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Aperture   Listen
noun
Aperture  n.  
1.
The act of opening. (Obs.)
2.
An opening; an open space; a gap, cleft, or chasm; a passage perforated; a hole; as, an aperture in a wall. "An aperture between the mountains." "The back aperture of the nostrils."
3.
(Opt.) The diameter of the exposed part of the object glass of a telescope or other optical instrument; as, a telescope of four-inch aperture. Note: The aperture of microscopes is often expressed in degrees, called also the angular aperture, which signifies the angular breadth of the pencil of light which the instrument transmits from the object or point viewed; as, a microscope of 100° aperture.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Aperture" Quotes from Famous Books



... sun is a circle eight and twenty times bigger than the earth, and has a circumference very much like that of a chariot-wheel, which is hollow and full of fire; the fire of which appears to us through its mouth, as by an aperture in a pipe; and this is the sun. Xenophanes, that the sun is constituted of small bodies of fire compacted together and raised from a moist exhalation, which condensed make the body of the sun; or that it is a cloud enfired. The Stoics, that ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... found in the lake at Newstead,—where it is supposed to have been thrown for concealment by the monks,—a large brass eagle, in the body of which, on its being sent to be cleaned, was discovered a secret aperture, concealing within it a number of old legal papers connected with the rights and privileges of the foundation. At the sale of the old lord's effects in 1776-7, this eagle, together with three candelabra, found at the same time, was ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... barrack, and returned with it. To wrench by their united efforts, one bar from its place, and to fasten the rope to another, was the work of an instant. Space was just left them to creep through the aperture. Sir Henry was the first to breathe the confined air of the sepulchre. A voice warned him in what direction to proceed; and not waiting for the domestic, he groped his way forward through a narrow passage. At first, Delme thought there was a wall on either side ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... for some time loudly in the grave, and every eye rested anxiously on old Weeban; the hollow, almost mysterious, sound of the flames as they rose from the narrow aperture evidently had a powerful effect upon the superstitious fears of the natives, and when he suddenly raised his meerro and then let it fall over his shoulder in a due east direction (the direction of Guildford) ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... The aperture in her conning-tower opened and a couple of officers appeared. From hatchways fore and aft, seamen clad in grey fearnought coats came tumbling on deck, greeting the ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... a bell, whose chain hung against the iron grating which fronted the humble abode. As it sounded, an emaciated figure appeared under the arched aperture and a sonorous voice cried out in Arabic, "Peace be ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... of the spring revealed the fact that it could not have been long in existence. Indeed, there were no traces whatever of long continuance. The aperture in the rock through which it trickled bore the appearance of having been recently opened; fragments were lying near it that seemed to have been just broken off. The bed of the little stream was entirely ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne

... constructed were fitted in loosely without mortar or cement. He tugged upon one of them, and to his joy found that it was easily removable. One after another he pulled out the blocks until he had opened an aperture large enough to admit his body, then he crawled through into a large, low chamber. Across this another door barred his way; but this, too, gave before his efforts, for it was not barred. A long, dark corridor showed before him, but before he had followed ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... minister of police," he said in a low voice. Madame de Montrevel watched him as he disappeared, with a certain curiosity. Fouche was already at that time fatally celebrated. Just then the door of Bonaparte's study opened and his head was seen through the aperture. He caught sight of ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... by the epiglottis and the soft palate, and the vibrations no longer can communicate themselves to the chest, but are felt in the pharynx. In the head register the vocal cords come together at one end, sometimes at both ends, and only the upturned edges of the resulting small aperture vibrate, throwing the sensation of vibration up into the head. In every way Nature seems to indicate that ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... scented the air, the forest was green, and his work approached completion. There remained, indeed, but some final shaping and rounding off, and the construction, or rather cutting out, of a secret locker in the stern. This locker was nothing more than a square aperture chiselled out like a mortice, entering not from above but parallel with the bottom, and was to be closed with a tight-fitting piece of wood driven in by ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies

... spouted through a breach, and already a shallow lake was spreading fast across the cleared land, licking up long rows of potato haulm and timothy grass. Men swarmed like bees about the sloping side of the bank, hurling down earth and shingle into the aperture, but a few moments' inspection convinced Geoffrey that more heroic measures were needed and that they labored in vain. Raising his hand, he called to the men to stop work and, when the clatter of shovels ceased, he quietly surveyed the few poor fields rancher Hudson had won from ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... looking attentively at her, presented her a small box containing a large number of glittering rings. "Please select one of these, and drop the gold ring into the aperture of the ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... balls, which are of the size of a large cricket-ball, are made of leather, and are so heavy, that, when well played, they are capable of breaking the arm, unless properly received on the bracciale. They are inflated with air, which is pumped into them with a long syringe, through a small aperture closed by a valve inside. The game is played on an oblong figure, marked out on the ground, or designated by the wall around the sunken platform on which it is played; across the centre is drawn a transverse line, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... wooden bedsteads, like cupboards, which were then common in the houses of the poor, and to this day may be seen in many a house in Brittany. The door of it was left half-open to give the sleeper air, and from this aperture the noise of his snoring issued in a ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... place; a rude alcove was the result, with this grating at the end and top of it, some seven feet above the earth floor. Even had I been able to wrench away the bars, it would have availed me nothing, since the aperture formed the segment of a circle whose chord was but a very few inches long. I had nevertheless a fancy for seeing the stars once more and feeling the breath of heaven upon my bandaged temples, which impelled me to search for that which should add a cubit to my stature. ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... standing, enveloped in darkness and dread, when the sounds changed to that of a shuddering, rushing noise which I had heard once before in my life, and from a narrow gap through which the faint light in the room beyond dimly shone in a thread of lesser darkness, the aperture grew, till I could feel rather than see her form, crawling, not walking, through the opening, and hear, distinct enough, her horrible, gurgling tones as ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green

