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Shell   Listen
noun
Shell  n.  
1.
A hard outside covering, as of a fruit or an animal. Specifically:
(a)
The covering, or outside part, of a nut; as, a hazelnut shell.
(b)
A pod.
(c)
The hard covering of an egg. "Think him as a serpent's egg,... And kill him in the shell."
(d)
(Zool.) The hard calcareous or chitinous external covering of mollusks, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates. In some mollusks, as the cuttlefishes, it is internal, or concealed by the mantle. Also, the hard covering of some vertebrates, as the armadillo, the tortoise, and the like.
(e)
(Zool.) Hence, by extension, any mollusks having such a covering.
2.
(Mil.) A hollow projectile, of various shapes, adapted for a mortar or a cannon, and containing an explosive substance, ignited with a fuse or by percussion, by means of which the projectile is burst and its fragments scattered. See Bomb.
3.
The case which holds the powder, or charge of powder and shot, used with breechloading small arms.
4.
Any slight hollow structure; a framework, or exterior structure, regarded as not complete or filled in; as, the shell of a house.
5.
A coarse kind of coffin; also, a thin interior coffin inclosed in a more substantial one.
6.
An instrument of music, as a lyre, the first lyre having been made, it is said, by drawing strings over a tortoise shell. "When Jubal struck the chorded shell."
7.
An engraved copper roller used in print works.
8.
pl. The husks of cacao seeds, a decoction of which is often used as a substitute for chocolate, cocoa, etc.
9.
(Naut.) The outer frame or case of a block within which the sheaves revolve.
10.
A light boat the frame of which is covered with thin wood or with paper; as, a racing shell.
11.
Something similar in form or action to an ordnance shell; specif.:
(a)
(Fireworks) A case or cartridge containing a charge of explosive material, which bursts after having been thrown high into the air. It is often elevated through the agency of a larger firework in which it is contained.
(b)
(Oil Wells) A torpedo.
12.
A concave rough cast-iron tool in which a convex lens is ground to shape.
13.
A gouge bit or shell bit.
Message shell, a bombshell inside of which papers may be put, in order to convey messages.
Shell bit, a tool shaped like a gouge, used with a brace in boring wood. See Bit, n., 3.
Shell button.
(a)
A button made of shell.
(b)
A hollow button made of two pieces, as of metal, one for the front and the other for the back, often covered with cloth, silk, etc.
Shell cameo, a cameo cut in shell instead of stone.
Shell flower. (Bot.) Same as Turtlehead.
Shell gland. (Zool.)
(a)
A glandular organ in which the rudimentary shell is formed in embryonic mollusks.
(b)
A glandular organ which secretes the eggshells of various worms, crustacea, mollusks, etc.
Shell gun, a cannon suitable for throwing shells.
Shell ibis (Zool.), the openbill of India.
Shell jacket, an undress military jacket.
Shell lime, lime made by burning the shells of shellfish.
Shell marl (Min.), a kind of marl characterized by an abundance of shells, or fragments of shells.
Shell meat, food consisting of shellfish, or testaceous mollusks.
Shell mound. See under Mound.
Shell of a boiler, the exterior of a steam boiler, forming a case to contain the water and steam, often inclosing also flues and the furnace; the barrel of a cylindrical, or locomotive, boiler.
Shell road, a road of which the surface or bed is made of shells, as oyster shells.
Shell sand, minute fragments of shells constituting a considerable part of the seabeach in some places.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Shell" Quotes from Famous Books



