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noun
Buoy  n.  (Naut.) A float; esp. a floating object moored to the bottom, to mark a channel or to point out the position of something beneath the water, as an anchor, shoal, rock, etc.
Anchor buoy, a buoy attached to, or marking the position of, an anchor.
Bell buoy, a large buoy on which a bell is mounted, to be rung by the motion of the waves.
Breeches buoy. See under Breeches.
Cable buoy, an empty cask employed to buoy up the cable in rocky anchorage.
Can buoy, a hollow buoy made of sheet or boiler iron, usually conical or pear-shaped.
Life buoy, a float intended to support persons who have fallen into the water, until a boat can be dispatched to save them.
Nut buoy or Nun buoy, a buoy large in the middle, and tapering nearly to a point at each end.
To stream the buoy, to let the anchor buoy fall by the ship's side into the water, before letting go the anchor.
Whistling buoy, a buoy fitted with a whistle that is blown by the action of the waves.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Buoy" Quotes from Famous Books



... we suppose that the greatest sea-poet who never ventured on anything more perilous than a ferry-boat was Walt Whitman. Walt, one likes to think, would have been horribly sea-sick if he had ventured out beyond the harbour buoy. A good deal of Walt's tempestuous uproar about the glories of America was undoubtedly due to the fact that he had never seen anything else. Speaking of Walt reminds us that one book of the sea that we ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... strangeness of all life, a pastime which very often engaged him. Then he thought of some one whom he very greatly loved, and was refreshed by that thought; and, indeed, to love and be loved very greatly is the one stake to cling to in these troubled seas, the one unfailing life-buoy. Then, turning his mind into practical channels, he thought of hate, and of Charles Wilbraham, and of how best to strive that day to compass him ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay

... young lady deprecated any fresh expenditure, or ventured an advice concerning the farm,—'Edith, my dear, the main fault of your character is an extraordinary want of the sanguine element, for the excess of which I have always been so remarkable. You know I compare it to the life-buoy, which has held me up above the most tempestuous waves of the sea of existence, eh! But you, my poor dear girl, have got a sad way of looking at things—a gloomy temperament, I should call it perhaps, eh? which is totally opposite to my nature. Now, as to this beast, which Mr. Bunting ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... my American travels I was really petrified with fear. Suddenly a wave struck the hapless vessel, and with a stunning crash broke through the thin woodwork of the side of the saloon. I caught hold of a life-buoy which was near me—a gentleman clutched it from me, for fright makes some men selfish—and, breathless, I was thrown down into the gurgling water. I learned then how quickly thoughts can pass through the mind, for in those few seconds ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... part of the buoy there is affixed a firmly supported tube carrying at its extremity the lantern, c. The gas compressed to 6 or 7 atmospheres in the body of the buoy passes, before reaching the burner, into a regulator analogous to the one installed on railway cars, but modified in such a way as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various

... over! The spot was found! Fortune lay within their reach! Marking the spot with a buoy, they rowed back to the ship, on which the captain had remained. Here they, disposed to have some sport, declared with long faces that the affair had better come to an end. They were wasting time and labor; the sea had no ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... navigation of ice-yachts. Archie, if you're willing to enter against such a handicap of brains and barnacles, I'll race you on a beat up to the point yonder, then on the ten mile run afore the wind to the buoy opposite the Club, and back to the cove by Dillaway's. And we'll make it a case of wine. Is it ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... deck, was actually broken in two pieces. It is a well-authenticated fact, that some years ago a shark, playing round a whaling vessel of upwards of 300 tons, whilst lying at anchor during a calm, got entangled in the buoy-rope of the anchor, and in its efforts to free itself actually tripped the anchor. The people on board, perceiving something extraordinary had happened, hove up the anchor, and brought the struggling shark to the surface. Having thrown a rope over its ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... about two hundred and fifty yards outside her. As long as she lies quiet there we will leave her alone. If she tries to make off we will board her at once. Anchor with the kedge; that will hold her here. Have a buoy on the cable and have it ready to slip at a moment's notice, and the sails all ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... 7th of May, and fell in with a favourable wind; and too much of it. For six days we were scudding before it under a close-reefed main-topsail and fore-staysail. On the 10th we lost one of the best men in the ship, the sailmaker, Charles Downing, who fell overboard; the ship was rounded to, the life-buoy let go, but we saw nothing of him. June 7th saw Christmas Islands, and on the same afternoon the land of Java. On the 11th we arrived off the town of Anger, in company with a fleet of merchant vessels of all nations and of all rigs. ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... the watch, and the captain, who was standing on the weather bulwark, shaking the backstays, to feel if they bore an equal strain: all at once the ship gave a heavy weather lurch, the captain lost his footing, and was overboard in a moment. I instantly sprang aft, cut away the life-buoy, and knowing that he was but an indifferent swimmer, jumped overboard after him. As I said before, the sea was running high, and a few minutes elapsed before I caught sight of him, rising on the crest ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... indeed, proved to be the message that Captain Craig brought forward with him. Dick and Greg did not have far to go to reach their cabin. In five minutes they reappeared on deck in the bulky contrivances intended to buoy them up in the water should they have the bad fortune to find themselves tossing ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock

... legs, and all; and in this way bear such a resemblance to the animals from which they have been taken, that even dogs are deceived, and often growl and bark at them. Of course the quantity of air is for more than sufficient to buoy up the weight of a man. Sometimes, when goods and other articles are to be carried across, several skins are attached together, and thus form an ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid

... clambered up to the cross-trees, gave them the direction of the trawl buoy-light, and they started. It was a clear, starlit night with only a gentle sea running and no wind to speak of. There was not a hint ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... Abbot of Aberbrothock Had placed a bell on the Inch Cape Rock. On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung And over the ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne

... embittered by ill success. If ever this nation, during his life, enter into arrangements with us, it must be in consequence of events, of which they do not at present see a possibility. The object of the present ministry is to buoy up the nation with flattering calculations of their present prosperity, and to make them believe they are better without us than with us. This they seriously believe; for what is it men cannot be made to believe? I dined the other day in a company of the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... what is known as the winged shells, to which the "pearl oysters" belong. The name is apt, for the expanded valves are not unlike the form of a bird in flight. The illustration shows a rare species, several specimens of which were found attached to the mooring-chain of a buoy by what is known as the "byssus," a bunch of tough fibres which passes through an hiatus in the margins of the valves. Like the king's daughter of the Psalmist, PTERIA PEASEI is "all glorious within," the nacreous surface, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... falling off there, as the impassive man touched the tiller, obeying an instinct, seeing into the dark beyond. Now a bit of cliff loomed in the fog, again a shingled roof or a cluster of firs, and the whistling buoy at the harbor's mouth began to bellow sadly,—reminders all of the shell of that world towards which they sailed. And at last the harbor, with its echoing bells and fog-whistles, the protesting shrieks of its man-machines; ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... the fragrance of the lemon blossoms surrounding me, marking this as one of the unforgettable representative moments, to which we look back repeatedly on our journey of life as the skipper looks back to a buoy or lighthouse passed. ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... frequently came from the poor settlers as well as from the seafarers. A summons coming in one day from the Fastnet Light, we rowed out in a small boat to that lovely rock in the Atlantic. A heavy sea, however, making landing impossible, we caught hold of a buoy, anchored off from the rock, and then rowing in almost to the surf, caught a line from the high overhanging crane. A few moments later one was picked out of the tumbling, tossing boat like a winkle ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... anticipated Europe in a kind of rude regional anatomy. I have seen a manikin of Japanese make traced all over with lines, and points marking their intersection. By this their doctors are guided in the performance of acupuncture, marking the safe places to thrust in needles, as we buoy out our ship-channels, and doubtless indicating to learned eyes the spots where incautious meddling had led to those little accidents of shipwreck to which patients are ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... compassionate sea-nymph, who in the form of a cormorant alighted on the raft, and presented him a girdle, directing him to bind it beneath his breast, and if he should be compelled to trust himself to the waves, it would buoy him up and enable him by swimming to reach ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... rubber belt stretched under his arms; the latter served as a buoy and as a receptacle for the necessary articles which he knew he would require when ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"

... acquaint the Echo with this accident; that vessel was at a considerable distance, and we were going to fire a gun to second the signal, but there was not one loaded, however we threw out the life buoy.[9] The sails were clewed up, and the ship hove to. This manoeuvre was long; we should have come to the wind, as soon as they cried, "a man overboard," it is true that somebody cried aloud from the poop, that he was saved; and a sailor had indeed caught him by the ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard

... fellow overboard, one of the seamen. He ought not to have been lost, and I blame myself. He was under the davits of the boat doing something, and the rope by which he was holding parted; the life-buoy almost knocked him as he passed the quarter of the vessel, and I, instead of jumping overboard, and shouting to the Melanesians to do the same, rushed to the falls. The boat was on the spot where his cap was floating within two and a ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... colonists on shore. The passengers fortunately landed before the accident, and I will just mention to you the method by which the crew were saved. When they found that the ship was ruined and giving way upon the beam right athwart, they made a rope fast to a drift-buoy, which by the surf was driven on shore. By this a stout hawser was convey'd, and those on shore made it fast a good way up a pine-tree. The other end, being on board, was hove taut. On this hawser was placed the heart ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery

... liked, from four feet to thirty. Except with leave, no boy was permitted to swim beyond the harbour mouth into the open. But leave was constantly being applied for, and as constantly granted; and perhaps every boy, at some time or other, cast wistful glances at the black buoy bobbing a mile out at sea, and wondered when he, like Pontifex and Mansfield, and other of the Sixth, should be able to wear the image of it on his belt, and call himself a ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... again, steering for the first outward mark of the fairway, the Mullet Buoy. Only the last house of the village was now looking at us remotely, a tiny white cube which frequently sank, on its precarious ledge of earth, beneath an intervening upheaval of the waters. The sea was superior ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... anchored, seeing no sign of life ashore, and they told me it was the Bar. We must wait for high water. Away ahead was the bar buoy, a white blob on the water. I stood leaning against a stanchion trying to sense the atmosphere of the place until the Second called me, for there was something to do. There was always something to do in that terrible old ship. I went down, and together we wrestled with the dynamo-engine, ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... the painted buoy That tosses at the harbour-mouth; And madly danced our hearts with joy, As fast we fleeted to the South: How fresh was every sight and sound On open main or winding shore! We knew the merry world was round, And we might sail ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... duties, and directly afterwards heard the thrilling cry of 'Man overboard!' Of course a great commotion ensued, the men rushing up from below, all eager to render assistance. I ran aft, whence the cry had proceeded, seizing a life-buoy as I passed, but found that one had already been thrown over by the man at the helm, who exclaimed, 'That gentleman,' meaning poor Mr. White, 'has jumped overboard.' A boat was lowered, a man was sent up to the cross-trees, another on to the deck-house to keep a look-out, and the ship was put about ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... happened to present themselves; and accordingly, as the bows of the ship became depressed, while the stern rose in the air, telling that the Golden Fleece was about to take her final dive, he mechanically sprang to the taffrail and, disengaging a life-buoy that hung there, passed it over his shoulders and up under his armpits. Then, climbing upon the rail, he leapt unhesitatingly into the black, heaving water below him at the precise moment when a loud wail of ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... Christophe, though it would have been too cruel to contradict him. At bottom there was in Schulz not so much a firm belief as a passionate desire to believe—an uncertain hope to which he clung as to a buoy. He sought the confirmation of it in Christophe's eyes. Christophe understood the appeal in the eyes of his friend, who clung to him with touching confidence, imploring him,—and dictating his answer. Then he spoke of the calm faith or strength, sure ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... to pay only the wages for the muleteers, and the expenses of living. Of course I shall arrange for my income and half- pay to be sent out to some firm at Lima. Now, you had better go off to bed, and don't buoy yourself up with the belief that you are going, for I have by no means decided ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty

... rod and went down to the seashore and sat down on the rocks. He baited his hook and then threw it into the sea clumsily. He sat and gazed at the little float bobbing up and down in the water, and longed for a good fish to come and be caught. Every time the buoy moved a little he pulled up his rod, but there was never a fish at the end of it, only the hook and the bait. If he had known how to fish properly, he would have been able to catch plenty of fish, but although he was the greatest hunter in the ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki

... Scoriac was turning hard to starboard, making a great figure of eight; for it is quicker to turn one of these great sea monsters round than to stop her in mid career. The aim of her Captain in such cases is to bring her back to the weather side of the floating buoy before launching the boat. ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... did!" roared Cockle; "now I shall be bothered again with that old woman; I wish she was moored as a buoy to the Royal George." ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... that surrounds"), and flanked at both ends by its triangular reefs, the Sharm Makn, the past and future port of the mines, supports the miniature gunboat no larger than a "cock," and the Sambk dwarfed to a buoy. Beyond the purpling harbour, along the glaring yellow shore, cut by broad Wady-mouths and dotted here and there with a date-clump, the corallines, grits, and sandstones are weathered to the quaintest forms, giant pins and mushrooms, columns and ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... government disclaiming any other motives save those of protection to Americans and their interests. The Maine was, to all outward appearances, friendly received by the Spaniards at Havana by the usual salutes and courtesies of the navy, and was anchored at a point in the bay near a certain buoy designated by the Spanish Commander. This was on January 25, 1898, and on February 15th this noble vessel was blown to pieces, and 266 of its crew perished—two colored men being in the number. This event added fuel to the already burning fire of American feeling against Spain. Public sentiment ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson

... beaker of water, just as much water will be displaced as though the vessel were full, and it will be displaced upward as before, for lack of any other place to go. Consequently its weight will tend to buoy up or float the stone by trying to get back under it, and the stone when in water will weigh less than when in air. Anyone who has ever pulled up a small anchor when out fishing from a boat will recognize at once that this is the ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade

... boat out to help us. It was with the utmost hazard the boat came near us, but it was impossible for as to get on board, or for the boat to lie near the ship's side, till at last the men rowing very heartily, and venturing their lives to save ours, our men cast them a rope over the stern with a buoy to it, and then veered it out a great length, which they after great labour and hazard took hold of, and we hauled them close under our stern, and got all into their boat. It was to no purpose for them or us, after we were in the boat, to think of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... In fact, the canoe probably would not have been able to contain the articles possibly enclosed in the chest, which doubtless was heavy, since two empty barrels were required to buoy it up. It was, therefore, much better to tow it to the beach at ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... to struggle again, like a madman; but his efforts only served to bury him deeper in the tomb that the poor doomed lad was hollowing for himself; not a log of wood or a branch to buoy him up; not a reed to which he might cling! He felt that all was over! ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... proof has been given to me by the Government of the Netherlands that no light-house and light dues, tonnage dues, or beacon and buoy dues are imposed in the ports of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; that no other equivalent tax of any kind is imposed upon vessels in said ports, under whatever flag they may sail; that vessels belonging to the United States of America ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... signals are carefully attended to and made on the first approach of vessels. These signals are repeated at Fort Howe. Within the island there is a bar which extends from the western side, and passes the lower point of the peninsula, on which the city stands. It has a beacon on the outer end, and a buoy to direct vessels coming or going. The bar is dry at ebb tides, but within the harbour there is sufficient water for the largest ships. The tide ebbs and flows from sixteen to twenty-four feet perpendicular in this harbour. A pier has been constructed ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher

... one for my father!—my poor, hungry father!" cried little Baptiste, and drew up his last hook. It came full baited, and the line was out of the water clear away to his outer buoy! ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson

... flat-iron gunboat strictly designed for river and harbour defence. She sweated clammy drops of dew between decks in spite of a preparation of powdered cork that was sprinkled over her inside paint. She rolled in the long Cape swell like a buoy; her foc's'le was a dog-kennel; Judson's cabin was practically under the water- line; not one of her dead-bights could ever be opened; and her compasses, thanks to the influence of the four-inch gun, were a curiosity even among Admiralty compasses. But ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... kicked off his clothes, he observed Caradoc stripping likewise. Then Farnol Greer came running down the deck with another buoy ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling

... of land, or in the River. He began to tread water while he tried to lift his head and gaze across the waves. Then a broad shaft of dazzling light shot across the Bay from a nearby reflector. At the same time Tom heard the tolling of a bell-buoy, not very ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... amusing ourselves; we are trying to catch some fish for dinner," said Kate. "Could you wait out by the red buoy while we get a few more, and then should you be back by noon, or are you going for ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... (locally often called Proustock), a little more than a mile beyond, we have come into the immediate presence of a great wreck region, for Manacle Point lies close below, and the Manacles themselves foam yonder with perpetual menace, their bell-buoy sounding a dismal but ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... would see the English Seminaries abroad neglected and dropt by Degrees; which she now cultivates with the utmost Care: For it is from them only, that She can be furnish'd with the proper Instruments to keep Popery alive in England, and buoy up the drooping Spirits of the distress'd Catholicks, among the many Hardships and Discouragements, they labour under beyond the Rest of their Fellow-Subjects. Such Offices as these, are every where best perform'd by Natives: Whatever Persuasion People are of, if the ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville

... multdika. Bull bovoviro. Bullet kuglo. Bulletin noto, karteto. Bullfinch pirolo. Bullion (ingot) fandajxo. Bullock juna bovoviro. Bulwark remparo. Bump gxibeto. Bumper plenglaso. Bun bulko. Bunch (cluster) aro. Bundle fasko. Bung sxtopilo. Bungle fusxi. Buoy nagxbarelo. Buoyant nagxema. Burden sxargxo. Burden (refrain) rekantajxo. Burden sxargi. Burdensome multepeza. Bureau (office) oficejo. Burgess burgo. Burglar domorabisto. Burial enterigxo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... have the capes on this point opposite each other, namely, the two small ones; for to the westward of these there is a large one which is not to be regarded. Having the capes thus opposite each other, you are in the middle of the channel and by the first buoy. The current runs outside along the shore, east and west, to wit: the ebb tide westerly, and the flood easterly, and also very strong. The ebb runs until it is half flood. There are still two other channels, the old one which is the middle one, and the Spanish Channel stretching to the east. ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... do, Mr. Flint; stop her, and let go the anchor. Get out a spring astern and make it fast to that buoy," ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... this year, by clam!" said he, seizing his gun from the bottom of the scow and firing. He fired again, and then rowed eagerly up to it. It was a little wandering wooden buoy ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... himself up and lean backward against the air as he stared at me. "How about this here tide that's rushin' out through the Golden Gate?" he demanded, or bellowed, rather. "How fast is she ebbin'? What's the drift, eh? Listen to that, will you? A bell-buoy, and we're a-top of it! See ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... knocking a few minutes ago." Captain Crowe rose like a buoy against the ceiling. "Here, now, I'm goin' to the door for you, Mis' Lunn; there may be ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett

... fair wick wi' kittiwakes an' herrin' gulls. So I just undressed misen, walked down to t' watter an' started swimmin'. Eh! but t' sea were bonny an' warm, an' for once I got all yon dowly thowts o' death clean out o' my head. So I just struck out for t' buoy that were anchored out at sea, happen hafe a mile frae t' shore. That had allus bin my swim sin first we took to comin' to Bridlington, and I'd niver had no trouble i' swimmin' theer an' back. I got to t' buoy ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman

... adventurers—or, rather, the three adventurers and Nickerson—were lame in every joint, red-eyed from lack of sleep, half-starved, wholly wet and unequivocally disgusted. They had had heavy weather from the day they bade farewell to the whistling buoy off San Francisco Bay until the moment when even patient, docile, taciturn Strokher had at last—in ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris

... cable, it parted in the middle of its length, being chafed by the rocks. By this accident we lost the other half, together with the anchor, which lay in forty fathoms water, without any buoy to it. The best bower-cable suffered also by the rocks; by which a judgment may be formed of this anchorage. At ten o'clock we got under sail; but as our decks were much encumbered with fruit, &c. we kept plying under the land ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... into a small boat and secured the sailing-boat to the buoy which belonged to the house whither he was going, or rather, he ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall

... going up to the Metropolitan Opera-house some fearful night as the clock struck twelve, and try to serve papers on Wagner's spook—all of which he treated as unworthy of a moment's consideration. Then I was tried, convicted, and sentenced to live in this beastly hole; but I have one strong hope to buoy me up, and if that is realized, I'll be free ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... an odd reluctance the little roll of bills he handed me, though it was like a life buoy ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... fog-buoy's squattering flight Guides us through the haggard night; When the warning bugle blows; When the lettered doorways close; When our brittle townships ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling

... starting from the point at which the yacht is lying in the illustration and touching every one of the sixty-four buoys in fourteen straight courses, returning in the final tack to the buoy from which we start. The seventh course must finish at the buoy from which a flag ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... poor buoy—our Harry, as you used to play wi' when you was little—'twas they as aggravated un so he couldn't abear it, afore ever he'd a struck ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... Candle, or Lamp, nip up the slender Pipe and let it cool: whereupon it is obvious to observe, first, that the Water by degrees will subside and shrink into much less room: Next, that the Air or vapours in the Glass will expand themselves so, as to buoy up the little Glass: Thirdly, that all about the inside of the Glass-pipe there will appear an infinite number of small bubbles, which as the Water grows colder and colder will swell bigger and bigger, and many of them buoy themselves up and break ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... on open hooks at the four corners of the poop-deck; thus, without one moment's delay, I dropped a buoy almost into his hands. This he immediately seized with both arms, and I, of course, thought he was safe: the buoy naturally canted up as he first clutched it, and, instead of holding on, to my astonishment he ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... gray Morgan's walls, Looms the black fleet. Hark, deck to rampart calls With the drums' beat! Buoy your chains overboard, While the steam hums; Men! ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott

... this law shall inflict a punishment precedent to the promulgation, and try us by maxims unheard of till the very moment of the prosecution. If I sail on the Thames, and split my vessel on an anchor, in case there be no buoy to give warning, the party shall pay me damages: but if the anchor be marked out, then is the striking on it at my own peril. Where is the mark set upon this crime? where the token by which I should discover it? It has lain concealed under water; and no human prudence, no human innocence, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... in their tissues. In Fucus vesiculosus they arise in lateral pairs; in Ascophyllum they are single and median; in Macrocystis one vesicle arises at the base of each thallus segment; in Sargassum and Halidrys the vesicles arise on special branches. They serve to buoy up the plant when attached to the sea-bottom, and thus light is admitted into the forest-like growths of the gregarious species. When such plants are detached they are enabled to float for great distances, and the great Sargasso Sea of the North Atlantic Ocean is ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... she indulged in these boorish discourtesies simply to buoy up her own ego, which must have suffered greatly. She presumed on her sex and my tolerance, taking the same pleasure in baiting me, on whom she was utterly dependent, as a terrier does in annoying a Saint Bernard, knowing the big dog's chivalry will ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... from the clergyman's door, a pale-faced, fat man huskily enveloped him with a raised, red fist and the voice of a bell buoy, demanding payment of an ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... so gross as beetles; half way down Hangs one that gathers samphire,—dreadful trade! Methinks he seems no bigger than his head: The fishermen, that walk upon the beach, Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark, Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge, That on th' unnumbered idle pebbles chafes, Cannot be heard so high.—I'll look no more, Lest my brain turn, and the ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... moored with a long sweep from both cables, and one of the buoys of the anchor was far away on the starboard quarter, where it rose and fell with the lazy swells of the waves. Toward this buoy the two lads made their way, young Fairbanks taking the lead; but, when they were within about twenty or thirty fathoms of the buoy, Wallace shot ahead and ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... as his wealth. It may happen, on the contrary, that the poorest scion of a powerful aristocracy may display vast ambition, because the traditional opinions of his race and the general spirit of his order still buoy him up for some time above his fortune. Another thing which prevents the men of democratic periods from easily indulging in the pursuit of lofty objects, is the lapse of time which they foresee must take place before they can be ready to approach them. "It is a great ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... of light appeared on the surface of the water, which was reflected from some source of light about ten yards below the surface. "It's an anchored light-buoy," explained the lieutenant, "which forms the end of the electric light cable, and there to the right is another one. All we have to do now is to keep a straight course between the two rows of lantern-buoys which are connected ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... Bell Rock, is a dangerous reef in the North Sea, east of the Firth of Tay, in Scotland, and twelve miles from all land. The story of the forethought of the abbot of Aberbrothok in placing the bell on the buoy as a warning to sailors is an ancient one, and one old writer thus gives the tradition made use of by Southey ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... comfortably, and then the scale of life began to increase, luxuries formerly unthought of seemed to become necessities. And while it was still afar off I saw a great wave rolling toward us, the wave of that new prosperity which threatened to submerge us, and I seized the buoy fate had placed in our hands,—or rather, by suggestion, I induced my husband ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... do is to hope," he said. He knew better than to buoy up false hopes, for he had seen too much of the terrible side of war. In his heart he knew that there was but little chance for Harry Leroy, after the latter's aeroplane had been shot down behind the German lines. Yet there was that one, ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach

... The tiny blue buoy dances up and down on the miniature waves; beyond it a dazzling path of gold stretches away to the distant osier-islands—a path down which we came without seeing it till we looked back. The wavelets strike with a faint 'sock-sock' against the bluff overhanging ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... soul that heard them dissolved like a sweet in the goblet, mingling with so much ecstasy of sound; and those melodies filling the white cave of the ear were even at once to drown the soul in delightfulness and buoy it with bliss, as a heavy-leaved flower is withered and refreshed by sun and dews. Surely, the youth ceased not to listen, and oblivion of cares and aught other in this life, save that hidden luting and piping, pillowed his drowsy head. At last there was a pause, and it seemed every maze of music ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of Pelham, who was able to swim a little, and supported him till they could reach the life-buoy, which had been dropped from the stern of the ship when the alarming ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic

... silence. A pin might have been heard to drop on deck. The life-buoy had been let go at the first by the officer of the watch. Its signal fire now burned bright astern, but no one was seen clinging to it. There could be little doubt that the poor fellow, whoever he was, had sunk at once. The ship had been running at the time a few ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... sheer across to her, but no sooner did we get into the current again than it mercilessly drove us back. Beaten again! And again we tried the same manoeuvre with the same result. Now we saw them lowering a buoy from the ship—if we could only reach it we were saved; but we did not reach it. They were not exactly blessings that we poured on those on board. Why the deuce could they not bear down to us when they saw the straits we were ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... the present." The last words seemed to present themselves to him as a sort of life-buoy. He grasped them, clung to them. "For the present—yes. No doctor, of course, not the cleverest, can possibly say that no complications ever will arise in regard to a case. But for the present I am satisfied all is going quite as it ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... the West Indies was the sinking of old Port Royal, the resort of buccaneers, in 1692. The harbor of Kingstown is commonly supposed to cover the site of the old settlement. There is a tradition that a buoy for many years was attached to the spire of a sunken church in order to warn mariners. Three thousand persons perished in ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... old forts Jackson and Pulaski, both on the south side of the river, and both deserted and falling to ruin, and very soon had left behind Tybee Island, with its flashing light, at the mouth of the river. The tug left them when they reached the siren buoy that keeps up a constant moaning on the outer bar; one after another of the ship's sails were loosed and "sheeted home," and then Captain May said it was "high time for the ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe

... as yet, thank God," he answered. "But it would be cruel to keep the truth from you, Kitty, and let you buoy yourself ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... physical, social and intellectual man. Chiefly, the church, through its spiritual ministries, is to inspire its members and others to good works of love in their daily walk and conversation. As the anchor of the buoy or the ballast of the ship holds it upright, so the good works of Christians hold the spiritual salvation aloft to be seen of men, and commend it to a ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz

... than once, for the floating buoy at the end of the jetty makes a continuous dull melancholy sound when the sea is at all rough, and when it is foggy (the channel fogs come up very quickly) we hear fog horns all around us and quite ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington

... back of the neck is found still another singular apparatus—the use of which has not been determined by the naturalist. It is a sort of vesicular appendage, capable of being inflated with air; and supposed to serve as an atmospheric buoy to assist in sustaining the bird in its flight. The inflation has been observed to take place under exposure to a hot sun; and, therefore, it is natural to infer, that the rarefaction of the air has something to do in causing [the bird to use this organ]. As ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... and let the bottle slide down into the water head foremost, like a ship being launched. They could follow it as it curved under the water until it came up slantingly, and stood bobbing up and down on the water like a buoy, with its neck up. The mouse made the funniest leaps up toward the cork to get out; and the boys jumped up and down on the grass ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... science," responded Eph, loftily. "Say, if you landsmen know a buoy from a banana, get down to the bow moorings of this steel mermaid, and I'll pass you the bow cable. It's a heap easier to lead this submarine horse out of the stall, single-handed, than it is to take ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham

... was so wild it was impossible to send out the life-savers' boats, so the guards were making ready the breeches buoy. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope

... granted that the soul is cast into the troubled waters of life without the power to swim, or even the possibility of learning to float, dependent upon the bare chance that some one may throw it the life-buoy of ritual religion as its only conceivable means of salvation. And the opponents of each particular form of faith invariably take just such good men and women, with all their limitations, as the only true exponents of that ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... at low-water mark." "If any person has removed the anchor of any ships, without licence of the master or mariners, or both, or if anyone cuts the cable of a ship at anchor, or removes or cuts away a buoy; for any of the said offences, he shall be hanged at low-water mark." "All breakers open of chests, or pickers of locks, coffers, or chests, etc., on shipboard, if under the value of one and twenty pence, they shall suffer ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews

... wind is as unfavourable as ever and I take a hobbling morning walk upon the rampart, where I am edified by a good-natured officer who shows me the place, marked by a buoy, where the Royal George went down "with twice four hundred men."[482] Its hull forms a shoal which is still in existence, a neglect scarcely reconcilable with the splendour of our proceedings where our navy is concerned. Saw a ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... men on shore will then pull the hawser taut, and by means of the whip line will haul off to the ship a sling life-buoy fitted with petticoat breeches. The person to be hauled ashore is to get into this sling, thrusting his legs through the breeches, and resting his armpits on the lifebuoy. When he is in and secure, one of the crew must ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... away his boats, was reduced to a Carley float, an apparatus like an exaggerated life-buoy, with the floor of a grating. Upon contact with the water it ignited a calcium flare and he was adrift in the uncanny illumination with a German machine gun a few hundred yards away giving him its undivided attention. What saved him was possibly the fact that the defunct Intrepid still was ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... Luther was not blind. Now he recognized the heartache back of Elizabeth's question and with an instinct to cheer was almost persuaded to answer in the negative. In his heart he thought Hugh would die. The rapidly failing strength of the man indicated that he would do so unless something came to buoy him up. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... Douer? Glou. Because I would not see thy cruell Nailes Plucke out his poore old eyes: nor thy fierce Sister, In his Annointed flesh, sticke boarish phangs. The Sea, with such a storme as his bare head, In Hell-blacke-night indur'd, would haue buoy'd vp And quench'd the Stelled fires: Yet poore old heart, he holpe the Heauens to raine. If Wolues had at thy Gate howl'd that sterne time, Thou should'st haue said, good Porter turne the Key: All Cruels else subscribe: but I shall see The winged ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... wanted above all things to carry you successfully through your matches. Never say die, however hopeless the score may sound against you. If you are very done up, try not to make it too obvious. Your opponent may be just as played out as you are. Seeing your signals of distress, she will buoy herself up and continue the struggle with ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers

... SCHOOL BUOY.—Under the heading of "Church and Schools," the St. James's Gazette gave an interesting illustration of "public spirit in schools." It recounted how "An Old Bedford Boy"—no relation to ROBERT, the Waiter, we believe—in the course of returning thanks, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various

... times, sounding it, as it might be, foot by foot, and examining the bottom with the eye; for, in that pellucid water, with the sun near the zenith, it was possible to see two or three fathoms down, and nowhere did he find any other obstacle than this just mentioned. Nor was any buoy necessary, the water breaking over the southern end of the outer, and over the northern end of the inner ledge, and nowhere else near by, thus distinctly noting the very two points where it would be necessary to ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... the Swash with great rapidity, and the brig made a bold push at the Stepping-Stones. Spike was a capital pilot. He insisted if he could once gain sight of the spar that was moored on those rocks for a buoy, he should run with great confidence. The two lights were of great assistance, of course; but the revenue vessel could see these lights as well as the brig, and she, doubtless, had an excellent pilot on board. By the time ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... Abbot of Aberbrothok Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock; On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung, And over the waves ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... because there is much snow on the shore, which throws a kind of white reflection on the water. Well, the ship had anchored about a mile from the town, when my brother, who had the middle watch, saw something like the ship's buoy close to the vessel. At first he took little notice of it until it raised itself about three feet out of the water and opened a mouth wide enough to swallow a Yankee flour-barrel. He was very much afeared, for he was only a young chap without much experience. He immediately jumped down to the chief ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... up and down and across that reach. She handled perfectly. With eight or twelve oars out she could not have done anything like as well. These two youngsters at my request kept her stationary for ten minutes, with a touch of engine and helm now and then, within three feet of a big, ugly mooring buoy over which the water broke and the spray flew in sheets, and which would have holed her if she had bumped against it. But she kept her position, it seemed to me, to an inch, without apparently any trouble to these ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... brackish; and a little closer in, perfectly fresh, though the depth was from fourteen to fifteen fathoms. As this stream was a sufficient security against any ice coming in, I determined to anchor the ships somewhere in its neighbourhood; and, having laid down a buoy in twelve fathoms, off the north point of the entrance, returned on board, when I found all the boats ahead endeavouring to tow the ships in-shore. This could be effected, however, only by getting them across the stream of the inlet to the northern ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... life and substance by the war, as one might swallow an oyster; the soft veils of shadowy ships and the distant city spires; umbrageous fires and slips of shining sand all mirrored in the soft and quiet sea, while this devilish pother went on. There is a buoy adrift! No, it is a sodden cask, perhaps of spoiling meat, while the people in the town yonder are starving; and still the huge iron, gluttonous monster bursts its foam of blood and death, while the surly crew curse and think of mothers and babes at home. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... Watkins, is to work up behind the reef, and try and get so that they can either fasten a line to a buoy and let it float down to us, or get into a boat, if they have one left, ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty

... rulers need no explanation except for the way in which they are used on a chart. Supposing, for instance, you wish to steam from Pelham Bay to the red buoy off the westerly end of Great Captain's Island. Take your chart, mark by a pencil point the place left and the place to go to and draw a straight line intersecting these two points. Now place the parallel ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper

... resolution in battle, which constitutes in our idea the perfection of this quality, and renders it a virtue.* Yet it must be observed that, from an apathy almost paradoxical, they suffer under sentence of death, in cases where no indignant passions could operate to buoy up the mind to a contempt of punishment, with astonishing composure and indifference; uttering little more on these occasions than a proverbial saying, common among them, expressive of the inevitability of fate—apa buli buat? To this stoicism, their belief ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... a nun-buoy outside Barmouth Point so closely that Staff could almost have touched it by stretching out his arm. Then she straightened out like a greyhound on a long course across the placid silver reaches to ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... solid land, there was a great iron standard, or column, on board, in detached parts, with all appliances for setting it up firmly in the rocks or earth or ice; but if the end of the said axis should be found to be covered by water of not too great depth, a buoy had been provided which should be ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton

... sort of talk to buoy up Steve's spirits. He was always an impulsive chap, and had often been called "Touch-and-Go Steve," because of his quick temper. It had many times carried him into serious trouble, though, as is usually the case with these impetuous fellows, Steve always quickly ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie

... lies on the N.W. Side of Dog-Island will admit Ships of any Burthen, but it is only fit for the Summer Season, being open to the N.E. Winds; you may lay in 8, 10, and 12 Fathom, and for the most Part is a hard rocky Bottom, there is very little clear Ground; Ships of War commonly Buoy their Cables; the best Ground is near the North Shore. Going in or out, you must not rainge too near the East-side of Boar-Island, which is the Eastermost of the three Islands above-mentioned, for fear of some sunken Rocks which lie East about 1 Mile from it, ...
— Directions for Navigating on Part of the South Coast of Newfoundland, with a Chart Thereof, Including the Islands of St. Peter's and Miquelon • James Cook

... the world." Then he added, "the water of the sluggish Ouse is the sweetest of them all." Oddly enough his name was "ZINCKE," though evidently he must be a first-rate "Zwimmer." With genuine love for his old school, he might have added that he wished he was a Buoy again. But he seems to have got ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various

... fallen now. Ahead the Point Judith acetylene buoy sent its rays toward them. When they came abreast of it, it was pitch black and the white light on Watch Hill was made out to the southeastward. Suddenly from the Jefferson's deck a series of red and white lights began to wink and ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... and there was lying in the rector's desk a letter in which he had told Anna Ruthven how much he loved her, and had asked her to be his wife. Something whispered that she would not refuse him, and with this hope to buoy him up, his two miles walk that warm afternoon was neither long nor tiresome, and the old lady, by whose bedside he had read and prayed, was surprised to hear him as he left her door whistling an old love-tune which she, too, had known and ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... each soft actuation laid aside, She buoy'd her spirits up with maiden pride; Disclaimed her love, e'en while she felt the sting; 'What, come for Walter's sake!' 'Twas no such thing. But when astonishment his tongue releas'd, Pride's usurpation in an instant ceas'd: By force he caught her hand ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield

... was seen in 1708, on the 31st of July, between nine and ten o'clock at night, was evidently between forty and fifty miles perpendicularly high, and as near as I can gather, over Shereness and the buoy on the Nore. For it was seen at London moving horizontally from east by north to east by south at least fifty degrees high, and at Redgrove, in Suffolk, on the Yarmouth road, about twenty miles from ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... the humble grave in which he sleeps no shaft of granite rises to point to passers-by where this martyr to the cause of freedom lies. But when Justice shall write the names of true heroes upon the immortal scroll, she will write the names of Leonidas, Buoy, Davy Crocket, Daniel Boone, Nathan Hale, Wolf, Napoleon, Smalls, Cushing, Lawrence, John Brown, Nat Turner, and then far above them all, in letters that shall shine as the brightness of the firmanent, ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... furious cannonade till the monitor Tecumseh, taking the wrong side of the channel buoy in her anxiety to ram the Tennessee, ran over the torpedoes, was horribly holed by the explosion, and plunged headforemost to the bottom, her screw madly whirling in the air. Nor was this the worst; for the Tecumseh's mistake had ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood

... the barbarous and uncouth appellations of jetsam, flotsam, and ligan. Jetsam is where goods are cast into the sea, and there sink and remain under water: flotsam is where they continue swimming on the surface of the waves: ligan is where they are sunk in the sea, but tied to a cork or buoy, in order to be found again[m]. These are also the king's, if no owner appears to claim them; but, if any owner appears, he is entitled to recover the possession. For even if they be cast overboard, without any mark ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... anything else than a Jesuit for the rest of his days, was fresh upon him. He was too young yet to find consolation in the thought that he at all events could attempt to steer a clear, unsullied course through the shoals and quicksands that surround a priest's existence, and he was too old to buoy himself up with the false hope that he might, despite his Jesuit's oath, do some good work for his Church. His awakening had been rendered more terrible by the brilliancy of the ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... heard "Point Judith" mentioned by the New-Yorkers, as the Cockney voyager talks of Sea-reach, or the buoy at the Nore; and here it was close under our lee,—a long, low point of land, with a lighthouse ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... we slipped from the buoy and steamed seaward for tactics, returning the following day to prepare for ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... river off the market, beside which float all manner of craft, from the humble wherry to the ostentatious puffy little steamers who collect the cargoes of the North Sea fleet and rush them to market against all competitors. The market opens at five A. M., summer and winter. Moored to a buoy, a short distance from the shore, are always to be found one or more Dutch fishing-boats, certain inalienable rights permitting "no more than three" to be at any or all times tied up here. There is among the native ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun

... water, breeches buoy and all that sort of thing," said Stover, remembering something in Dickens. "I was the only one saved, me and the ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... was nothing to materially impede her progress, a submarine would consequently be unaware that she had passed through a line of nets and was actually towing a flaming buoy. Even if she became aware of the tell-tale appendage it would be extremely difficult to clear herself, owing to the forward hydroplanes becoming entangled in the wire-netting, before the fast surface ships, waiting in readiness, had spotted the flaming buoy being towed ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife

... buoy for use to indicate channels or dangers in harbors and elsewhere, which carries an electric light, whose current is supplied by cable from shore. It has been proposed to use glass tubes exhausted of air and containing mercury, which, as moved by the waves, would produce a luminous effect. A fifty-candle ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... gets her position accurately determined, and it becomes necessary after a bombardment to remove out of the line of battle, a small buoy with the vessel's name or number should be dropped under foot, so that the same position ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... memento of melancholy interest turned up, in the shape of a lifebuoy, with a corked bottle attached to it. These latter objects, with the relics of cabin furniture, were brought on board the Speranza. On the buoy the name of the vessel was painted, as follows: "Dorothea, R. Y. S." (meaning Royal Yacht Squadron). The bottle, on being uncorked, contained a sheet of note-paper, on which the following lines were hurriedly traced in pencil: "Off ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... schooner; and the One-and-All was ready to sail for London; and somewhere near London—so the paper in her pocket had told her—lay the dreadful place in which Clem was hidden. She could find the vessel; the One-and-All was moored—or had been moored last night—at the buoy under the hill, ready for sea. But to find the vessel and to find Tom Trevarthen were two very different things. To begin with, Tom would be useless unless she contrived to speak with him alone; to row straight to the ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... a-stern; as an acknowledgment for this favour we gave them a piece of cloth: But notwithstanding this effect of our fire-arms, and this interchange of civilities, as soon as it grew dark, they sung their war song, and attempted to tow away the buoy of the anchor. Two or three musquets were then fired over them, but this seemed rather to make them angry than afraid, and they went away, threatening that to-morrow they would return with more force, and be the death of us all; at the same time sending off a boat, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... of the Negro is another of the many sturdy qualities which declare his fitness to withstand the blows of adverse fortune. His long training in the school of mental and moral darkness wherein he had need to cultivate a sanguine temperament to buoy him up, stands proof against dark forebodings and pessimism. The grotesque and the ludicrous find in him a joyous patron. Where others count and bewail their woes, he sees only sunshine. Gloom and sorrow melt away ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... explain. The old man was not so confident as he pretended to be that Frowenfeld was that complete proselyte which alone satisfies a Creole; but he saw him in a predicament and cast to him this life-buoy, which if a man should refuse, he would ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... when we were able to get anything out of them, they told a very strange story. That's why all these people are here." This is the story the storekeeper told me: "The men were out dredging and all at once they noticed a buoy with a red flag on it, and that buoy was going against the tide, and they could not understand it. It came up alongside, and they heard a 'puff, puff,' something like a locomotive puffing, and then they smelt sulphur." (The ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... meat. There are two horses (one a native of the island) to perform casual heavy work; the boat has a shed into which she is reluctantly hauled by means of a windlass to spend the rowdy months; there is a buoy in the bay to which she is greatly attached when she is not sulking in the shed or coyly submitting to the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... across the waves that came tumbling one over the other, she saw something that was neither boat nor buoy nor seal. It was a queer-looking thing, with a wild head, a long waving tail, and something like arms that seemed to paddle it along. The waves tumbled it about, so Fancy could not see very well: but, the longer she looked, the surer ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... out, the tops of what might almost have been a built wall of nasty pointed rocks formed a perfect lagoon across the face of the promontory. At high tide these would not show, but they were there, always guarding, always bare-toothed, and as far again beyond them a bell-buoy mounted on a similar ledge seemed to point to the existence of a double barrier. It was a great lonesome bay of the Atlantic that he looked at, its arms on either side desolate, scrubby and forbidding, with not a hint of life. Suddenly, as he stared, wondering, and Margarita stood ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... and very friendly to Sir Wm. and he to me, and complies much with me, but I know he envies me, and I do not value him. To the office again, and in the evening walked to Deptford (Cooper with me talking of mathematiques), to send a fellow to prison for cutting of buoy ropes, and to see the difference between the flags sent in now-a-days, and I find the old ones, which were much cheaper, to be wholly as good. So I took one of a sort with me, and Mr. Wayth accompanying of me a good way, talking of the faults of the Navy, I walked to Redriffe back, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... involved never change; for, right is eternal. To detect this ethical element amid the ever restless waves of human activities has ever been the noble and constant effort of true leaders. Like the pilot they are ever watching for the lighted buoy ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... 25th, they had light winds varying from south to east, with frequent showers over the land, and the flies so very troublesome that they found Captain Byron's account of them perfectly just. On coming to an anchor, they observed a buoy a little to the southward, with a slip buoy to it, they swept for the anchor, weighed it, and found it belonged to the Charlotte (Gilbert, master) one of the ships from Port Jackson bound to China; there were two-thirds of a cable to it. The party on shore ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip

... "I want you to think of the sky, first. It's a dead black, a hundred miles up. Now, at a hundred miles up, the air is so thin that there's little or no dust, but as you gradually come down and the air becomes denser, it begins to be able to buoy up some dust. Boys," he said, breaking off suddenly, "why does a stick float in water when it ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

... Here the Swedish expedition was saluted by an American war-vessel, the Wyoming, with twenty-one guns. The harbour swarmed with boats adorned with flags. Scarcely had the Vega anchored—or more correctly been moored to a buoy—when the envoy LINDSTRAND, the Swedish-Norwegian consul CLAUSEN, Prince TEANO, president of the Geographical Society, Commander MARTIN FRANKLIN, Commendatore NEGRI, and others came on board. The last-named, who nearly two years ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... attuned to strenuous trump and drum, And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire, Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire: 10 Yet sometimes feathered words are strong, A gracious memory to buoy up and save From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common grave Of the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... Borrow was then sixty-nine, my mother and I were walking on the beach at Lowestoft, when just round the Ness Light we met Borrow coming: towards us from the Corton side. He got hold of my shoulder, and, pointing to the big black buoy beyond the Ness, he said, "There! Do you see that? I have just been out there. I have not been back many minutes." At the age of nearly seventy he had been round the Ness Buoy and home again—a wonderful performance if, in addition to his age, ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... present. Kipling gloried in the material world; he did more—he glorified it. He pierced the coarse exteriors of seemingly prosaic things—things like machinery, bridge-building, cockney soldiers, slang, steam, the dirty by-products of science (witness "M'Andrews Hymn" and "The Bell Buoy")—and uncovered their hidden glamour. "Romance is gone," sighed most of ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various

... not being strong-handed enough to cut such capers with their sticks. We had three anchors ahead, if not four, the ship labouring a good deal. We lost one man from the starboard forechains, by his getting caught in the buoy-rope, as we let go a sheet-anchor. The poor fellow could not be picked up, on account of the sea and the darkness of the night, though an attempt was ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper

... churned the phosphorescent water into green fire, and the foam from the stem of the boat sparkled as though jewels were scattered into it by the oarsmen as they rowed. They stopped alongside a little white buoy which floated on the water. The buoy was attached to a rope; that again to a chain. A mat was folded over the side of the boat and the chain drawn cautiously in and coiled without noise. Hillyard saw the two men who were hauling it in bend suddenly at their work ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... as she drifted astern, and the other dories were put over in the same manner. When all the dories were disposed of the first one was cast off. One of the men rowed the boat before the wind while the other ran out the gear. First, he threw over a keg for a buoy, which could be seen from some distance. Fastened to the buoy-line at some sixty fathoms, or three hundred and sixty feet from the keg, was the trawl with a small anchor attached to sink it to the bottom. ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... have been accomplished. Adrian's honour would have been safe. But this simple way out never occurred to him. Apparently he thought it wiser to sacrifice his career and remain in London so as to buoy Doria up with false hope, all the time praying God to burn down St. Quentin's Mansions (where he lived) and Adrian's portmanteau of rubbish and ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... tide, we arrived the same evening alongside the guard-ship at Sheerness; and, being desirous of making ourselves snug, and of landing two unfortunate friends whom we had originally promised to send ashore at Gravesend, we made fast to a Government buoy, and remained in smooth ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... passage, obstructed by sand-bars, and by the small island now called Pelican Island. La Salle prepared to disembark on the western shore, near the place which now bears his name; and, to this end, the "Aimable" and the "Belle" must be brought over the bar. Boats were sent to sound and buoy out the channel, and this was successfully accomplished on the sixteenth of February. The "Aimable" was ordered to enter; and, on the twentieth, she weighed anchor. La Salle was on shore watching her. A party of men, at a little distance, were cutting down a ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... it was some one else. I'm sure it happened up at Mardykes. I took the bearings on the water myself from Glads Scaur to Mardykes Jetty, and from the George and Dragon sign down here—down to the white house under Forrick Fells. I could fix a buoy over the very spot. Some one here told me the bearings, I'd take my oath, where the body was seen; and yet no boat could ever come up with it; and that was queer, you know, so I clapt it down in ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... off a rocket, also one of Holmes's patent "flare-ups." This is a contrivance for saving life during the dark. It consists of a box filled with potassium, which is pierced at both ends and thrown into the sea fastened to a life-buoy. In contact with the water the metal ignites, and for about half-an-hour sheds a radiance for a long way. It is visible for miles off. If a man falls overboard he knows then where to look out ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton

... thy heart shall buoy, And men's neglect shall ne'er destroy Thy secret peace, thy inward ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... behind and presses forward to fresh achievements. This perpetually saves from vanity; for everything seems a trifle, when you have once attained to it. The aim which yesterday filled your whole gymnastic horizon you overtake and pass as a boat passes a buoy: until passed, it was a goal; when passed, a mere speck in the horizon. Yesterday you could swing yourself three rounds upon the horizontal ladder; to-day, after weeks of effort, you have suddenly attained to the fourth, and instantly all that long laborious effort vanishes, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various



Words linked to "Buoy" :   mark, buoy up, reference, nun buoy, reference point, bell buoy, float, swim, support, whistling buoy, life buoy, hold, whistle buoy, hold up, spar buoy, sustain, conical buoy, acoustic buoy, gong buoy, can buoy, breeches buoy, can, nun, buoyant



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