... the woman struck him. The moment chose is when she is lifting her 'and to deliver the blow. The king receives it with majesty mingled with meekness. In the background the door of the 'ut is open, letting in the royal officers to announce the Danes are defeated. The daylight breaks in at the aperture, signifying the dawning of 'Ope. That story, sir, which I found in my researches in istry, has since become so popular, sir, that hundreds of artists have painted it, hundreds! I who discovered the legend, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... formed by air which, after it passes through the glottis, (a small aperture in the upper part of the wind-pipe,) is modulated by the action of the throat, palate, ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... aperture with thankfulness, we found ourselves upon the slope of a kind of huge ditch of lava which ran first downwards for about eighty paces, then up again to the base of the great cone of the inner mountain which ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... to make the waist appear small by contrast with the size of the sleeves. Puffs at the shoulder give grace and delicacy to the neck and head. The pagoda sleeves, copied from the Chinese, being wide and open, cause the hands to appear smaller by contrast with the aperture from which they emerge; but when the sleeve is exaggeratedly large and wide, the effect of the contrast is lost, the sleeve losing itself in, and mingling with, the rest of the draperies. The epaulette worn some years ago is useful as giving width to narrow shoulders. The Louis XV., or sabot sleeve, ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... clay. By the side of this trench dig another, and throw the earth from it into the first, and so on until you have rendered the subsoil of the whole parcel impermeable to rain-water. Build a wall along the lower line with an aperture in the middle for the water, and plant fruit or other low trees upon the whole, to shade the ground and check the currents of air which promote evaporation. This will infallibly give you a good ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... this cover lay a hollow of some sort. Mr. Clifford, to say nothing of Benita, who was heartily weary of the business, wished to postpone proceedings till the morrow, but Jacob Meyer would not. So they toiled on until about eleven o'clock at night, when at length the aperture was of sufficient size to admit a man. Now, as in the case of the well, they let down a stone tied to a string, to find that the place beneath was not more than eight feet deep. Then, to ascertain the condition of the air, a candle ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... paid any attention to it, so great were the transports of joy and impatience among all the people. At last a little stone was detached from the walled window which gave on the balcony and upon which all eyes were fixed: a general shout saluted its fall; little by little the aperture grew larger, and in a few minutes it was large enough to allow a man to ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... heathens, who had burned down, in some drunken bout, the little church above-ground, had penetrated at the same time into the tomb beneath in search of treasure, and finding none, dispersed the bones in the sarcophagi they had opened. They had left open the aperture leading downward, which had been matted over by a thick growth of ivy and wild clematis. One day, while surveying the remains of the Christian church, always in hopes of discovering in it a former temple of the Pagans, Filarete had walked into that tuft of solid green, and found ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... and projects it into the "mixing cone" B, which can be raised or lowered by the pinion D (worked by the hand-wheel wheel shown) so as to regulate the amount of water admitted to B. At the centre of B is an aperture, O, communicating with the overflow. The water passes to the boiler through the valve on the left. It will be noticed that the cone A and the part of B above the orifice O contract downward. This is to convert the pressure of the steam into velocity. ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... frequently her parents did not see her for half a day. One afternoon her mother chanced to be in these buildings, seeking for some lost article among the lumber; and she noticed that a beam of light was coming in, through a chink in the wall. She took a thought of looking through this aperture, and seeing what her child was busied with; and it happened that a stone was lying loose, and could be pushed aside, so that she obtained a view right into the arbor. Elfrida was sitting there on a little bench, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... had pasted a strip of paper over the electric bulb to reduce the light, leaving only a tiny aperture ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry

... is superior to all other lace, so beautiful, so multiform, so expensive—four hundred francs a pound. All the world seeks it. Do you know how it is made? The spinning is done in a dark room, the only light admitted through a small aperture, and that light falling directly on the pattern. And the finest specimens of Christian character I have ever seen or ever expect to see are those to be found in lives all of whose windows have been darkened by bereavement and misfortune save one, but under that one ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... very slowly, the door began to revolve upon its hinges, and the keen air of the night came whistling through the slit. Very cautiously it was pushed open, so that never a sound came from the rusty hinges. As the aperture enlarged, I became aware of a dark, shadowy figure upon my threshold, and of a pale face that looked in at me. The features were human, but the eyes were not. They seemed to burn through the darkness with a greenish ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... had awakened to the enormity of his crime at the sight of the master knuckling the ink out of his eyes, and had gone grey to the lips in his trepidation, looking anxiously to the right and left for a refuge, saw Dickie's departure; jumping the desk in front he rushed at the aperture the latter had left in the wall, and was gone in the twinkling of ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... think of the window as a refuge. Surely nothing outside could be so terrible as this house itself. The black aperture seemed friendly; it beckoned to her ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... shrieking from a harmless blind-worm, and, going round to the back of the building, he placed his carbine against the wall and sprang up at a kind of window-ledge that formed the base of a grated aperture made for purposes of ventilation. Slowly raising his body till his face was above the ledge, he peered into the dimly moonlit cell and then dropped to the ground and, catching up his carbine, sprinted in the direction of the ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... know the danger is over, I never experienced a moment of greater happiness and rest than when, up in that squalid garret, where the rafters, festooned with cobwebs and dust, could be touched by stretching out my hand, and where the sunlight only found an entrance through an aperture in the roof, which admitted the rain as well, I came back to life again, the pain in my head all gone, and nothing left save a delicious feeling of languor, which prompted me to lie quietly for several minutes, examining ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... the cranium, offer differences as decided as those existing between the most strongly marked forms of the Caucasian and African crania in the human species. The orbits vary in width and height, the cranial ridge is either single or double, either much or little developed, and the zygomatic aperture varies considerably in size. This variation in the proportions of the crania enables us satisfactorily to explain the marked difference presented by the single-crested and double-crested skulls, which have been thought ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... was a small hole in the mud wall some five feet above the floor. I rose and examined the said hole, and noted that it appeared to have been freshly made, for the clay at the sides of it was in no way discoloured. I reflected that if anyone wanted to eavesdrop, such an aperture would be convenient, and went outside the hut to pursue my investigations. Its wall, I found, was situated about four feet from the eastern part of the encircling reed fence, which showed no signs of disturbance, although there, in the outer face ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... the contents of her father's pockets which she had placed in the tray of her trunk, when her eye fell upon a thin slit close along the edge of the hem that held the grommets—a slit that, pulled wide, disclosed an aperture through which the contents of the sack could be easily removed but withal so cunningly contrived as to escape casual inspection. With an angry exclamation the girl stared at the gaping hole. "Someone has cut it!" she cried. "He doesn't seem to have taken much, though. ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx

... length as far as the angle of the corridor, beheld the door of the butler's pantry standing just ajar and a narrow thread of brightness falling from the chink. Creeping still closer, I put my eye to the aperture. The man sat within upon a chair, listening, I could see, with the most rapt attention. On a table before him he had laid a watch, a pair of steel revolvers, and a bull's-eye lantern. For one second many contradictory theories and projects whirled together ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... faint gleam of light in the court warned him that some one was afoot. Presently a small wicket in the centre of the gate was opened, and the pinched and crabbed features of the lay-sister who acted as portress showed themselves at the aperture. In a voice rendered unusually shrill and querulous by vexation at having her rest broken, she demanded who it was thus disturbing the slumbers ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... as he had left a substitute behind whose business it was, not only to relieve Mrs. Packard in regard to the libelous paragraph, but in all other directions to which his attention might be called. I would see Mr. Steele; he would surely be able to think up some scheme by which that aperture might be investigated without creating too much disturbance ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... daylight, a patch of grass-grown earth, and the edge of a stable,—for a horse's head was thrust through an aperture. He ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton

... wretch, and discovered with no small astonishment that the aperture contained a great quantity of gold and silver coins; and the most valuable articles of ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... the window when a touch on her arm and a whispered 'Help! hush!' made her look round. Holding the curtain apart, so as to form the least possible aperture, and with one finger on her lip, was Lucy's face, the eyes brimming over with laughter, as she pointed to her head—three of the hooks had set their barbs deep into the crimson satin curtain, and held ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... semicircular sweep of an unbroken forest; but at the sides of the leafy basin glades had been cut for drawing timber, stacking bark, etc., and what Milton calls so happily "the checkered shade" was seen in all its beauty; for the hot sun struggled in at every aperture, and splashed the leaves and the path with fiery flashes and streaks, and topaz brooches, all intensified in fire and beauty by the cool ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... the chair from his shoulders. The panel had splintered from its joining at the bottom. He could just push it forward a little, making a slight aperture. ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... some one striking me from behind? It was that diabolical leathern apron giving me a blow at every step, its violence increasing with my ever-accelerated speed. How grateful the shelter of that cave-like aperture in the mountain, where stood the gentlemen similarly attired, the curate so absurd that we forgot all about his other "cloth" and laughed immoderately in his face. Samayana was still picturesque. Cecilia was in a rage. "I'll never cross that road again before ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... part externally. In such event we must resort to the use of the probang. (Pl. III, figs. 2 and 3.) A probang is a flexible instrument and adapts itself to the natural curvature of the gullet, and if used cautiously there is not much risk of injury. Before passing the probang, a gag which has an aperture at each end, from which straps pass to be buckled at the back of the head below the horns, is introduced into the mouth. (Pl. III, fig. 4.) The probang should then be oiled, and, the head and neck being held in a straight line by two assistants, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... and smoked, staring vacantly at the half-empty shelves, and all but shivering in the damp room. There was no heater in the store at any season, and the one in the office, if used, emitted spurts of smoke through every aperture except the chimney. It had not been cleaned since sometime during winter, and we were not ambitious enough for such an undertaking in the ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... casement. His first care was to go to the stable and release Benoist, but that slippery rascal, after his wont, had released himself. His gag and bandage lay upon the stable floor, along with a bar shaken out of the loophole in the wall, leaving an aperture just large enough for a lean man ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene

... grouse. Mr. Hall crossed the Blue Ridge, at the stupendous fissure of the Wind Gap, where the mountain seems forcibly broken through, and is strewed with the ruin of rocks. There is a similar aperture, some miles north-east, called the Water Gap. This affords a passage to the Delaware; and all the principal rivers of the states, that rise in the Alleghanys, ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley

... found an old woman as warder, who occupied a room or two in a sort of cottage that had been made out of the ruins. The part of the edifice which had been the prison of Charles I. was a total ruin, resembling any ordinary house, without roof, floors, or chimneys. The aperture of the window through which he attempted to escape is still visible. It is in the outer wall, against which the principal apartments had been erected. The whole work stands on a high irregular ridge of a rocky hill, the keep ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... projected into the sea of verdure with which the valley waved, and a range of similar projecting eminences stood disposed in a half circle about the head if the vale. A thick canopy of trees hung over the very verge of the fall, leaving an arched aperture for the passage of the waters, which imparted a strange picturesqueness to ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... that had suddenly and unexpectedly arisen in our favour. My companion and I had no longer a fear that our movements would be noted. Indeed, only those who might be in the waggons, and looking through the draw-string aperture in the rear of the tilts, would be likely to see us at all. But most of these apertures were closed, some with curtains of common canvas—others with an old counterpane, a blanket, or such rag as ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... bronze Minerva, in one corner of the room, hung heavy on the air. The sun was shining warm and bright without, but the windows of the hall were small and high and the shutters also were drawn. Everything was cool, still, and dark. Only through a single aperture shot a clear ray of sunlight, and stretched in a radiant bar across ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... the advantage of privacy. It was an alcove at the end of one of the long narrow passages in which the ancient hostelry abounded, and the only light it boasted filtered through a square aperture in the wall which once had held a window. Through this aperture the curious could spy into the hall below, which just then was thronged with dancers who were crowding out of the ballroom and drifting towards the refreshment-room, the entrance ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... be twenty-four feet square, and sixteen feet in height, with two apertures for light on each side, each aperture being three feet wide by eight feet in height, and rising from the floor. There are not many rooms constructed on a plan so favourable to the admission of fresh air—but it has some serious defects. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various

... some of Mrs F—'s family resided, there happened to be a hole in the thatch of the fowl-house. A fox, finding it out, sprang down through the aperture, and slew and feasted all the night to his heart's desire. The intruder, however, had not reflected that he might be unable to secure his retreat by the way through which he had entered—facilis ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston

... a small aperture which appeared to have been recently formed—probably by a blow from a mass of falling rock—through which they were able to obtain a glimpse of the pandemonium that lay seething below them. They could not see much, however, owing to the smoke which filled the air. The noise of the ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne

... which the steam issues from the boiler to enter the cylinder are constantly open. When the working of the engine accelerates, these valves partly close; a certain volume of steam must therefore occupy a longer time in passing through them, and the acceleration ceases. The aperture of the valves, on the contrary, dilates when the motion slackens. The pieces requisite for the performance of these various changes connect the valves with the axes which the engine sets to work, by the introduction ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... state) to the umbilical vessels; D, the place where the spermatic vessels and duct pass from the abdomen to the testicle; and immediately beneath this, the crural arch, which gives exit to the crural vessels. Herniae may happen at other localities, such as at the thyroid aperture, which transmits the thyroid vessels; and at the greater sacrosciatic notch, through which the gluteal vessels pass; and all regions of the abdominal walls may give exit to intestinal protrusion in consequence of malformations, disease, or injury. But as the more frequent varieties ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise

... will-o'-the-wisp in that enshrouding dark, the torch showed only hints of things—here a fallen pillar, there a shattered mass of wreckage where a huge section of the ceiling had fallen, yonder a gaping aperture left by the disintegration ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... the features will also be superimposed nearly enough. These pinholes correspond to what are technically known to printers as "register marks." They are easily made: A slip of brass or card has an aperture cut out of its middle, and threads are stretched from opposite sides, making a cross.[22] Two small holes are drilled in the plate, one on either side of the aperture. The slip of brass is laid on the portrait with the aperture over its face. It is turned about until one ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... obtain it for daily use, a hollow reed was inserted into a small, inconspicuous aperture, left open for the purpose, and covered by a stone when the reed was not in use. The water was drawn up by suction,—the women performing the operation by applying their lips to the upper end of the reed, filling ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid

... chimney it was, too, yawning across the full length of one side of the room, and open straight up to the cold sky. There was—what I forgot to mention in the inventory—a sort of tall clothes-horse standing before the enormous aperture, and after trying various devices to keep the wind out, I at last bethought me of the supernumerary blanket, and, throwing it over the clothes-horse, I leaned it against the chimney board. This served admirably as long as it kept its feet, ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy

... Cicely, as something large and white appeared silently through the aperture and glided down into the room. There was a sudden weird, uncanny cry, like a mournful, despairing wail, and a large pair of wings flapped through the open lattice that served for a window out into the thickness ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil

... and was planted upon his hands and knees, his shaggy head hanging over the dark aperture. He was like some rough wild beast that has tracked its quarry to earth and crouches before the hole, ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... as such, for the building in falling had placed things in an almost unrecognizable condition. Some of the great stones from above had passed through the ceiling and floor, while others had become wedged together before reaching the surface, thus forming a very ragged and peculiar aperture. ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... should become visible. The boy declared he saw nothing, then said he saw a flag, then two; often hesitated at the number for a certain time, and on several occasions the spell did not work and the operation went no further, but in general the boy saw the seven flags through the aperture in his hand. The magician then said they must call the Sultan, and the boy said he saw a splendid tent fixed, surrounded by immense hosts, Eblis no doubt, and his angels. The person evoked was then named, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... groping mechanically in the dark aperture he laid hold of the handle of a tin can which stood hidden there among the sheaves. It was the petroleum can, which he had freshly filled yesterday. And on whose advice? Who was ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann

... direction of the great crevices, we reach a small chamber, wherein are found the Oubliettes of Gargas—a vertical well 65 feet feet in depth. The aperture that gives access to this strange well (rendered important through the paleontological remains collected in it) is no more than two feet in diameter. Such is the general configuration ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various