... interesting, ended by fascinating me. It was worth while to hear D'Houdetot tell about the battle of Trafalgar, at which he had been present as a midshipman on board the Algesiras, commanded by his uncle Admiral Magon, how, as he lay on the poop, with both his legs broken by the bursting of a shell, he saw his uncle the admiral receive his death-blow, at the very moment when, wounded already, and his hat and wig carried away by a shot, he had thrown himself on to the nettings, shouting to his crew, "The first man who boards that ship with me shall have ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... dined?" The haberdasher presented a cap, saying, "Here is the cap your worship bespoke;" on which Petruchio began to storm afresh, saying, the cap was moulded in a porringer, and that it was no bigger than a cockle or a walnut shell, desiring the haberdasher to take it away and make a bigger. Katherine said, "I will have this; all gentlewomen wear such caps as these." "When you are gentle," replied Petruchio, "you shall have one too, and not till then." The meat Katherine had eaten had a little revived her fallen ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... the Captain with me eye, gentlemen, and I'm blessed if he didn't walk straight across the open and over the support trench. Then he drops into a bit of a shell-hole and I lost sight of him. Well, I waited and waited and no sign of th' orficer. The rocket goes up and our lads begin to come back with half a dozen Huns runnin' in front of them with their hands up. Some of the chaps as they passed me wanted to know if I was a-goin' to stay ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... some tall soldier or other of the Empire, who had lain there in his silent unobtrusive rest for a space of fifteen hundred years. He was mostly found lying on his side, in an oval scoop in the chalk, like a chicken in its shell; his knees drawn up to his chest; sometimes with the remains of his spear against his arm, a fibula or brooch of bronze on his breast or forehead, an urn at his knees, a jar at his throat, a bottle at his mouth; and mystified conjecture ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... Brussels, and wrote another book, De occulta Philosophia (3 vols., Antwerp, 1533), which enabled his enemies to bring against him the charge of magic. Stories were told of the money which Agrippa paid at inns turning into pieces of horn and shell, and of the mysterious dog which ate and slept with him, which was indeed a demon in disguise and vanished at his death. They declared he had a wonderful wand, and a mirror which reflected the images ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... now in order, with squares of fried hominy, and for the moment Hodges held his peace. This was Nixon's opportunity, and he made the most of it. He had been born on the eastern shore of Maryland and was brought up on canvasbacks, soft-shell crabs and terrapin—not to mention clams and sheepshead. Nixon therefore launched out on the habits of the sacred bird—the crimes committed by the swivel-gun in the hands of the marketmen, the consequent scarcity of the game and the near approach of the time when the ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... both internal and external, to which marine boilers are subject. The stays should be small and numerous rather than large and few in number, as, when large stays are employed, it is difficult to keep them tight at the ends, and oxidation of the shell follows from leakage at the ends of the stays. All boilers should be proved, when new, to twice or three times the pressure they are intended to bear, and they should be proved occasionally by the hand pump when ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... was worse yet. Everybody was sort o' nervous because the Germans had dropped a message sayin' they'd give 'em three days to clear the hospital out, and that then they'd shell hell out ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos

... sure of victory. I placed the shell on the edge of her lips, and after a good deal of laughing she sucked in the oyster, which she held between her lips. I instantly recovered it by placing my ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... mak'st thou no attempt at questioning, As thus we walk together?" Like to those Who, speaking with too reverent an awe Before their betters, draw not forth the voice Alive unto their lips, befell me shell That I in sounds imperfect thus began: "Lady! what I have need of, that thou know'st, And what will suit my need." She answering thus: "Of fearfulness and shame, I will, that thou Henceforth do rid thee: that thou speak no more, As one who dreams. Thus far be taught of me: The vessel, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... several hundred trees, consisting of pears, plums, peaches, and cherries, has been set out. Other varieties have been added, also quinces, mulberries, figs, and grapes. This year one each of the Japanese walnut, giant chestnut, and paper shell pecan are being started; also half a dozen varieties of the raspberry, some currants, rhubarb and garden plants, with a view to propagate those that prove valuable. Twenty of the standard varieties of strawberries have been grown. Grasses and forage plants have also received their ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 4, April 1896 • Various

... wedded wife; and ere the night again returns, the consciousness that he is a slave is quite lost in the thoughts of liberty which fill his breast, and the associations of freedom which cluster around him. He sleeps again. Monday morning he is startled from his dreams by the old "shell-blow" of slavery, and he arises to endure another week of toil, alternated by the same tantalizing mockeries of freedom. Is not this applying the hot ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... down and poked something out of the pile of dust. There on the floor was an empty shell of a cartridge. Kennedy picked it up and looked at ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve

... means the first, drew himself over the rocky edge of the table-land to find the ground plentifully sprinkled with barbed wire entanglements. Although this form of defence had been badly knocked about by shell-fire there was still sufficient wire, either in tension or else in snake-like coils, to offer serious impediment to ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman

... went and visited the Eastermost Side of this Island, it joining to the Ocean, having very fair sandy Beeches, pav'd with innumerable Sorts of curious pretty Shells, very pleasant to the Eye. Amongst the rest, we found the Spanish Oyster-Shell, whence come the Pearls. They are very large, and of a different Form from other Oysters; their Colour much resembles the Tortoise-Shell, when it is dress'd. There was left by the Tide several strange Species of a muciligmous slimy Substance, though living, and ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... their rappee was? the good woman pointed to the place; and I took up a scollop-shell of it, refusing to let her weight it, and filled my box. And now, Mrs. Smith, said ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... and in a short time called us to them. There was a large hole in the bank concealed by overhanging bushes. It was full of eggs, about the size of those of a goose. On counting them we found no less than sixty. The shell was white and partially elastic, both ends being exactly the same size. The nest was about four yards from the water. A pathway led up to it; and Igubo told Timbo, that after the crocodile has deposited her eggs, she covers them up with about ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... from North Africa to the UK and Netherlands and of European-produced synthetic drugs; minor transshipment point for heroin and cocaine destined for Western Europe; despite recent legislation, narcotics-related money laundering using bureaux de change, trusts, and shell companies involving the offshore financial community ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... sale had been consummated and he had the money he needed, Bunker Hill suddenly lost all interest in Denver and retired into his shell. He had invited Denver once to come down to his house and share the hospitality of his home; but, after Denver's brusque, almost brutal refusal, Old Bunk had never been the same. He had shown Denver his claim and ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... down my wearied limbs I'll lay; My pilgrim's staff, my weed of gray, My palmer's hat, my scallop's shell, My cross, my cord, and all, farewell. For having now my journey done, Just at the setting of the sun, Here I have found a chamber fit, God and good friends be thanked for it, Where if I can a lodger be, A little ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... clear of the foothills they galloped into an inferno of machine-gun fire at close quarters from the Germans and Turks occupying wadis and shell-holes all over the plain. Horses were shot down right and left, and a team of eight which had not been unhooked were all hit, together with two of the drivers, who fortunately managed to get safely away. Finally ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett

... encompassing a spacious but rather shallow lagoon, teeming with non-poisonous fish. It is leased from the Colonial Office by a London firm, who are planting the barren soil with coconut trees and fishing the lagoon for pearl-shell. Like many other of the isolated atolls in the North Pacific, such as the Fannings, Palmyra, and Providence Groups, the lagoon is resorted to by sharks in incredible numbers; and even at the present time the native labourers employed by the ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke

... in ports where fish was abundant, he achieved the great work of cooking a rice abanda. The cabin boys would bring to the captain's table the pot in which was boiled the rich sea food mixed with lobsters, mussels, and every kind of shell-fish available, but the chef invariably reserved for himself the honor of offering the accompanying great platter with its pyramid, of rice, ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... a number of trifling matters which never occupy attention but when there is a lack of something better to employ it; for instance, he would knock off the top of an egg-shell at a single stroke of his fork; he therefore always ate eggs when he dined in public, and the Parisians who came on Sundays to see the King dine, returned home less struck with his fine figure than with the dexterity with which he ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... which, at meal-time, might be noticed a table-cloth, not of diaper, but, what served equally well, the broad smooth silken leaves of the plantain. There were cups, too, and plates, and bowls, and dishes, and bottles, of the light gourd-shell (Crescentia cujete), some of the bottles holding useful liquids, and corked with the elastic pith of a palm. Other vessels of a boat-shape ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... from $5 to $6 a month, without board. Clothing costs per year from 75 cents to $1.50. Out of these incomes large families are maintained. He says: "The daily fare of an Amoy working man and its cost are about as follows: 11/2 pounds of rice, 3 cents; 1 ounce of meat, 1 ounce of fish, 2 ounces of shell-fish, 1 cent; 1 pound of cabbage or other vegetable, 1 cent; fuel, salt, and oil, 1 cent; total, ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous

... feel that he was lost. With his right hand, the deaf man detached one by one, in silence, with sinister slowness, all the pieces of his armor, the sword, the daggers, the helmet, the cuirass, the leg pieces. One would have said that it was a monkey taking the shell from a nut. Quasimodo flung the scholar's iron shell at his feet, piece by piece. When the scholar beheld himself disarmed, stripped, weak, and naked in those terrible hands, he made no attempt to speak to the deaf man, but began to laugh audaciously in his face, and to sing with his intrepid heedlessness ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... about the finest color that has yet seen active service. Frequently we drove several hundred yards beside a field before noticing that it was filled with soldiers. Several of the villages between Dieghem and Hofstade were partially burned, and there were evidences of shell fire—which to these peasants must be a perfectly convincing substitute for hell-fire—and of fighting at really close quarters. Between Perck and Hofstade, the fields were covered with deep entrenchments, and over some of these were stuck dummy heads to draw hostile fire. Some, on ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... crowd as they watched him. He looked at his rifle closely. He sprang the breech and threw out a shell or two to ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... to the tip of the tail, and, with the exception of a greater length of body and a longer tail, they very much resembled diminutive hyenas. They are fed with pounded guinea corn and dried fish made into balls. The civet is scraped off with a kind of muscle shell every other morning, the animal being forced into a corner of the cage, and its head held down with a stick during the operation. The prince offered to sell any number of them which Clapperton might wish to have; but ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... on purpose for me, and I might pick pigweed to "green" it, and tansy to give it a fine taste. So I should almost make the cheese myself; what would my mother say to that? Then there were the beehives, which were filling with honey, and some late chickens, which were going to chip out of the shell in a week. Remarkable events, every one; but it was the tansy cheese which decided me at last, and I told father he might go without me; I wanted to stay ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May

