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Tread   Listen
noun
Tread  n.  
1.
A step or stepping; pressure with the foot; a footstep; as, a nimble tread; a cautious tread. "She is coming, my own, my sweet; Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat."
2.
Manner or style of stepping; action; gait; as, the horse has a good tread.
3.
Way; track; path. (R.)
4.
The act of copulation in birds.
5.
(Arch.) The upper horizontal part of a step, on which the foot is placed.
6.
(Fort.) The top of the banquette, on which soldiers stand to fire over the parapet.
7.
(Mach.)
(a)
The part of a wheel that bears upon the road or rail.
(b)
The part of a rail upon which car wheels bear.
8.
(Biol.) The chalaza of a bird's egg; the treadle.
9.
(Far.) A bruise or abrasion produced on the foot or ankle of a horse that interferes. See Interfere, 3.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tread" Quotes from Famous Books



... in my sylvan home, I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; And when I am stretched beneath the pines, Where the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, At the sophist schools and the learned clan; For what are they all, in their high conceit, When man in the bush ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... to sister Beckie; And eke the same to honest Lucky, I wat she is a dainty chuckie, As e'er tread clay! And gratefully, my guid auld ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... over of old straw has its uses, but to an ardent and active mind, it is liable to become very depressing. Such a mind would rather be kept on the qui vive of activity by a volley of questions fired at him every hour in a library, than to grind forever in an intellectual tread-mill, with no hope of change and very little of relief. The very variety of the employments which fill up the library hours, the versatility required in the service, contributes to it a certain ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... been— not very gentle with her, and had threatened to turn her out of the house the next morning unless she would trample on the cross, as a sign that she abjured all her Christian friends and Christ. That, she said, she could not do. 'I could tread on the piece of wood,' she said, 'and that would be nothing: but my mother means it for a sign of abjuring Christ.' And she earnestly implored me to get her into some nunnery, where she might be safe. Perhaps I ought to have ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... of the Arctic summer swiftly passed away; the sun daily sank nearer and nearer the horizon; the temperature fell; frost made its appearance, hardening the soil beneath the tread and coating the pools and puddles and morasses with an ever-thickening sheet of ice and the vegetation with a delicate tracery of silver; and at length the day came when the anchor was lifted and the Flying Fish moved some few miles out to sea to enable her occupants ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... of it, and that the holy Pope to everyone gave liberty to fart at his own ease, if that the blankets had no streaks wherein the liars were to be crossed with a ruffian-like crew, and, the rainbow being newly sharpened at Milan to bring forth larks, gave his full consent that the good woman should tread down the heel of the hip-gut pangs, by virtue of a solemn protestation put in by the little testiculated or codsted fishes, which, to tell the truth, were at that time very necessary for understanding the syntax and construction ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... business of thinking. He will perceive in many the unequivocal indications of a serious and earnest effort made to acquire, with the aid visible signs and implements, a command of what is invisible and immaterial. They are thus rising from the mere animal state to tread in the precincts of an intellectual economy; the economy of thought and truth, in which they are to live forever; and never, in all futurity, will they have to regret, for itself, [Footnote: For ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... people into the ways of the Spirit, and to the prayer of quietness, instilled into them many abominable heresies, therefore a strict charge was given to dissolve all those societies, and to oblige the spiritual guide to tread in the known paths; and, in particular, to take care none of that sort should be suffered to have the direction of the nunneries. Orders were likewise given to proceed, in the way of justice, against those who should be found guilty ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... say that there must be no speaking, and that we must tread lightly. You're up to redskin ways as well as me, except mayhap ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne

... forms that came and went; there were two that seldom were away—the tall and supple one of the dark face and the easy tread, and his yellow shadow—the ever unpopular, snappish, prick-eared cur, that held by force of arms all territories at floor level contiguous to, under, comprised, and bounded by, the four square legs and corners of ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... and bolted, and then Arthur lay listening with that intensity which so quickens one's hearing, that the faintest sounds are distinct at great distances. He heard the trampling footsteps as the people came crowding in, and the tread of horses' feet as sleigh after sleigh drove up the avenue, and once, with a ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... was jogging on ahead, a dinner pail upon his arm. He was a slender little fellow of six or seven years who whistled shrilly as he went and kicked up clouds of dust with his bare feet. As Van watched the sway of his shoulders and the unhampered tread of his unshod feet he could not but recall the days when he, too, had gloried in going barefoot. He smiled at the memory which now ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... await your arrival to give you these descriptions. I am expecting the numbers of your Fossil Fishes, which have not yet come. Humboldt often speaks of them to me. Ah! how much I prefer you in a field which is wholly your own than in one where you break in upon the measured and cautious tread, introduced by Saussure in geology. You, too, will reconsider all this, and will yet treat the views of Saussure and Escher with more respect. Everything here turns to infusoria. Ehrenberg has just discovered that an apparently sandy deposit, twenty feet in thickness, under the "Luneburgerheyde," ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... to you, my boy, even though it be your last one. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Ah! who could have said, in the golden days of my youth, that I should come to such an end! Oh, ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd

... walked in a kind of deep, troubled study, into which he had been thrown by Ned's words regarding him; I was awed into breathless silence and a mouse-like tread; and kind little Fanny went gently sobbing with sorrow and fear for her unhappy brother—a sorrow and fear not shared in the least degree by her sister Madge, whose face showed triumphant approval of her father's ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... be cowardly and brutal. What did people know of the thousand and one reasons that kept eligible young men out of the Army? What had they known of Marmaduke? As soon as the illusion of his life had been dispelled, he had marched away with as gallant a tread as anybody; and though Doggie had kept to himself his shrinkings and his terrors, she knew that what to the average hardily bred young man was a gay adventure, was to him an ordeal of considerable difficulty. She longed for his first ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... the floor, and Simpkins saw that he wore sandals. His own heavy walking boots rang loudly on the flagged floors and woke the echoes in the vaulted ceiling. He began to tread on tiptoe, as ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer

... efficacious to compel attendance, he has to come and his spirit can similarly be summoned from the dead. When a Malay wishes to kill an enemy he makes an image of the man, transfixes or otherwise injures it, and buries it on the path over which the enemy will tread. As he buries it with the impression that he will thereby cause the enemy to die and likewise be buried, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... towards them or great birds waiting to peck their eyes out. Man is seldom as cruel as nature proves to be, for it is everywhere harsh and brutal. Little dramas are constantly taking place under this very moss we tread, and those dear little black-headed birds, over there in the bushes, are killing all day long. You and I realize that the killing is the least part of the sport, but we wanted meat and came out for it ourselves, instead ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... for her car to stop when opposite the long, massive stone building, and, rushing through the great, ever-swinging doors, she traversed the office corridors with rapid tread, her hands too full of packages to consult her watch. But twisting her head to see the round clock, just above the entrance, with its great brass weights ponderously doling off the time, in plain view, she started with dismay, for its hands remorselessly pointed to fourteen minutes ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... Christ returned, he was to avenge the sufferings and reward the fidelity of his followers, tread the heathen tyrants in the wine press of his wrath, and crown the persecuted saints with a participation in his glory. When "the time of his wrath is come, he shall give reward to the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear his name, and shall destroy them that destroy the earth." ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... into that broad, barren wilderness of sand, stretching wearily on as far as eye could reach, and beyond the utmost limit of human steps, where the wild beasts almost fear to tread. ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... candle would chase it away only she can't get at it. Do you think that every one hates you, shadow with your back to the wall, afraid to lie down and sleep? But I don't hate you. Even the moon means to be kind. She just treads on you as I'd tread on a worm that I didn't see. Don't be afraid of me, shadow. See—I've no light in my hand— nothing to save myself with— yet I walk right up to you— if you'll let me I'll put my arms around you and stroke you softly. Are you surprised I'd put ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... talk such as, to the best of my knowledge, I have never heard equalled. The gift was perhaps stimulated by accidents. The weakness of his eyes had forced him to depend very much upon dictation. I remember vividly the sound of his tread as he tramped up and down his room, dictating to my mother or sister, who took down his words in shorthand and found it hard to keep pace with him. Even his ordinary conversation might have been ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... resistance is a capital thing for him. As dear sweet Aunt Buxton would have said, 'There is a holy purpose in it;' and as Aunt Buxton would not have said, but as I, a 'fool, rush in where angels fear to tread,' I decide that the purpose is to teach Master Frank patience ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... ship by forcing oakum into the seams. Hence the verb to caulk is explained as coming from Mid. Eng. cauken, to tread, Old Fr. cauquer, caucher, Lat. calcare, from calx, heel. This makes the process somewhat acrobatic, although this is not, philologically, a very serious objection. But we caulk the ship ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley

... her latent martial powers, she must look for a master or else have her powers squandered—to mount the consular throne. He lived, he could live, only by victorious war. Most perilous was the prospect for England. In the path which not Napoleon, but France, was now preparing to tread, and which was the path of Napoleon no otherwise than that he was the tool of France, was that servitor who must gratify her grand infirmity or else be rapidly extinguished himself, unhappily for herself, England was the main counter-champion. The course of honour left to England ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... to the people of Dry Bottom he had announced in a quiet, unostentatious paragraph that while he had not come to Dry Bottom for a free fight, he would permit no one to tread on his toes. His readers' comprehension of the metaphor was complete—as was evidenced by the warm hand-clasps which he received from citizens who were not in sympathy with the Dunlavey regime. It surprised him to find how many such there were in town. He was convinced that all ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... still studying over portions of that ingenious letter, when the rustle of her aunt's gown indicated that she was rising. She saw her move towards the steps, heard a quick, firm tread upon the narrow planking, and glanced up in surprise. There, uncovering his close-cropped head, stood the tall stranger, looking placidly up as he addressed ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King