... to hammer up the end of the zinc pipe and stuff the aperture round with sods and stones. I even sacrificed my cap ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... awfully guarded by a malediction; and lest any of the idle or the curious, or any collector of relics, should be tempted to commit depredations, the old sexton kept watch over the place for two days, until the vault was finished, and the aperture closed again. He told me that he had made bold to look in at the hole, but could see neither coffin nor bones; nothing but dust. It was something, I thought, to have seen the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... a small contrivance called a "tilt-up." It consists of two sticks fastened in the middle, at right angles to each other. The stronger of the two is laid across the opening in the ice. The other is thus balanced above the aperture, with a baited hook and line attached to one end, while the other end is adorned with a little flag. For choice, I would have the flags red. They look gayer, and I imagine they are ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... set aside, the reigning queen is allowed by her attendant guards to visit the royal cells, whose occupants she stings to death, thus destroying any possible claimant to her place. And when the royal princess constructs her part of the pupal case, she leaves an aperture so that if and when it should become necessary for the queen to kill her, the sovereign would not injure her sting and be unable to kill the other individuals who might become aspirants for the throne and so ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... followed me through the aperture and I led the way down a path, which seemed fairly well worn, ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... drawing-room, the grand salon, where I give my receptions." Benjamin led the way through a low aperture, on either side of which stalactites and stalagmites had met, leaving a low doorway in the centre. Beyond this, the candles' dim light struggled for supremacy in a great hall, whose walls shone like crystal. On one side the calcareous encrustations had taken the form of a huge organ, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... confined in all our furniture and belongings, is a mass of inflammability, stored with gases, which at a touch are capable of leaping into flame. I remember once being in a house in which a pile of wood in a cellar had caught fire; there was a short delay, while the hose was got out, and before an aperture into the burning room could be made. I went into a peaceful dining-room, which was just above the fire, and it was strangely appalling to see little puffs of smoke fly off from the kindled floor, while we tore the carpets up and flew to take the pictures ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... several on the Mendocino coast, and a number on the shores of the Sandwich Islands. This one, however, has been utilized by the ingenuity of man. The mouth-piece of the trumpet or fog-whistle is fixed against the aperture in the rock, and the breaker, dashing in with venomous spite, or the huge bulging wave which would dash a ship to pieces and drown her crew in a single effort, now blows the fog-whistle and warns the mariner off. The sound thus produced has been heard at a distance ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... therefore, went up again, got on the roof of the house, broke through the tiles, and with much difficulty pulled the man through the aperture and conveyed him safely to the ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... shoulders peered down through the coils of Virginia creeper into the cunningly devised bird's nest in the hollow of an oak tree. There were five delicately tinted eggs, and she tried in vain to squeeze her slim hand through the aperture and possess ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... less rapid movement. But suppose a long reservoir or canal of fluid which has two such points of exhaustion or two of such repletion (as imagined above), and that one of either is near each end of the vessel. If each aperture be opened at the same moment, equal effects will be caused in each half of the fluid towards either end of the vessel, but in the middle there must be a neutral point at which the water falls, yet has no ...
— Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy

... niches, which held holy water. Near the altar in old churches, or where the altar has been, is sometimes found another niche, distinguished from the stoup, by having in it at the bottom, a small aperture for carrying off the water; it is often double with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various

... startling conscience, in the form of an old, sulky, and a shying, horse, hurried me to the 'Regulator' coach-office on Saturday: 'Does the Regulator and its team conform to the Mosaic decalogue, Mr. Book-keeper?' He broke Priscian's head, and through the aperture, assured me that it did not: I was booked for the inside:—"Call at 26 Mall for me."—"Yes, Sir, at 1/2 past five, A.M."—At five I rose like a ghost from the tomb, and betook me to coffee. No wheels rolled through the streets but the inaudible ones ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... there is a strange romantic attraction in the wild woods that gradually brings it back again, and makes us impatient to begin our walk with the Indian. Suddenly the deer-skin robe that covers the aperture of the wigwam is raised, and a bright stream of warm light gushes out, tipping the dark-green points of the opposite trees, and mingling strangely with the paler light of the moon—and Stemaw stands erect in front of his solitary home, to gaze a few moments on the sky and judge ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... leaning against the door outside; but, putting forth all his strength, he burst open the door and slipped out, whereupon it banged to again. At the same moment a loud crash was heard. The lion had sprung through the window with Ryall in his mouth, and as the aperture was too small, he had splintered the woodwork like paper. The remains of the man were found next day and buried. Shortly after the lion was caught in a trap, and was exhibited for several days ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... did not yield, being of enormous strength; but the wall did, and a large mass of stone-work fell outwards, twisting the door aside; so that, by afterwards working with our hands, we removed stones many enough to admit of our egress. Unfortunately this aperture was high above the ground, and it was necessary to climb over a huge heap of loose rubbish in order to profit by it. My brother-in-law passed first in order to receive my wife, quite helpless at surmounting the obstacle by her own efforts, out of my arms. He had gone ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... of the lower room, barricaded by the cautious old warrior until its aperture was not more than eight inches square, Alan thrust his rifle as the crash of gun-fire broke the gray and thickening mist of night. He could hear the thud and hiss of bullets; he heard them singing like angry bees as they passed with the swiftness of chain-lightning over the ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... several hospitals as well as bringing up the petrol and tyres for the Convoy, rationing the Officers' Mess, etc.; and regularly at one o'clock just as we were sitting at Mess, Sergeant Brown would appear (though we never saw more of him than his legs) at the aperture that served as our door, and would call out diffidently in his high squeaky voice: "Isolation, when you're ready, Miss," and as regularly the whole Mess would go off into fits! This formula when translated meant that he was ready for me to take the rations ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... reach of art; for when the cavity of the thorax or chest was opened, and inspected by the sergeant-surgeons, they found the right ventricle of the heart actually ruptured, and a great quantity of blood discharged through the aperture into the surrounding pericardium; so that he must have died instantaneously, in consequence of the effusion. The case, however, was so extraordinary, that we question whether there is such another instance upon record. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... dais at each end being covered with handsome rugs. There were no windows, glass being a luxury which has only recently found its way to the capital; but the apartment received its light from an aperture at the side, which was slightly concealed by some trellis-work, and from a space left uncovered in the ceiling, which was adorned with arabesque figures. The two doors which led from the court were each of them handsomely carved, and in the middle of ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... interminable length. At last, it closed up in front of him. He tested the barrier of raw earth with his hands, felt a great round stone projecting therefrom, pushed this stone in vain, then clasped it with both arms and pulled. It gave, and presently fell to the ground at his feet, leaving an aperture two feet across, which let in light. He crawled the short length of this, and breathed the open air in a small thicket on the sloping bank of the Hudson.[8] He crept to the thicket's edge, and saw, in the sunset light, the river before him; on the river, a British ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens

... feet in width. A pile of talus at the front, lying partly inside the cavern, reaches nearly to the roof; it has a height of 26 to 28 feet above the level of the wet, muddy floor. Drainage is through a small aperture in the north wall, whose outlet is not known. Apparently the bedrock lies at a considerable depth; it is not visible at any point in the steep ravine leading from the mouth of the cave to the river. Formerly a large quantity of ashes covered much of the inner slope of the talus, where ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke

... an odd thing happened. As they were preparing to leave the school [Cathro having previously run Tommy out by the neck], the door opened a little and there appeared in the aperture the face of Tommy, tear-stained but excited. "I ken the word now," he cried, "it came to me a' at once; ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... was constructed in one of the two iron-studded doors, was opened from the inside. The men severally stepped over the threshold, the coffin dragged its melancholy length through the aperture, and both entered the court, and were covered ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... up, and we looked about the room for an aperture through which to survey the city of Edina. Windows there were none. The sole light admitted into the gloomy chamber proceeded from a square opening, about a foot in diameter, at a height of about seven feet from the floor. Yet what will ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... few minutes in this concealment when one of the birds flew down, and alighted on the edge of the boat. After a glance round to see that all was right, it jumped into the bag. A moment after, Harry, darting his hand through the aperture, grasped him round the neck and secured him. Poor whisky-john screamed and pecked ferociously, while Harry brought him in triumph to his friend; but so unremittingly did the bird scream that its captor was fain at last to let him off, the more especially as ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... time—but that some one chesnut, of more life and rotundity than the rest, must be put in motion—it so fell out, however, that one was actually sent rolling off the table; and as Phutatorius sat straddling under—it fell perpendicularly into that particular aperture of Phutatorius's breeches, for which, to the shame and indelicacy of our language be it spoke, there is no chaste word throughout all Johnson's dictionary—let it suffice to say—it was that particular aperture which, in all good societies, the ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... knocks on the screen, and a serving hutch in it opens, through which TWEENY offers two soup plates. LADY MARY selects the clear, and the aperture is closed. She works the punkah while the master partakes of ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie

... they saw the panel slide back, and first of all Hamar's head, and then his body, wriggle through the aperture thus made. ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... assured me belonged to a chief carpenter, was speaking through an aperture (starboard bow twelve-pounder on the lower deck). He did not wish to purchase any fish, even at grossly reduced rates. Nobody wished to buy any fish. This ship was the Devolution at anchor, and desired ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... draws the vessel downwards, and with a mighty roar it plunges forever into the deep. We have repeatedly noticed at this moment that the air within the boat escapes with a shrill whistle from every possible aperture, and the sound resembles the shriek of a steam siren. This is a wonderful spectacle ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner

... cleft. Then, as he continued to stand with widely opened eyes, another surprise was sprung upon him. The door of the chapel opened and the figure of his uncle—long since supposed to be sleeping tranquilly in his own room—showed tall and angular in the aperture. ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... hindered in his operations by its motion, he throws it to the left, and bears it on his shoulder. Moses indeed calls this belt Albaneth; but we have learned from the Babylonians to call it Emia, for so it is by them called. This vestment has no loose or hollow parts any where in it, but only a narrow aperture about the neck; and it is tied with certain strings hanging down from the edge over the breast and back, and is fastened above each ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... good run, skipper," said the lawyer, as the baggage went over into a cavernous aperture in the deck; "fine breeze, I should say. Have a good care of this passenger of ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord

... conversation, the door of the room, which was ajar, slowly opened. Thyrza looked round and saw in the aperture a tiny white figure. It was the Melrose baby, standing silent, wide-eyed, with its fingers in its mouth, and Anastasia behind it. Anastasia, whose look was still thunderous, explained that she was unpacking and could ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... are distributed to parts of the body distant from the head. The eleventh pair, also called spinal accessory, arise from the sides of the spinal marrow, between the anterior and posterior roots of the dorsal nerves, and run up to the medulla oblongata, and leave the cranium by the same aperture as the pneumogastric and glosso-pharyngeal nerves. They supply certain muscles of the neck, and are purely motor. As the glosso-pharyngeal, pneumogastric, and spinal accessory nerves leave the cranium together, they are by some anatomists counted ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... Flynn), was one day sitting with his mother in his igloo when he saw a large polar bear approaching. Having no weapon, and not desiring the presence of the bear in any capacity at their midday meal, he stuck his leg out through the small aperture of the igloo. The bear bit it off on the principle of half a loaf being better than no bread. The whole thing was a fabric of lies from beginning to end. The St. John's papers discovered the article, pounced upon it, and printed the article ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... and are generally of about the same height. Some are perfectly plain, but the exteriors of others are ornamented with pilasters. The reservoirs occur in the paved court which surrounds the main building; they have narrow apertures, but expand below the aperture into the shape of a bell, and are carefully constructed of well-cut stones closely ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... now do with the box? She watched his movements with a breathless interest. He sat still for a few moments, clasping his treasure firmly in his large, brown hands; then he rose, and put it in an aperture above his head, filling the space in front of it with a stone that exactly fitted. Without hurry, and without hesitation, the whole transaction was accomplished; and then, with an equal composure and confidence, he retraced ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr

... describes Nicolette's beauty as she trips over the dewy grass, her tremors as she slips through the postern gate, and her lingering at the foot of the tower where her lover is imprisoned. While pausing there, Nicolette overhears his voice lamenting, and, thrusting her head into an aperture in the wall, tells him that she is about to escape and that as soon as she is gone they will set him free. To convince her lover that it is she who is talking, Nicolette cuts off a golden curl, which she drops down into ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... democratic society of this kind, I fancy myself in one of those low, close, and gloomy abodes, where the light which breaks in from without soon faints and fades away. A sudden heaviness overpowers me, and I grope through the surrounding darkness, to find the aperture which will restore me to daylight ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... the bath-room, the shilling dropped through the aperture, the screw grated as she turned it and the ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... blessed by the clergy, and cocktails open the dinners of the elect, one may speak of the saloon. Teetotalers need not listen, if they choose; there is always the slot restaurant, where a dime dropped into the cold bouillon aperture will ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... as she expected, for she was agile, and the knowledge that the rope would prevent disaster gave her confidence. In a very little while she had grasped Meyer's outstretched hand, and been drawn into safety through a kind of aperture above the top step. Then the rope was let down again for her father, who tied it about his middle. Well was it that he did so, since when he was about half-way up, awkwardness, or perhaps loss of nerve—neither of them wonderful in an old man—caused ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... leaping up to fling it off, he felt the tug of a lariat at his throat. His struggles were useless. In a few moments he was bound hand and foot. Lifting some strips of bark from the low roof, Ta-in-ga-ro pushed the Spaniard through the aperture and lowered him to the ground, outside the enclosure of which the house formed part. Then, at the embers of a fire he kindled an arrow wrapped in the down of cottonwood and shot it into a haystack in the court. In the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... ascertain something on the subject, by making the aperture of a telescope so small, that the sun should appear through it no larger than Sirius, which he found to be only in the proportion of 1 to 27,664 times his diameter, as seen by the naked eye. Hence, supposing Sirius to be a globe of ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... the horse were without, and Owain with the other part of the horse remained between the two gates, and the inner gate was closed, so that Owain could not go thence; and Owain was in a perplexing situation. And while he was in this state, he could see through an aperture in the gate, a street facing him, with a row of houses on each side. And he beheld a maiden, with yellow curling hair, and a frontlet of gold upon her head; and she was clad in a dress of yellow satin, and on her feet were shoes of variegated leather. ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest

... early and careful home-training have been mostly effaced. Nothing in his garb now distinguishes him from the class of which he is a type. He has long since ceased to care for neat or whole attire, or carefully brushed hair. His straggling locks, usually long, protrude from an aperture in his hat. His shoes would make a very poor advertisement for the shoemaker by whom they were originally manufactured. His face is not always free from stains, and his street companions have long since ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger

... abatement of heat. My eyes had become accustomed to the dim light, and by holding my book or work in a certain position near the aperture I contrived to read and sew. That was a great relief to the tedious monotony of my life. But when winter came, the cold penetrated through the thin shingle roof, and I was dreadfully chilled. The winters there are ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... remained in statu quo, and neither closed up in the slightest degree nor was to be filled, albeit the Romans brought and cast into it masses of earth and stones and all sorts of other material. In the midst of the Romans' uncertainty an oracle was given them to the effect that the aperture could in no way be closed except they should throw into the chasm their best possession and that which was the chief source of their strength: then the thing would cease, and the city should command power inextinguishable. Still the ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio

... stage, which is pierced by a circular aperture, is a diaphragm. This regulates the quantity of light which is to be transmitted by means of the silvered reflector shown in ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson

... ground. A low growl escaped him and his upper lip curved to expose his fighting fangs. "Numa!" he muttered; but he did not stop. Numa might not be at home—he would investigate. The entrance was so low that the ape-man was compelled to drop to all fours before he could poke his head within the aperture; but first he looked, listened, and sniffed in each direction at his rear—he would not be taken by surprise ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... near—indeed, much too near to be pleasant; but the bulk of them flew wide, and I made good my retreat to the house, untouched, and was at once admitted by my friends, who immediately proceeded to block up with sand-bags the aperture by which I ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... around her. It was a cold winter's day and she was very warmly clad, so that she soon experienced a glowing warmth in the confined air she was breathing. This warmth, so oppressive, and the monotonous sound stealing in through the aperture of the desk, caused an irresistible drowsiness, and her eye-lids heavy with the weight of tears, involuntarily closed. When the master, astonished at the perfect stillness with which, after awhile, she endured the restraint, softly peeped within, she was lying in a deep ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... all telephone applications and Internet services are available international: country code - 43; satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (1 Atlantic Ocean and 1 Indian Ocean) and 1 Eutelsat; in addition, there are about 600 VSAT (very small aperture terminals) (2002) ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... through the green trellis of leafy twigs, flaunted gay little dancing patches of gold on the path below, as the leaves moved flickeringly in the breeze, and where the twisted growth of a branch had left a leafless aperture, it flung a single shaft of quivering light athwart the pergola. It gleamed like a shining sword between the man and woman, as though dividing them one from the other and thrusting each into the shadows ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... enclosure is considerably sunk and an enormous mass of scorious lava seems glued to the extremity of the brink. On the west the rock is perforated; and a large opening gives a view of the horizon of the sea. The force of the elastic vapours perhaps formed this natural aperture, at the time of some inundation of lava thrown ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... the paw and flung her away from him. Now she had climbed up to the bowl and was trying to hook out the fish. He got up, drove her off, and finding a large glass stopper by the bowl, entirely plugged up the aperture with it. ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster

... my further progress in the shape of some large rocks, which had fallen from above and blocked the passage. I was unable to scale the CHEVAUX-DE-FRISE; but the whole body of water poured through an aperture three or four feet above the bed of the stream; and although it looked dark and dreary within, instead of retracing my steps to find another route through the woods to the spot I wished to reach, I determined to force my way into the gloomy cavern, with the expectation ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... an aperture in the wall, and the bricks and stones about it were loose, and admitted of removal. It was such a private way of passage as schoolboys know of. On getting through, Agellius found himself in a neglected garden or small close. Everything was silent about them, as if the ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... sound of cautiously wielded oars attracted his attention. In the end of the boat was a hawser-hole, painted and shaped like the eye of Osiris. Kenkenes turned about on his couch and watched through this aperture. ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... her off, perhaps with not more roughness than was necessary to induce her to forego her grasp of him, but in a manner that fully showed he intended to be free; and then he sprang through the same aperture whence Varney had disappeared, just as George and Mr. Marchdale arrived at the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... early summer morning was sweet even in the depths of the trench. But some one was watching and listening for the faint sound of his footsteps. An invisible hand hurled a bomb. He rushed back to the door; but his pack was on his back, and he was caught in the aperture like a rat in a trap. The air was rent by the detonation, and his legs were rent, like the pure air, like the summer morning, like ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel

... door as far as it would go without unfastening the chain, and the Professor at once thrust in his head, remaining jammed in the aperture. ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas

... strident Prussian bugles were blowing a harsh summons; the young officer stepped to the loop-hole and looked out, then hastily removed his helmet and thrust his blond head through the smoky aperture. "March those prisoners ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... and, in the unsettled state of the times, something alarmed, at the earnest and repeated knocking with which the gate was now assailed. Mrs Wilson ran in person to the door, and, having reconnoitred those who were so clamorous for admittance, through some secret aperture with which most Scottish door-ways were furnished for the express purpose, she returned wringing her hands in great dismay, exclaiming, "The ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... ourselves, to spend a nocturnal vigil within the hall of the great temple of the Sea God, so as to behold, like that undaunted traveller, Crawford Ramage, the shafts of crystalline moonlight shed through the aperture of the roof leap from pillar to pillar, making bars of brilliant light amidst the surrounding blackness! O to sit and meditate thus engrossed with the memory of the past, and with no other sounds around us than the sad cry of the aziola, the little downy owl that Shelley ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... as he stood there, with his eyes fixed on the planks, trying to discover an aperture, that between the cracks of the boards there glimmered a faint light. It seemed to flicker, ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... wandered through the plantations which skirted the road, he saw a light in the distance amongst the trees. After traversing a deep and dangerous glen, he reached the house from which the light shone. It was an old and ruinous building. Before approaching the door, he peeped in through an aperture in the ruined wall, and saw in the room inside the figure of a man, stretched on a straw bed, with a blanket thrown over it. He could see that the man was dying. A woman clad in a long cloak was sitting by the bedside, and moistening at times the lips of the man with some liquid. She was ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... pit to keep the fire alive. If the air were freely admitted the pile would burn to ashes. Sometimes the outer covering of dirt and sods falls in, as the wood shrinks permitting the air to rush in and fan the fire to a blaze. When this occurs, the aperture must be closed, or the wood would be consumed; and it is necessary to watch it day and night. The cabin had been built for the comfort of the men who did ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic

... inner room and she sat herself down to wait; but his absence continuing longer than she expected, she became impatient, thinking he had forgotten her, and softly approaching the door she peeped through some aperture, and to her surprise beheld him lying on a sofa as motionless as if he were dead. She of course did not think it advisable to disturb him, but waited his return, when he told her that her husband had not been ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater

... distilling, the crude turpentine is 'dumped' into the boiler through an opening in the top,—the same as that on which we saw Junius composedly seated,—water is then poured upon it, the aperture made tight by screwing down the cover and packing it with clay, a fire built underneath, and when the heat reaches several hundred degrees Fahrenheit, the process of manufacture begins. The volatile and more valuable part of the turpentine, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... that of the Sea-Anemone: the body is divided by vertical partitions from top to bottom, leaving open chambers between, while in the centre hangs the digestive cavity connecting by an opening in the bottom with all these chambers; at the top is an aperture which serves as a mouth, surrounded by a wreath of hollow tentacles, each one connecting at its base with one of the chambers, so that all parts of the animal communicate freely with each other. But though the structure ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... without turned in the wards—the door shook. "Soft! the bar preserves us both—this way." And the coiner crept to the door of the private stairs. He unlocked and opened it cautiously. A man sprang through the aperture: ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... came the sound of the key turning in the lock. Olga stood up hastily, dashing away her tears. Mrs. Briggs's head appeared in the aperture. ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... castle is the Rue Haute du Chateau. At the Maison Juigny, in this street, the Duchesse de Berri was arrested, after having remained sixteen hours concealed in an aperture behind a chimney on the third floor, scarcely a foot and a half high and four feet long. The police, having information of her being in the house, through the treachery of a Jew, had made a fruitless search, but had left a watch behind. The soldiers lighted a fire in the chimney, and the Duchess, ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser

... wide enough open to let Lass jump out, but it was wide enough for her to push her nose through. And by vigorous thrusting, with her triangular head as a wedge, she was able to widen the aperture, inch by inch. In less than three minutes she had broadened it far enough for her to wriggle out of the car and leap to the side of the track. ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... As the aperture was two feet square, all of Clem Sypher that could respond to the invitation was his head ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke



Words linked to "Aperture" :   camera, scope, eye, optic, stomate, pore, opening, telescope



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