... this pathway there is always a knot of people gathered about the shanty where the seamen eat maccaroni and strange messes, and the stands where shell-fish are exposed for sale. On the far side of the tramway, beneath the tall houses which are let out in rooms and apartments for families, there is an open space, and here in summer are set out quantities of strong tables, at which from noon till late into the evening the people of ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... I will show you something pretty: four young doves have come out of the shell; they have big, wide ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... burden with nothing but her work in her head. She was not the servant, who stands like a post, with the frightened face and doltish air of utter stupidity, when masters and mistresses are talking in her presence. She, too, had cast off her shell, fashioned herself and opened her mind to the education of Paris. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, having no occupation, and being interested after the manner of old maids in what was going on in the quarter, had long been in the habit of making Germinie tell her what news she ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... to build the ship. He gathers his material, and on the fifth day is ready to construct the hull. The ship resembles the ordinary craft still used on the Euphrates. It is a flat-bottomed skiff with upturned edges. On this shell the real 'house'[952] of Parnapishtim is placed. The structure is accurately described. Its height is one hundred and twenty cubits, and its breadth is the same, in accordance with the express orders given by Ea. No less than six floors are ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... ceilings we were conducted, through the Shell Salon—the walls of which were inlaid with shells, the friezes being of minerals and precious stones—across the Marble Room, and then along an endless, thickly carpeted corridor, which reminded me of one at Peterhof leading to the Empress's private apartments, until the ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... Terra Vergine, were visible. With an effort, like one who forces his will to look on a dead face, he uncovered his eyes and looked downward. The olive-trees were still standing; where the house had stood there was a black, charred, roofless shell; the untilled fields lay bare ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... brought on a powder-wagon to the hamlet of Meuchen, where it was placed for the night in the church, before the altar. The next day it was carried to the schoolmaster's house, until he, being joiner of the village also, constructed the simple shell in which it was conveyed to Weissenfels. There the body was embalmed by the King's apothecary, Caspar, who counted in it nine wounds. The heart, which was uncommonly large, was preserved by the Queen in a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... side of the Old Bailey, has been rebuilt, its walls or shell excepted, since it was destroyed by the rioters, in the year 1780. A broad yard divides Newgate from the Sessions House, a very handsome stone and brick building. Another edifice, where that lately stood, commonly called Surgeon's Hall, has been erected; ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... of a broad, creeping sole, membranous in nature and hyaline in appearance. This membrane is the only evidence of ectoplasm, and it frequently shows folds and wrinkles, while its contour slowly changes with movements of body. The pseudopodia emerge from the body between this membrane and the shell margin. Contractile vacuole absent. Length 42 mu, width 35 mu. In decomposing ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins

... tortoise-shell cat. He had a crumpled ear. He had a great scar across his nose. He had a broken ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... with my own eyes, and they dancing the "Blue Pigeon" in the air.' And then he held the now empty noggin towards Costello, his hand closing round it like the claw of a bird, and cried: 'Fill my noggin again, for I would the day had come when all the water in the world is to shrink into a periwinkle-shell, that I might ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats

... nuts. Just a lick of the hammer and two halves drop out, don't have to pick them out, just roll out. It is an excellent nut. It was a rather young tree and very fruitful. Very good quality with a little thicker shell ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... get past the glow and exhilaration of a storm, the wrestle of long dust-heavy winds, the play of live thunder on the rocks, nor past the keen fret of fatigue when the storm outlasts physical endurance. But prospectors and Indians get a kind of a weather shell that remains on ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin

... the court. They sat in nautilus shells, which were each borne by two bearers. The first shell went along nicely, but the men who carried the second were lazy and the lady beat them with a hair-brush. As for the bearers of the last shell, they had a fight and took their poles to beat each other, leaving their shell, with the lady ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various

... the egg firmly with her fore paws, then, with a crisp snap of her sharp little teeth, she broke the shell, and cleverly sucked out the inside of it; not all, because she wanted her little ones to taste and see how good an egg really was. And very good they thought it—so good that in a few moments the egg was empty and the two young squirrels were quarreling over the shell. ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin

... already there are brought to the position of load, the cut-off turned down if firing from magazine, the cartridge is drawn or the empty shell is ejected, the trigger is pulled, sights are laid down, and the piece ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department

... little in the recent gale. From where Mrs. Orton Beg reclined there was no visible change in the background of single dahlias, sunflowers, and the old brick wall curtained with creepers, nor was there any great difference apparent in the girl herself. The delicate shell-pink of passion had faded to milky white, her eyes were heavy, and her attitude somewhat fatigued, but that was all; a dance the night before, would have left her so exactly, and Mrs. Orton Beg, watching her, wondered at the small effect of "blighted affection" as she saw it ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... beside it, and traces are to be seen in the print of the flying bridge that formerly connected it with the Early English turret at the north-west corner of the choir transept. There is now, however, only a mere shell of the lower part left. The walls were 6 feet thick, inclosing a space 24 feet square. In the "History and Antiquities of Rochester" (1772), we are told that there were at that time traces of one floor at a height of 20 feet, and of another 25 ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer

... The arrival of the gippy driver and the complete fearlessness with which he seized the trailing rope and beat the furious beast into submission with a pole, gave a foretaste of the courage which some of these men showed under shell-fire in later days. By the 3rd of March, by the way, the thermometer had risen to above 80 inside the tents. While at el Arish, "Padre" Campbell, who had been with the Battalion since we left Leven, returned home ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... or had been speared by the blacks. Those who survived had purchased their lives from the savages with shreds of cloth and buttons from their ragged clothing, and had kept themselves alive with such shell-fish as they could find upon the beaches. At Wattamolla they had halted to cook a scanty meal of shell-fish, and the smoke of their fire revealed their presence to a fishing boat from the settlement ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery

... going too fast, however; presuming too much on the quietness with which the squire had been questioning him. Mr. Hamley drew back within his shell, and spoke in a surly manner ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... his periscope. At irregular intervals machine guns, deftly hidden from the sight of the enemy, poked their menacing mouths toward the Boche lines. Now and then, finding its mark at some point in the course of the winding trench, an enemy shell would explode throwing clouds of dust and debris into the air, wrecking the earthworks where it fell, taking its toll of human lives and limbs. Twice Pen was thrown off his feet by the shock of near-by explosions, but he escaped injury, as ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... thing," Lisle explained. "Couldn't snap a fresh shell in; guess I bent the slide. I took ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... I settled in Alexey's study," she said in answer to Stepan Arkadyevitch's question whether he might smoke, "just so as to be able to smoke"—and glancing at Levin, instead of asking whether he would smoke, she pulled closer a tortoise-shell cigar-case and ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... that it was a regular custom to bury the children in that way. He also found that the children had been undoubtedly treated with affection, as in their small graves were found many of the best pieces of pottery he obtained, and also quantities of shell-beads, several large pearls, and many other objects which were probably the playthings of the little ones while living." [Footnote: A detailed account of this exploration, with many illustrations, will be found in the Eleventh Annual Report of the ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow

... bomb-shell. It electrified the languid gentleman. He became suddenly animated by fear. "What—what do you mean, Miss Payne?" starting half out of his seat ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... been carved on the stock and she examined them, making them out finally as "B. D."—Doubler's. Examining the weapon she found an empty shell in the chamber, and she nearly dropped the rifle when the thought struck her that perhaps Doubler had been shot with it. She set it down quickly, shuddering, and for diversion walked to her pony, examining the injured leg and rubbing it, the pony nickering ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... Ground oyster shell is a good source of carbonate of lime. The percentage falls below that of limestone, but in addition there is a little nitrogen and phosphoric acid. An analysis of a good quality of oyster shell, as found on the market, will show ...
— Right Use of Lime in Soil Improvement • Alva Agee

... that he objects to his doctrine; he can't very well; it's 'between the leds of the Bible,' as the Hard-shell Baptist said. But he objects to Brother Peck's walk and conversation. He thinks he walks too much with the poor, and converses too much with the lowly. He says he thinks that the pew-owners in Mr. Peck's church and the people who pay his salary have some rights to his company ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... get rid of the downright vulgarity of phrase in the last stanza, Wordsworth invents an impossible tortoise-shell, and thus robs his story of the reality which alone gave it a living interest. Any extemporized raft would have floated the boy down to immortality. But Wordsworth never quite learned the distinction between Fact, which suffocates the ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... her in. She pointed out what she wanted done to the old glasses, and said she would buy a pair of new ones to wear while the job was about. The man had no blue ones, no green; plenty of white. One ugly, old pair of green things he had, with tortoise-shell rims, left by some stranger, ages and ages ago, to be mended, and never called for again. This very pair of ugly old green things was chosen by Lady Isabel. She put them on, there and then, Miss Carlyle's eyes searching her ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... cold, and look both pale and thin, The teeth fall out as nutts forsook the shell, The bare bald head but shows where hair hath been, The lively joints wax weary, stiff, and still, The ready tongue now falters in his tale; The courage quails as strength ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... horizontal bands of yellow (top) and green with a vertical red band on the hoist side; in the upper portion of the red band is a black five-pointed star framed by two corn stalks and a yellow clam shell; uses the popular pan-African colors of Ethiopia; similar to the flag of Guinea-Bissau which is longer and has an unadorned black star centered in the ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... we had gone by the barricade that, in a shed behind the riddled shell of a house, which was almost the last house of the town, one of our party saw an old, a very old, woman, who peered out at us through a break in the wall. He called out to her in French, but she never answered—only continued to watch him from behind her shelter. He started toward her and she disappeared ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... a poem which, as we have already hinted, was essentially a translation of Wace's 'Brut d'Angleterre.' The most remarkable thing about Layamon's poem is the language in which it is written-language in which you catch English in the very act of chipping the Saxon shell, or, as Campbell happily remarks, 'the style of Layamon is as nearly the intermediate state of the old and new languages as can be found in any ancient specimen —something like the new insect stirring its wings before it has shaken ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... Rea was downstairs and out on the east veranda. At the kitchen door stood a Chinaman, throwing bits of meat to the scrambling seventeen cats,—black, white, tortoise-shell, gray, maltese, yellow, every color, size, shape of cat that was ever seen. And they were plunging and leaping and racing about so, that it looked like twice as many cats as there really were, and as if every cat had a dozen tails. "Sfz! Sfz! Sputter! Scratch, spp, spt! Growl, growl, miaow, ...
— The Hunter Cats of Connorloa • Helen Jackson