... has accustomed him to wake at the shortest notice. An instant's look round showed him that the room was empty, and a glance at his watch told him that it was close on midnight. The noise made by the sleepy servant in opening the door, and the tread the next moment of quick footsteps in the passage, filled him with a sudden foreboding of something wrong. As he hurriedly stepped forward to go out and make inquiry, the door of the coffee-room opened, and ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... will again to fancy yields, Which twain be special guides, That train a man to tread ill paths, Where ease ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... suddenly upon the mind of Cicero, as the heavy knocking fell upon his ear, followed by a murmur of many voices, and the tread of many ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... marching like one, With tranquil faces, and bristling steel, And the flag full of honour as though it could feel, And the officers gentle, the sword that hold 'Gainst the shoulder heavy with trembling gold, And the massy tread, that in passing is heard, Though the drums and the music say ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt

... he had forgotten something, he slipped to the landing of the stairway and called anxiously for the landlord. "Come up, if you please," he said to the answering host. Springer commenced the ascent with slow and heavy tread; at length, after a most exhausting effort, and breathing like a wounded bellows, he lifted his mighty burden of ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... laden with earthenware, which filled up the entire space in the centre of the establishment; then, when he reached the lower end, facing the counter, he walked with a more noisy tread in order to ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... something very peculiar—a mixture of elasticity, decision, and pride. Her small figure seemed to rise up airily between each footpress, as if unaccustomed to creep. There was a trace of wildness in her motions; hers was anything but a dainty tread or a lazy drawing-room glide; it was a bold, free, Indian-like walk—a footstep ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... the skipper shouted, and Charlie stepped into the pound. He had not the heart to tread on the still living fish as the others were doing, and in his anxiety to avoid hurting them, he slipped and fell against the gunwale, his sou'-wester falling overboard. The other men stopped work at once, and looked at him in a by no means friendly way. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... lamplight I long for lonely Where all the folk of their fancy tread; Three small faces, and mine,—and only Dickens and ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet

... to console him." She went in and told him; and he said, "Admit him." So she brought me in to him, and I found him seated alone, and his head bound with mourning fillets. So I said to him, "Allah requite thee amply! This is a path all must perforce tread, and it behoveth thee to take patience," adding, "but who is dead unto thee?" He answered, "One who was dearest of the folk to me, and best beloved." "Perhaps thy father?" "No." "Thy brother?" "No." "One of thy kindred?" "No." Then asked I, "What ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston

... is all right at his own weight," admitted Midshipman Conners. "But he has no business with you, Tread. You're quick enough, too, when you exert yourself. So jump right in and finish it ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock

... at once, as the boys grouped about the Eagle, being careful not to tread in the tracks left by the one who had meddled with ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson

... around me as snug at the belt as the coat of a bear. I took alarm as I closed the buttons. For half a minute I had heard a drum-tap coming nearer. It was the measured tap! tap! tap-tap-tap! so familiar to me. Now I could hear the tread of feet coming with it back of the hill. How soon they would heave in sight I was unable to reckon, but I dared not run for cover. So I thrust my scabbard deep in the soft earth, pulled down the big beaver hat over my face, muffled my neck with straw, stuck the stake in front ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller

... of his young charges, the Desleys. Dick, the quick and energetic Dick, was half-way up hill Puzzle when his brother and sister were only beginning to ascend. His bright young face was flushed, but rather with pleasure than fatigue; he sped on with a light elastic tread, neither panting nor pausing, but bearing the carpet of History as though he felt not its weight. He moved all the more swiftly for seeing that his guardian's eye was upon him, and on reaching the crown of the hill, saluted Mr. Learning with a ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker

... of the man in the service was calling to her. The ocean was between them; the longing to be near him, to tread the same soil, had conquered in the eternal battle of love. After all, no matter how the end was attained, she was a creature of life, brought into the world to love and to be loved. She put the past behind her and began to build ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... not the busy, curious, thirsty fly have equal right of access with any other insect?—yet Mr. Mix contrived to hold himself up to the public as a live reformer, but not a radical, and to the League as a radical but not a rusher-in where angels fear to tread. It required the equilibrium of a tight-rope walker, but Mr. Mix had it. Indeed, he felt as pleased with himself as though he had invented it. And he observed, with boundless satisfaction, that the membership of the League was steadily increasing, and that the Mayoralty was mentioned more ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall

... wings of birds. Stockholm becomes a fortress, and, as in the case of St. Petersburg in recent times, the sea desolation pulses with life and energy, and is transformed into a city. Churches, palaces, gardens, arise. Battles are fought, and here tread the ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... pass the low wall where the ivy entwines; I tread the brown pathway that leads through the pines; I haste by the boulder that lies in the field, Where her promise at parting ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... the elephant held his victim aloft as if in triumph, then with a swing of his head he hurled the man far away, and looked round for fresh victims. At the next moment the earth shook under his tread as he thundered down upon the pad-elephant and ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... The signal to move. Quickly they form in the road, and with a shout advance at a run, their dusky faces glistening in that summer sun and their manly hearts beating bravely in the very jaws of death. Now the bridge trembles beneath their steady tread: the foremost are at the hill, yet no sign of life in the battery. Only the smooth green bank, the wretched flag in the distance, and those guns charged with death looking grimly down upon them and waiting. On they come, nearer ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... "We look around in vain," says he, "for any traces of the wonderful remains we have just seen, and are half inclined to believe that we have dreamed a dream, or have been listening to some tale of Eastern romance. Some, who may hereafter tread on the spot when the grass again grows over the Assyrian palaces, may indeed suspect that I have been ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... with a forlorn glance at the luxuriant patch of weeds, the most prominent view from the window, 'Lina opened one of her trunks, and spreading a part of its contents upon the bed, began to dress for dinner. The dinner bell had long since ceased ringing, and the tread of feet ceased in the halls below ere she descended to the deserted parlor, followed by her mother, nervous and frightened at the prospect of this, ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... make me wear brown frocks when I wanted to have them pink or green. And he kept me for six months from having them long, and up to this day he scolds me if there is half an inch on the ground for him to tread upon." ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... swept the sea-line bare To pave with stainless fire through stainless air A passage for thine heavenlier feet to tread Ungrieved of earthly floor-work? hath it spread No covering splendid as the sun-god's hair To veil or ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... once attracted by a noise in the garden. She certainly fancied that she heard the door of the summer-house creak on its rusty hinges. At the same moment she heard Morten's heavy tread on the stone steps leading up to the front door: he must be returning from the stable. It was time to go to bed, but still she remained at the window, looking towards the summer-house. She now discovered ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... believe it, Louisa. How could I be arrogant, and you before me! Can it be so? Is it so, my dear?' He looked upon her once more, lying cast away there; and without another word went out of the room. He had not been long gone, when she heard a light tread near the door, and knew that some ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... our poor Amelia. She has spent the first portion of that time in a sorrow so profound and pitiable, that we who have been watching and describing some of the emotions of that weak and tender heart, must draw back in the presence of the cruel grief under which it is bleeding. Tread silently round the hapless couch of the poor prostrate soul. Shut gently the door of the dark chamber wherein she suffers, as those kind people did who nursed her through the first months of her pain, and never left her until heaven had sent her consolation. A day came—of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... change. Says the heavily laden contadina: 'The old way was the shortest;' says the artist: 'It was infinitely more picturesque; that new parapet wall is a dreadful eye-sore;' says the archaeologist: 'It had the merit of antiquity; it is not everywhere that one can tread in the footprints of a hundred generations.' Even those whose every step in the olden time was accompanied by a malediction, can remember how good a glass of very inferior wine tasted on ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... shadows of eternity; Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinfull sound, Or had the black art to dispence A sev'rall sinne to ev'ry sence, But felt through all this fleshly dresse Bright shootes of everlastingnesse. O how I long to travell back, And tread again that ancient track! That I might once more reach that plaine, Where first I left my glorious traine; From whence th' inlightned spirit sees That shady City of ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald

... The light from the nearest watch-fire, around which our servants, engaged in quiet conversation, were warming themselves, occasionally flashed on the brass of our heavy guns, and fell on the form of the sentry, who, wrapped in his cloak, paced with measured tread ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... ourselves up as judges, and brand as wretches all those who thus mistake the laws of charity and justice? I fear much that, in their place, we would do precisely as they. Living in the South, we would have slaves, and would defend slavery to the last; living in the North, we would tread under foot the free colored class. Is there then neither the true, nor the false, nor justice, nor injustice? God forbid! The just and the true remain; iniquity should be condemned without pity; but we are bound to ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin

... in the form-room, just to show the master that he had not been forgotten. Or, again, did the captain of his side at football speak rudely to him on the subject of kicking the ball through in the scrum, Harrison would smile gently, and at the earliest opportunity tread heavily on the captain's toe. In short, he was a youth who made a practice of taking very good care of himself. Yet he had his failures. The affair of Graham's mackintosh was one of them, and it affords an excellent example of the truth of the proverb that a cobbler should stick to his last. ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... eyes to the terrible truth that they were in a very dangerous place; for, although they piled on fuel to frighten the beasts, yet they could hear the fierce growl of the wolf, the yell of the panther, and their stealthy tread, and see their eyes flash and glare in the surrounding gloom. The smell of the broiling fish seemed to have collected them, and sharpening their voracious appetites, made them desperate. To add to the difficulty of the children, the fuel was getting scarce around the ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... Eddring, humming contentedly as he went about his work at the humble desk before him, heard a knock and a shuffling tread which by instinct he knew belonged to some member of the colored race. "Come in," said he, ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... by a little iron gate, which grinds as you push it, and at no time would latch. The front-door also grinds on the sill; it can only be opened by force, and quivers in a way that shows how unsubstantially it is made. As you set foot in the pinched passage, the sound of your tread proves the whole fabric a thing of lath and sand. The ceilings, the walls, confess themselves neither water-tight nor air-tight. Whatever you touch is at once found to ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... superintendent. Many long talks we had, when they felt the need of coming back to their hospital home for advice and comfort. It is an earnest wish to help the young graduate over the intricate paths that the inexperienced nurse must often tread that has led me to revise some early contributions [Footnote: Printed by permission of the Trained Nurse.] to the Trained Nurse and write a few new ones, which have within the past year appeared in ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery

... in Hogarty's steady tread up and down the room. He wheeled and crossed, turned and retraced his steps noiselessly, cat-footed in his low rubbed-shod shoes. And he turned a gaze that was almost pitying ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... head impatiently when she faced that squarely. Why tread the same bitter road again? But she put that self-interested phase of it aside and asked herself candidly if she could go back and take up the old threads where they had been broken off and make life run ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... fate'? 'Tis a very buffoon of mischief and irony that is often permitted to dog our earthly footsteps and prevent us from becoming too content with our lot. For a time you and I, little maid, good comrades though we have been, must tread different paths. Your mother and I are going away, presently, and we shall leave you here in Beverly, where you may continue your studies under the supervision of Miss Stearne, as a boarder at her school. This house, ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)

... softness and with gentle beauty than all the powers of life and light whose antagonist thou hast been called. Thou hast heaped coals of fire on thy traducers' heads. For hast thou not made the heaviest foot fall lightly with love's considerate tread? Hast thou not made the rough, coarse palm into a sanctuary and pavilion wherein the dying hand may shelter? Hast thou not taught the loud and boisterous voice the new song of tenderness and pity, whispering like a dove? Within thy school the rude ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... waters; yet softly, softly there rises above the flood of sound a little rippling melody which comes, and goes, and comes again, growing ever sweeter with repetition. And now the roar of wind is changed to the swing of marching feet, the tread of a mighty host whose step is strong and free; and lo! they are singing, as they march, and the song is bold and wild, wild, wild. Again and again, beneath the song, beneath the rhythm of marching feet, the melody rises, very sweet but infinitely ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... the Milky Way that runs across the sky; That is the path my feet would tread whenever I have to die. Some folks call it a Silver Sword, and some a Pearly Crown, But the only thing I think it is, is ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... "Tread these reviving passions down, Unworthy manhood. Unto thee Indifferent should the smile or ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... fact? I was a child; my guide, philosopher and friend was a child, and we were both as innocent as children should be. It is written, "Children and fools speak the truth." I may add, "Children and 'fools rush in where angels fear to tread.'" The doors of "El Dorado," of the "Arcade," and the "Polka" were ever open to the public. We saw from the sidewalk gaily-decorated interiors; we heard enchanting music, and there seemed to be a vast deal of jollity ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... tried to go away by herself, in the hope that her heart might quiet down, and rest itself on some of the new and solid ground on which she had so lately learned to tread. But they followed her: several of the teachers, in a gayety of mood, that was half affected to hide the homesickness of their hearts, and therefore infected no one else with a cheerful spirit. They were ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden

... obliterated works on the third terrace. This interesting remain is now utilized as a turnpike, and the passing traveler but little recks he is going over one of the most ancient causeways in the land. It may be that ceremonious processions, with stately tread, utilized this causeway in years long since elapsed. Speculation, always an unsafe guide to follow, is especially so in this case, and so we leave this memento of a vanished people as much an enigma to us ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... pilgrims, like Jerome's friend Paula, Bishop Eucherius, and Melania, tread the same path and stop at the same points, but three or four of them distinctly add some fresh knowledge ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... should say the car is twenty-five feet high and about eight by twelve at the base; it has six wheels, four outside and two in the centre, the former nine feet in diameter and the latter six, all of solid wood clamped together with iron bands, and all at least two feet in width of tread. Such a mass, drawn through the streets by elephants and accompanied by excited devotees, its hundred bells jangling as it rolled along where there was not another vehicle of any kind with which to compare it, or a house more than one small story high, must have ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... call, Sleep! that with sweet refreshment smiles on all,— When, till the morn, thine eyes, unclos'd and damp, Trac'd thy sad semblance in the glimm'ring lamp,— When from thy face Health's latest relic fled, Where Hope might flatter, with reluctant tread,— Still, darting forward from the weight of woe, Thy soul with all its energy would glow; Still with the purest passion wouldst thou prove The glow of friendship and the warmth of love. And ah! ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr

... back door, lying partly upon a hill-side; and several cattle were pasturing in it. Farm fields and meadows were all around, except where this one hill rose up behind the house. It was wooded at the top; below, the ranks of a cornfield sloped aspiringly up its base. A narrow footpath, which only the tread of feet kept free from weeds and grass, went off obliquely to a little enclosed garden, which lay beyond the corner of the house in some arbitrary and independent way, not adjoining it at all. It was a sweet bit of country, soft and mellow under the summer sun; still ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... well-skilled, practised hunter. Given a windy day, a good depth of snow, and one or two moose tracks on its fair surface, and there was not much chance of the noble beast's escape from Michel's swift tread and steady aim. Such is the excitement of moose-hunting; and such the intense acuteness of the moose-deer's sense of smell and hearing, that an Indian hunter will often strip himself of every bit of clothing, and creep stealthily along on his snow-shoes, lest by the slightest sound ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas

... night when she, despoiled, helpless, and solitary, arrived in Brussels. She found the park deserted and dark, the paths miry, the water "dripping from its trees." "In the double gloom of tree and fog she could not see her guide, and could only follow his tread" in the darkness. We recalled another scene under these same tail trees, on a night when the iron gateway was "spanned by a naming arch of massed stars." The park was a "forest with sparks of purple and ruby and golden fire gemming the foliage," and Lucy, driven from her couch by mental ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... meaning of the term; and if any glimpse should come to him of the lethargic inhumanity around him, he can afford to let it pass as a glimpse—his look being fixed on the sacred heights which the scholar's feet must tread. ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... were driven in, I carefully cut around them, making as little noise as possible. It was, I calculated, about midnight when I had finished my preparations. The slab lifted even more easily than I had expected. I listened for some minutes, expecting to hear the tread of a sentry, but not a sound reached my ears. I had great hopes that he had fallen asleep. Creeping through, I replaced the slab, and dropped without noise to the ground. There were numerous Indians in the camp, many of whom had canoes, for the purpose of fishing. Without loss of ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston

... for realignment consumed much time and caused no little confusion. Nervousness began to encompass the Missouri recruit. He was as brave as the next man. But there is something creepy about walking with measured tread through an invisible space, with no sound but the stealthy pad-pad-pad of equally hesitant footsteps twenty feet away on either side. The Missourian was grateful for the intervals that brought the men into mutual contact, as the ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... We tread upon earth and revile it, forgetting that at last it hides our defects and that through it our dead hearts climb to blossom in violets and rue. Death is the Wanderer's Rest, where there is no questioning, but the same healing sleep for all. In that divine peace, there is no room ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed

... been absolved because of her great love; not the wayward, vice-driven boy who lay dead. The very horror of what Eldon Parr was now to suffer turned Hodder cold as he rang the bell and listened for the soft tread of the servant who would ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... to feel they were worth seeing, for I noticed that several assumed a more martial tread as they felt their royal Joho cloth tugging at their necks, as it was swept streaming behind by the wind. Maganga, a tall Mnyamwezi, stalked along like a very Goliah about to give battle alone, to Mirambo and his thousand warriors. Frisky Khamisi paced on under his load, imitating ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat? I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England

... we went, and then we found What 'twas to tread upon forbidden ground; And let them that come after have a care, Lest heedlessness makes them, as we, to fare. Lest they for trespassing his prisoners are, Whose Castle's Doubting, and whose ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... right hand, and listened attentively. It seemed to be that of a person or persons forcing their way through branches and brushwood. It soon ceased, and I heard feet on the road. It was the short staggering kind of tread of people carrying a very heavy substance, nearly too much for their strength, and I thought I heard the hurried breathing of men over-fatigued. There was a short pause, during which I conceived they were resting in the middle of the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... their eyes to the difficulty, deny that we know them to be functionless, and prefer to believe they must have a use because they exist, and are more or less connected with organs which are correlated to obvious use; but only blindfolded persons care to tread the round of so narrow a circle. Of late some such abortive organs in flowers and fruits are found to have a use, though not the use of their kind. But unwavering believers in design should not trust too much to instances of this sort. There ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... facts of war that we had put behind or forgotten for the last hundred years, have returned to the front and test us as they tested our fathers. It will be a long and a hard road, beset with difficulties and discouragements, but we tread it together and we will tread it ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... was not astir and the streets were wind-haunted. The tread of the six men set dogs to barking, and only now and then was a face shown at the doorways. For this Kenkenes thanked his gods, for he was proud, and the eye of the humblest slave upon him in his humiliating plight would have hurt him more ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... it that the land resounds with the measured tread of a million of armed men? Why is it that our bright waters all stained and our green fields reddened with fraternal blood? Why is it that the young men of America, in the pride and bloom of early manhood, are summoned from homes, from the mothers who bore ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... fascination, he climbed up to the nearest of the ghastly heaps. The loose ribs and vertebrae scattered down the slope seemed to him the size of human ribs and vertebrae. He shuddered as they crunched under his tread. ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... generous host who had heaped so many honors on them and who had enjoyed himself so tremendously at their expense. This time it was a sad and lonely journey on which they started. Don Quixote was mounted on Rocinante, who had somewhat recovered from his shock, but Sancho had to tread the trail on foot, for his Dapple had to serve as a carrier for the discarded armor of our late and lamented valiant Knight ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... magnificent as to be worthy of Versailles ended in a staircase such as will never again be built in France, taking up as much space as the whole of a modern house. As we went up the marble steps, as cold as tombstones, and wide enough for eight persons to walk abreast, our tread echoed under sonorous vaulting. The banister charmed the eye by its miraculous workmanship—goldsmith's work in iron—wrought by the fancy of an artist of the time of Henri III. Chilled as by an ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac

... closer in the eerie sense Of fear that lurks amid the tumbled stones Of robbers' lair. Here, once upon a time, When might was right, and men made wrongful Gain of Nature's fastnesses, a ruffian couched And preyed upon his kind. Long time he throve, But vengeance woke at length, and the heavy tread Of frowning men from far Loch Tay—skiff-laden. Adown the glen they came one moonless night, Goaded by tingling sneer of white-hair'd sire. They rest where Tarken pours his scanty tide, Then silently—nor moon ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... the dull vapour, the heavy outline of some hackney coach wending homewards, which, drawing slowly nearer, rolled jangling by, scattering the thin crust of frost from its whitened roof, and soon was lost again in the cloud. At intervals were heard the tread of slipshod feet, and the chilly cry of the poor sweep as he crept, shivering, to his early toil; the heavy footfall of the official watcher of the night, pacing slowly up and down and cursing the tardy hours that still intervened ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... Sir Luke. He had an impression, which he clung to, based on a previous taste of the visitor's company, that he would somehow let him off. The truth about Milly perched on his shoulders and sounded in his tread, became by the fact of his presence the name and the form, for the time, of everything in the place; but it didn't, for the difference, sit in his face, the face so squarely and easily turned to Densher at the earlier season. His presence ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... sort of labor,—economizing health, strength, time, and money, in all that it does. We tread upon beautifully figured carpets that are woven by machinery from single threads. We wear clothes that are made by machinery at the rate of two thousand stitches a minute. We hear in every direction the whistle ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... most perilous absence of Master Headley's life, and he then presented Giles, to whom the kindly dame offered hand and cheek, saying, "Welcome, my young kinsman, your good father was well known and liked here. May you tread in ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the sitting-room, and while I was busy with my gymnastics I heard the door open. I thought at first it was Blenkiron, but the briskness of the tread was unlike his measured gait. I had left the light burning there, and the visitor, whoever he was, had made himself at home. I slipped on a green dressing-gown Blenkiron had lent me, and ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... philosophy which tells you that the day has come when earthly interests can never sway you more,—will you not then have a partner who will share the memories of the past, and, heart to heart, will tread with you the slow decline, and win the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... fetters around my conscience, that a host of anxieties for my first general confession was awakened within me. I had no resource then, but to re-make that, and thus I afresh entered on the bitter path I had deemed I should never have occasion again to tread. But if my first confession had lacerated my feelings, what was it to this one? Words have no power, language has no expression to characterise the emotion that ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... the rim of people near the walls and the elliptical centre was an open space for promenading, and in this beauty and its attendant cavalier went round and round in unending show. This is called the "tread-mill." But for the seriousness of this frank display, and the unflagging interest of the spectators, there would have been an element of high comedy in it. It was an education to join a wall group and hear the free and critical comments on the style, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... nothing to do with the ghostly sparkling fabric, I started for the body under the rock, and with some pain and staggering, the ice being very jagged, lumpish, and deceitful to the tread, arrived ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... sublimely unconscious of all criticism as she ran down the village street that night, nodding carelessly to any that she met, and finally turned lightly in at her father's gates, walking with elastic tread under the great arching beech trees that blotted the moonlight ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... its presence known, for it stepped boldly out from behind its shelter. Its right eye was closed tight by an enormous swelling, and its nose was twice its natural size, but it strode forward with head up and dignity in its tread. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... always interested me much because we have none like them in England. In one, where they were already treading the grapes, the good woman begged that M. le Marquis and Mademoiselle would for once tread the grapes to bring good luck. They were frantic with joy; we took off their little shoes and silk stockings, rolled them up in thick cloths, and let them get into the trough and dance on the grapes ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... he wheeled about, hurried down the platform, and stepped into the darkness, the sound of his quick tread plainly ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey

... laughter. She fastened up the little pile of letters that had remained uncalled for with what seemed a deliberate slowness. Each time any one entered the room she looked up—then the hope died hard in her face. Leander came in with catlike tread and removed the pigeon-holes from the table. The post-office was closed. Family life had been resumed at ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... from the sweet embrace and gently pushed her back. "That can never be—never will I accept such a sacrifice from you. No, you shall not bury your beauty, your youthful bloom in a living tomb. Your tender foot is not made to tread the rough paths of life. The proud Baroness de Simonie, accustomed to the splendor, luxury, and comfort of existence must not drag out her life in unworthy humiliation. I thank you, love, for the sacrifice you wish to make, but nothing will induce me to accept it. Return to the world, my worshipped ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach

... you calm yourself I shall think you do so for my sake, and thus love will tread close on the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... long ago, it seems, this summer morn That pale-browed April passed with pensive tread Through the frore woods, and from its frost-bound bed Woke the arbutus with her silver horn; And now May, too, is fled, The flower-crowned month, the merry laughing May, With rosy feet and fingers dewy wet, Leaving the ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman

... came on, through the darkness, making a terrible noise with their armed tread upon the stone pavement of the church. 'Where is the traitor?' they cried out. He made no answer. But when they cried, 'Where is the Archbishop?' he said proudly, 'I am here!' and came out of the shade and ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... head to adopt others of my own, to enable me to dispense with those of society. My foolish timidity, which I could not conquer, having for principle the fear of being wanting in the common forms, I took, by way of encouraging myself, a resolution to tread them under foot. I became sour and cynic from shame, and affected to despise the politeness which I knew not how to practice. This austerity, conformable to my new principles, I must confess, seemed to ennoble itself in my mind; it ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... been where the enamelled mead Its beauty gave to the enraptured sense, And the crushed lily, from the elastic tread, Yielded its life in ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... kind, for although we were no longer attacked by ants, we too frequently heard rustlings in the long grass that we presently discovered to be caused by snakes, and we were compelled to walk very warily, lest we should perchance unwittingly tread upon one of the creatures, and be bitten, perhaps fatally, as a punishment. I confess that—well, to put it plainly, I did not half like it; but what were we to do? We were searching for a cave, or shelter of some sort, that would serve us for a lodging and a place ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... verge of a cliff, and saw, over the brow of it, a few feet below him, a ledge of rock, where he might find some shelter from the blast, which blew from behind. Letting himself down by his hands, he alighted upon something that crunched beneath his tread, and found the bones of many small animals scattered about in front of a little cave in the rock, offering the refuge he sought. He went in, and sat upon a stone. The storm increased in violence, and as the darkness grew he became uneasy, for he did not relish the thought of spending the ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... do, do you?' said Boots. 'Well, we milk ours into great tubs, and then we put them in carts and drive them in-doors, and then we turn them out into great brewing vats, and so we make cheeses as big as a great house. We had, too a dun mare to tread the cheese well together when it was making; but once she tumbled down into the cheese, and we lost her; and after we had eaten at this cheese seven years, we came upon a great dun mare, alive and kicking. Well, once after that I was going ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... in finding game, the terrier worries rats with considerable glee, the greyhound pursues hares with eagerness and delight, and the bull-dog even attacks bulls with the greatest energy, while the poor turnspit performs his task by compulsion, like a culprit on a tread-wheel, subject to scolding or beating if he stops a moment to rest his weary limbs, and is then kicked about the kitchen when the task is over. There is a story (it is an old one) of the Bath turnspits, ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... little Lucie lay on her bosom. Then, among the advancing echoes, there was the tread of her tiny feet and the sound of her prattling words. Let greater echoes resound as they would, the young mother at the cradle side could always hear those coming. They came, and the shady house was sunny with a child's laugh, and the Divine friend of children, to whom in her ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... upon the smooth, sweet turf amidst the summer flowers, half in sun and half in shadow, and holding the girl Rachel's hand, called and summoned those companions, and shaped in solid form, upon the earth we tread upon, the horror which we can but hint at, which we can only name under a figure. I would not tell Villiers of this, nor of that resemblance, which struck me as with a blow upon my heart, when I saw the portrait, which filled the cup of terror at the end. What this can mean I dare not guess. I ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... constantly more intense and effective; when volunteering flagged, he offered bounties; when bounties failed, he resorted to drafting. The army must be kept up and it must be fully equipped, and never did a more splendid army tread the earth, and never was money poured out with so lavish a hand. The end came, and it was ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various

... manifest the ability to surmount a score of other obstacles which the combined ignorance and carelessness of their parents or caretakers unknowingly place in the pathway of early life which these little folks must tread. ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler



Words linked to "Tread" :   pace, tread on, surface, structural member, tread-softly, walking, apply, move, couple, crush, brace, go, give, step on, squeeze, pneumatic tyre, stride, travel, treadle, pair, caterpillar tread, walk, copulate, locomote, stair, tread-wheel, mash, pneumatic tire, tangency



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