage it cleverly and you can make an old nail ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous

... Comte de—dining with a bourgeois sub-prefect and placed by the side of the mistress of the house, says to her, on accepting the soup, 'Thanks, sweetheart,' But the Revolution has given the lower class bourgeoisie the courage to defend themselves tooth and nail so that, a moment later, she addresses him, with one of her sweetest smiles, 'Will you take some chicken, my love?' (The French expression 'mon coeur' means both ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... if they chanced to glance over the code, since, besides many wise and good laws, it regulated the minute etiquettes and perquisites of the royal household. If any one should insult the King, the fine was to be, among other valuables, a golden dish as broad as the royal face, and as thick as the nail of a husbandman who has been a husbandman, seven years. Each officer's distance from the royal fire was regulated, and even the precedence of each officer's horse in the stable—proving plainly the old saying, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... as the blacksmith captured a hind foot of the white mare's and held it between his knees. Then he began to nail ...
— The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels • Arthur Scott Bailey

... thing happened. As the king stepped on board the boat one of the sandals of the white slipper, which had got loose, caught in a nail that was sticking out, and caused the king to stumble. The pain was great, and unconsciously he turned and shook his foot, so that the sandals gave way, and in a moment the precious shoe was in ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... The young gentleman showed me through an outer office into Mr. Kenge's room—there was no one in it—and politely put an arm-chair for me by the fire. He then called my attention to a little looking-glass hanging from a nail on one ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... to a woman. The Ancient Order of Camels wanted a man to talk to them—a man who knew the world and could assail them with unanswerable arguments. Having applied every known test to make sure that the cask was empty, he took his cap from a nail and sallied ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... has ruined many fortunes and marred the best of enterprises. The ship which bore home the merchant's treasure was lost because it was allowed to leave the port from which it sailed with a very little hole in the bottom. For want of a nail the shoe of the aide-de-camp's horse was lost; for want of the shoe, the horse was lost; for want of the horse, the aide-de-camp himself was lost, for the enemy took him and killed him; and for want of the ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... of a nail, the shoe was lost; For want of the shoe, the horse was lost; For want of the horse, the rider was lost; For want of the rider, the battle was lost; For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost; And all for the want ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... on a nail, And leaves behind and ugly trail; Her sashes always are untied, Her dresses ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... damascened with gold wire, and "in the midst of the gold, rings; or cameos of sculptured agates, carnelians, and onyx stones." A visitor to Canterbury in 1500 writes: "Everything is left far behind by a ruby not larger than a man's thumb nail, which is set to the right of the altar. The church is rather dark, and when we went to see it the sun was nearly gone down, and the weather was cloudy, yet we saw the ruby as well as if it had been in my hand. They say it was a gift ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... the middle bone of the five metacarpal bones, which support the palm of the hand in ourselves. The "pastern," "coronary," and "coffin" bones of veterinarians answer to the joints of our middle fingers, while the hoof is simply a greatly enlarged and thickened nail. But if what lies below the horse's "knee" thus corresponds to the middle finger in ourselves, what has become of the four other fingers or digits? We find in the places of the second and fourth digits only two slender splint-like bones, about two-thirds ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley

... you can stand for me, I'll stand for the full- dress suits of clothes and the finger-nail women. Anyhow, it won't ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... surrounded them, were mostly patched together out of the most heterogeneous and wretched scraps of wood; and on inquiry I found that the materials were, in most cases, stolen; that when a Negro wanted to build a house, instead of buying the materials, he pilfered a board here, a stick there, a nail somewhere else, a lock or a clamp in a fourth place, about the sugar-estates, regardless of the serious injury which he caused to working buildings; and when he had gathered a sufficient pile, hidden safely away behind his neighbour's house, the new hut rose as if by magic. This continual pilfering, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... hand in the back part of his trousers, touching a long, metallic bulk. He was only awaiting the nightfall to carry out a certain idea that had clamped itself between his two eyebrows like a painful nail. Whilst he was not carrying it forward he could not ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... her shattered hulk Should sink beneath the wave!— Her thunders shook the mighty deep, And there should be her grave. Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms, The lightning, and ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... fortress was naturally characteristic of its owner. A leathern capote and leggings hung from a nail in one corner; in another lay a pile of buffalo robes. The rough walls were adorned with antlers of the moose and other deer, from the various branches of which hung several powder-horns, fire-bags, and bullet-pouches. Near the rude fireplace, the chimney of which was plastered ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne

... that the valuable weapons they were thus dismantling might be needed hereafter, as much as ever they had been. Nothing, therefore, was damaged that could not be afterwards replaced—nothing thrown away. Only the wood-work was sacrificed to present necessity. Every article of iron, to the smallest nail or screw, was carefully preserved; and when all were separated from the wood-work, they were placed together and tied into a bundle, so that they might be ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid

... capable of containing the whole crew, and their small quantity of provisions. This last was diminishing so rapidly, that Captain Dunning resolved to put all hands at once on short allowance. Notwithstanding this, the men worked hard and hopefully; for, as each plank and nail was added to their little bark, they felt as if they were a step nearer home. The captain and the doctor, however, and one or two of the older men, could not banish from their minds the fact that the ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne

... and indeed could the powers of the lever be employed on such exquisitely sensitive parts as the bare jaws, when within this iron vice, perhaps no hand could be found sufficiently delicate to use them. By pressing your finger-nail against your own gums, you may form some idea of the agony such an implement would have the power of giving to a horse; anything approaching to harsh, hard, handling with it would drive him desperate, and force him to throw himself over backward; ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood

... with the vision of his career, persuading himself that it was ardour for Christianity which spurred him on, and not pride of place. He had shouldered a body of doctrine, and was prepared to defend it tooth and nail, solely for the honour and glory ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy

... large woollen blanket with long nap, the longer and rougher it is the finer will be the effect produced; stretch it on a frame of sufficient size, and suspend the frame at the centre of the upper end by a string fastened to a nail in the ceiling, from three to five feet back of the sitter. Having arranged this, fasten another string to the side of the frame, and while the operation is going on in the camera, swing the back-ground from right to left, continuing ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey



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