... have in your hands a reckless, despairing, spirit-broken creature, with not even an aspiration to rise above his miserable circumstances, covered with vermin and filth, sinking ever lower and lower, until at last he is hurried out of sight in the rough shell which carries him to a ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... he (Sir Thomas Browne) doubt whether in cheese and timber worms are generated; or if beetles and wasps in cows' dung; or if butterflies, locusts, grasshoppers, shell-fish, snails, eels, and such like, be procreated of putrid matter, which is apt to receive the form of that creature to which it is by formative power disposed. To question this is to question reason, sense and experience. If he doubts this let him go to Egypt, and there ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price

... the captain, took some of us into his confidence, and we made it our business to draw this fellow out of his shell. It was not long before we found that he was an entirely different sort of a person from what ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... drums, Nakaras, were arranged in front of the yogi's tent, and were being beaten by strong-armed drummers, while a conch shell blared forth a discordant note that was supposed to be pleasing ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... which an Anglo-American contingent of about three hundred marines and seamen, with a volunteer corps of less than a hundred residents, attacked the Imperial camp, and drove away from thirty to fifty thousand Chinese soldiers, the range of our shot and shell making the native artillery useless. Still, in the autumn of 1854 a journey of perhaps a week's duration was safely accomplished with Dr. Edkins, who of course did the speaking and preaching, while I was able to help in ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor

... he said, as he continued his strange employment, "the shell of the image is not very thick and when I press on certain parts, certain things take place ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... heart of the touring American or Britisher could desire was to be had, at a price, in the curio shop of Mhtoon Pah. Umbrellas of all colours from Bussan; silk from Shantung; carpets from Mirzapore; silver peacocks, Japanese embroideries, shell-trimmed bags from Shan and Cochin, all were there; and the wealth of Mhtoon ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie

... enclose Thee in their judgments, as to discompose Thee in that faith and peace thou hast with him; This would be like the losing of a limb; Or like to him who thinks he doth not well, Unless he lose the kernel for the shell. Thou art no captive, but a child and free; Thou wast not made for laws, but laws for thee; And thou must use them as thy light will bear it; They that say otherwise, do rend and tear it, More like to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... with the weary blade. Hour by hour the rain beat on them, and the pines that crawled out of it went very slowly by, while it was almost a relief to stand upright now and then, and with strenuous effort drive the frail shell up against the swirl of the slower rapids with long fir poles. At times they were swept down sideways before the poles could find hold again, and fought, gasping and panting, for minutes to regain what they had lost in as ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... once more to the playground of Saint Winifred's. Charlie had often heard about her from Walter, and he gladly made from her a few small purchases, in which the other boys followed his example. While he was doing this, he distinctly saw one of the Noelites—an ill-conditioned fellow in the shell, named Penn—thrust his hand into the old woman's basket, which was now surrounded by a large group of boys, and secrete a small bottle of scent. Charlie waited a moment, expecting to see him pay for it, but Penn, ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... offices of profit or power under the Crown at the age of forty, get Mr. HUGH F. SPENDER'S new and, as it seems to me, rather ingenuous novel. Love is not neglected, for a peer's son, deaf and dumb through shell-shock, so responds to the counter-irritant of seeing this modern JOAN riding through Piccadilly that he recovers both speech and hearing and promptly uses them to put her a leading question and understand her version of "But this is so sudden. However——" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various

... for a long distance and the fishes came so close to the glass of the dome that sometimes they actually touched it. On the white sands at the bottom of the lake were star-fish, lobsters, crabs and many shell fish of strange shapes and with shells of gorgeous hues. The water foliage was of brilliant colors and to Dorothy it ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... a very good rifle to kill an African elephant. A No. 8 bore with a Frazer's shell, planted in the temple, I believe, would drop an elephant each shot. Faulkner makes some extraordinary statements, about walking up in front of an elephant and planting a bullet in his forehead, killing him instantly. ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... were centres of resistance which had held out against all attacks,—large rounds of beef, and solid loaves of cake, against which the inexperienced had wasted their energies in the enthusiasm of youth or uninformed maturity, while the longer-headed guests were making discoveries of "shell-oysters" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... sister of Matthew Pocket, a little dry, brown, corrugated old woman, with a small face that might have been made of walnut-shell, and a large mouth, like a cat's without the whiskers.—C. Dickens, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... soon settled in barracks; and then began a series of entertainments on the side of the civic dignities of Cork, which soon led most of us to believe that we had only escaped shot and shell to fall less gloriously beneath champagne and claret. I do not believe there is a coroner in the island who would have pronounced but the one verdict over the regiment—"Killed by the mayor and ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever

... conscience too clear;—but on this particular night he was visited by an impression rather than a dream,—the impression of a lonely, and terrifying dreariness, as though the whole world were suddenly emptied of life and left like a hollow shell on the shores of time. Gradually this first sense of utter and unspeakable loss changed into a startled consciousness of fear;—some awful transformation of things familiar was about to be consummated;—and he felt the ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... temperature quite impossible for British military operations. We arrived about 11 A.M. at the headquarters of the army under the command of General Count Galitzin. We held long conferences and then lunched in his mess, which was quartered in an eight-wheeled American truck. An occasional shell exploded first to right and then to left, but none came very near, and by 2 P.M. the firing died away altogether. It was decided to march to the advanced outpost and take the band to give both friend and foe ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... McConnell, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, tell you of that Sunday evening when, at the invitation of General Byng, he addressed, under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A., a great regiment of the Scottish Guards. That night, in a shell-destroyed stone theatre, he spoke to them on "How Men Die." In a week from that night more than two-thirds of them had been killed. When Bishop McConnell asked them what they would like to sing, this great crowd of sturdy, bare-kneed soldiers of democracy, who had borne the brunt of battle ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger

... said Varney. "I will show her all thou hast done in this matter was good service, both to my lord and her; and when she chips the egg-shell and walks alone, she shall own ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... Bestirs her then, and from each tender stalk Whatever Earth all-bearing Mother yeilds In India East or West, or middle shoare In Pontus or the Punic Coast, or where 340 Alcinous reign'd, fruit of all kindes, in coate, Rough, or smooth rin'd, or bearded husk, or shell She gathers, Tribute large, and on the board Heaps with unsparing hand; for drink the Grape She crushes, inoffensive moust, and meathes From many a berrie, and from sweet kernels prest She tempers dulcet creams, nor these to hold Wants her fit vessels pure, then strews the ground With Rose and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... on Mr. Darwin's showing, a hundred intermediate variations at the least; and between some of the more widely separated forms there ought to be thousands of intermediate varieties; as for instance between the bear and the whale; and a still greater number between the mollusk with its external shell, and the vertebrate with its internal skeleton. And we ought to find these intermediate forms closely connected with their parents and their children. For intermediate forms in another continent could not be the connecting links between the mollusks and vertebrates ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... the mist thickened again, and the whole village shrunk again within it, like a turtle within its shell. The next morning dawned without its misty mask, but with it rose a gusty wind that commenced howling like a famished wolf. Alas! for the glories of the woods! As the rude gusts rushed from the slaty clouds, the rich leaves came fluttering ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... vast shroud of smoke rose and hid both lines, while out of it flew countless shell and roundshot. At first most of the Confederate missiles flew high and fell far behind our Crest. The two officers were coolly critical as they stood between ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... how he did it, but when he spoke he made our hearts burn within us; and to show him we were his children, incapable of balking, didn't we rush at the mouths of the rascally cannon, that belched and vomited shot and shell without so much as saying, 'Look out!' Why! the dying must needs raise their heads to salute him and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... bride found existence very boring. Then, too, when the glamour of the elopement had dimmed, it was obvious that her action in running away from Bath had been precipitate. Thomas, for all his luxuriant whiskers and dash, was, she reflected sadly, "nothing but the outside shell of a man, with neither a brain that she could respect nor a heart she could love." A sorry awakening from the dreams in which she had indulged. As a matter of fact, they had nothing in common. The husband, who was sixteen years his wife's senior, cared for little ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... walls, upon which the heavy artillery now played at short range with deadly effect. Bombs and grenades hissed over the shattering ramparts and burst in the crowded streets; roundshot and grape tore their way through the wooden barracks; while mortars and musketry poured a hail of shell and bullet upon the brave defenders. Nothing could save Louisbourg now that Pitt's policy of Thorough had got headway. On the 26th of July a white flag fluttered over the Dauphin's Bastion; and by midnight of that date Drucour had signed Amherst's ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... this is but the outside shell and the fancy framework in which the substance of the poem is enclosed. Its substance is the poet's philosophy of life. It shadows forth, in type and parable, his ideal of the perfection of the ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... fragrance, quietness, and trees, and flowers. Full of calm joy it was, as I of grief; Too full of joy and soft delicious warmth; So that I felt a movement in my heart To chide, and to reproach that solitude With songs of misery, music of our woes; And sat me down, and took a mouthed shell 270 And murmur'd into it, and made melody— O melody no more! for while I sang, And with poor skill let pass into the breeze The dull shell's echo, from a bowery strand Just opposite, an island of the sea, There came enchantment with the shifting wind, That did both drown and keep ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... The soldiers flocked to the shore, challenging the stranger, and finally fired one or two shots at her. Then suddenly a rough voice was heard, "Now give it to them, for the honor of America!" and a shower of shell and grape fell on the British, driving them off the levee. The stranger was an American man-of-war schooner. The British brought up artillery to drive her off, but before they succeeded Jackson's land ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... rear, when an officer, dressed in the garb of a lieutenant, who was lying on the field, called faintly to him, and on his going up, he observed that the lieutenant's left leg was fearfully mangled by a fragment of shell, and was bleeding so profusely, that, unless medical aid was quickly procured, he would die. Forgetting his own wound, which was very painful, he lifted the officer on his shoulder and bore him to the hospital, where his leg was immediately attended to, and his life saved. The severity of his ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams

... his present into her hand and swung off whistling. He turned once to wave to her, and the corn in his cap nodded with its weight and his light gait. She stood gazing till he was out of sight, and then she looked at what he had given her. It was a shell. ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... in the form of a rose; and others still roll out from the base, in forms resembling the ornaments on the capitol of a Corinthian column. (You see how I am driven for analogies.) Some of the incrustations are massive and splendid; others are as delicate as the lily, or as fancy-work of shell or wax. Think of traversing an arched way like this for a mile and a half, and all the wonders of the tales of youth—"Arabian Nights," and all—seem tame, compared with the living, growing reality. Yes, growing reality; for the process is going on before your ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt

... fascinating current of London society. But the admirable training in strict moral principles with which she had been privileged furnished weapons of defence against the more specious temptations which presented themselves; whilst her quick discernment easily penetrated the thin shell of external polish covering worthlessness of character. It was also fortunate for her that at the outset of her London experience she became acquainted with such a sterling ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... her new coat on for the last three weeks. You couldn't take her out as she was, all black and white. She'd have been knocked to bits before we'd begun our job. So I had her painted. She's a good enough target for shell-fire as she is." ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... but her shyness prevented her from making advances, and so far nobody had offered her even the elements of friendship. It sometimes hurt her to be thus entirely ignored and left out, but she had grown accustomed to it, and, shutting herself up in her shell, she followed the motto of ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... we pushed through the yielding shell beach, preceded by our improvised porters, to the broken ramparts of Treryn Dinas; these we climbed, and made our way across the fields to the village of Treryn; and here we hired a trap, which ran us into Penzance in time ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... metallic surface. Formerly the faces of the types used in printing were very commonly faced with copper to give them finish and a wearing quality. Even fresh, natural fruits that have been evenly coated with plumbago may be covered with a thin shell of metal. A silver head may be placed on the wood of a walking stick, precisely conforming on the outside to the form of ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele

... law held good. What made the Brethren's Church shine so brightly in Bohemia before Luther's days was not their doctrine, but their lives; not their theory, but their practice; not their opinions, but their discipline. Without that discipline they would have been a shell without a kernel. It called forth the admiration of Calvin, and drove Luther to despair. It was, in truth, the jewel of the Church, her charm against foes within and without; and so great a part did it play in their lives that in later years ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... chosen must be simple owing to the necessity of fitting and stitching them together, but there is plenty of variety obtainable with simplicity. The design may consist of one shape repeated or several. If only one, it is limited to a few geometrical figures, such as the square, hexagon, or shell shape; if more than one, there can be greater variety of pattern. Fig. 98 is an example in which four shapes are made use of, a large and small circle, an octagon, and an S-like twist. Four of these twists together make the figure that interlaces ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie

... youth pricked forth upon a steed with head dappled gray, four winters old, firm of limb, with shell-formed hoofs, having a bridle of linked gold on his head, and upon him a saddle of costly gold. And in the youth's hand were two spears of silver, sharp, well-tempered, headed with steel, three ells in length, of an edge ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... perfect, and imperfect animals. The perfect animals are elephants, camels, horses, mules, oxen, sheep, goats, and others which are of the herd or the flock; the less perfect are birds; and the imperfect are fish and shell-fish; these, as being the lowest of that degree, are as it were in shade, while the former are in light. Yet animals, since they live only from the lowest spiritual degree, which is called the natural, can look nowhere else than towards the earth and to food there, and to ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg

... of independent Gallic life. It was a mixture of northern myth and oriental dreams of metempsychosis, coarse, mystical, and cruel. The Roman paganism which was superimposed by the conquering race was the mere shell of a once vital religion. Educated men had long ceased to believe in the gods and divinities of Greece, and it is said that the Roman augurs, while giving their solemn prophetic utterances, could not look at ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele

... having a large dish filled with cold water in readiness, lay the pieces on the surface, where they will float. Then ignite each one of them with a match, and they will burn furiously, swimming about all the time that the burning is in progress, until at last nothing remains but a thin shell, too wet ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various

... sea-side; he buried it, and was honoured throughout Greece for the piety of that act. Another ancient Philosopher, chancing to fix his eyes upon a dead body, regarded the same with slight, if not with contempt; saying, 'See the shell of the flown bird!' But it is not to be supposed that the moral and tender-hearted Simonides was incapable of the lofty movements of thought, to which that other Sage gave way at the moment while his soul was intent only upon the indestructible being; nor, on the other hand, that he, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth



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