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Fleece   Listen
noun
Fleece  n.  
1.
The entire coat of wool that covers a sheep or other similar animal; also, the quantity shorn from a sheep, or animal, at one time. "Who shore me Like a tame wether, all my precious fleece."
2.
Any soft woolly covering resembling a fleece.
3.
(Manuf.) The fine web of cotton or wool removed by the doffing knife from the cylinder of a carding machine.
Fleece wool, wool shorn from the sheep.
Golden fleece. See under Golden.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fleece" Quotes from Famous Books



... course of time a crying scandal, as it was infested all about with native grogshops in which they sold to the sailors most villainous, poisonous decoctions under various designations; also by a very low class of boarding houses run by a thieving set of low-caste American crimps who used to fleece and swindle poor Jack out of all his hard-earned money. They would give him board and lodging of a sort, with bad liquor, and when he had secured a ship they would often ply him with drink the day before he sailed after having first secured his advance note and have him conveyed on ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey

... are too nice. Eat sheep, and why not? Is it a sin? is it a vice? No, sire, you did them honor; And as for shepherds, I desire, That over us their false empire Should cease, and we have all we want Of sheep and fleece." So said the fox, flatterers applaud, The tiger, bear, and other powers they laud, Even for their most violent offence. All quarrelsome people, Down to the mastiffs, Were little saints. But when the donkey's turn came on, They heard him with many ifs. He said, "I now remember That by a ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park

... of conscience grown The type that cuts me off a pound of bone Wherefrom an ounce of fat forlornly drops, And calls the thing two shillings' worth of chops; More steeped in crime the heart that dares to fleece My purse of eighteen-pence for one small piece Of tripe, whereof, when times were not so hard, The price was fourpence for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various

... group and a cry of greeting. The consul looked up mechanically, and then his eyes remained fixed and staring at the newcomer. For it was the dead Karl; Karl, surely! Karl!—his plump figure belted in a French officer's tunic; his flaxen hair clipped a little closer, but still its fleece showing under his kepi. Karl, his cheeks more cherubic than ever—unchanged but for a tiny yellow toy mustache curling up over the corners of his full lips. Karl, beaming at his companions in his old way, but rattling off French vivacities ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... might have been interesting to describe: the boats of peculiar rig, and covered with awning; the crowded shipping; the disembarkation of horses from the French cavalry, which were lowered from steamers into gondolas or lighters, and hung motionless, like the sign of the Golden Fleece, during the transit, only kicking a little when their feet happened to graze the vessel's side. One horse plunged overboard, and narrowly escaped drowning. There was likewise a disembarkation of French ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... shore shaped like a horseshoe, with two huge headlands of rock for the calks. The beach was a rim of white between the azure of the water and the dark green of the hills that rose steeply from it. Above them the clouds hung in varying shapes, here lit by the sun to snowy fleece, there black and lowering. On the lower slopes a few houses peeped from the embowering parau trees, and on a small hill, near the dismantled fort, the flag of France drooped above the ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... louis d'or per annum. The gentlemen are expected to provide the materials for the work; the Duc de Lauzun, accordingly, gives to Madame de V—a harp of natural size covered with gold thread; an enormous golden fleece, brought as a present from the Comte de Lowenthal, and which cost 2 or 3,000 francs, brings, picked to pieces, 5 or 600 francs. But they do not look into matters so closely. Some employment is essential for idle hands, some manual outlet for nervous ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... warmth of dawn may fold A half unfrozen dew-globe, green, and gold, And crystalline, till it becomes a winged mist, And wanders up the vault of the blue day, Outlives the noon, and on the sun's last ray 435 Hangs o'er the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... and their compeers, and so lighted up by the fires of imagination and invention, that they seem as well adapted to the poet's purpose as the legends of the Greek and Roman mythology. And if every well-educated young person is expected to know the story of the Golden Fleece, why is the quest of the Sangreal less worthy of his acquaintance? Or if an allusion to the shield of Achilles ought not to pass unapprehended, why should one to Excalibar, the famous ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... mottled purple skirt were as vaguely dark as the foliage on the lilac-bush beside her. All at once the flowering branches on a wide-spreading apple-tree cut the gloom like great silvery wings of a brooding bird. The grass in the yard was like a shaggy silver fleece. Charlotte paid no more attention to it all than to her own breath, or a clock tick which she would have to withdraw ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... the utterance of a child. The Senator stood for purity in politics. No one ever bought him, or tried to buy him. He held no stock in the Credit Mobilier. He shook hands with none of the schemes that appealed to Congress to fleece the people. He died towards the close ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... being full of spirits, and a little intoxicated with the freedom of the West. Dan, true to his promise, would not join, but watched with intense interest the games that went on, and soon made up his mind that two of the men were sharpers anxious to fleece the boy, who had imprudently displayed a well-filled pocket-book. Dan always had a soft spot in his heart for any younger, weaker creature whom he met, and something about the lad reminded him ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... spacious hall, connected with a beautiful and symmetrical chapel. The hall was celebrated for its size, harmonious proportions, and the richness of its decorations. It was the place where the chapters of the famous order of the Golden Fleece were held. Its walls were hung with a magnificent tapestry of Arras, representing the life and achievements of Gideon the Midianite, and giving particular prominence to the miracle of the "fleece of wool," vouchsafed to that renowned champion, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... of troubles to Sigismund, and to Brandenburg through him, from this sublime Hungarian legacy. Like a remote fabulous golden fleece, which you have to go and conquer first, and which is worth little when conquered. Before ever setting out (1387), Sigismund saw too clearly that he would have cash to raise: an operation he had never done with, all his life afterward. He pawned Brandenburg ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... of Thorwaldsen a musical-poetic academy was established, and the poets, who were invited to do so by Heiberg, wrote and read each one a poem in praise of him who had returned home. I wrote of Jason who fetched the golden fleece—that is to say, Jason-Thorwaldsen, who went forth to win golden art. A great dinner and a ball closed the festival, in which, for the first time in Denmark, popular life and a subject of great interest in the realms of art were ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen

... is certain that the amount of wealth available for plunder is very much smaller than is usually supposed. It is easy to destroy capital values, but very difficult to distribute them. The time will soon arrive when the patient sheep will be found to have lost not only his fleece but his skin, and the privileged workman will then have to choose between taxing himself and abandoning socialism. There is little doubt which he will prefer. The result will be that the festering sore of our slum-population will dry up, and the gradual disappearance of this element will be ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... airily forth wrapped in the lightest of dust coats, he was obliged to endure the greatest of man's amazements—the knowledge that there was a well of truth within him. Leicester Square was swathed in an ivory fleece, and he was obliged to gain Berkeley Square on foot, treading gingerly in pumps, escorted by linkmen with flaring golden torches, and preceded by tipsy but assiduous ruffians armed with shovels, who, with many a lusty oath and horrid imprecation, cleared a thin thread of path between the towering ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... rejoined: "he will not chide you;—besides, you shall be gone to-morrow. I come to-night, a Jason for the golden fleece, and may not return without it. Stillyside is Colchis, and my desires are dolphins that have brought me hither, and will not, returning, ferry me across the Ottawa, unless they shall be freighted with ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... dies the State!—and, in its carcass found, The millionaires, all maggot-like, abound. Alas! was it for this that Warren died, And Arnold sold himself to t' other side, Stark piled at Bennington his British dead, And Gates at Camden, Lee at Monmouth, fled?— For this that Perry did the foeman fleece, And Hull surrender to preserve the peace? Degenerate countrymen, renounce, I pray, The slothful ease, the luxury, the gay And gallant trappings of this idle life, And be more fit ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... the fleece lay flat on the platform, very white and clean, Mr. Price let the sheep get up and run ...
— Bobby of Cloverfield Farm • Helen Fuller Orton

... was on the south, at the distance of sixteen miles from that of last night. The fleece and skin of the bear were a heavy burden for two men, and the oil amounted to ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... one's grasp; tear from, tear away from, wrench from, wrest from, wring from; extort; deprive of, bereave; disinherit, cut off with a shilling. oust &c. (eject) 297; divest; levy, distrain, confiscate; sequester, sequestrate; accroach[obs3]; usurp; despoil, strip, fleece, shear, displume[obs3], impoverish, eat out of house and home; drain, drain to the dregs; gut, dry, exhaust, swallow up; absorb &c. (suck in) 296; draw off; suck the blood of, suck like a leech. retake, resume; recover &c. 775. Adj. taking ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... sent back to the AUSTRIAN EMPEROR the collar of the Golden Fleece which His Majesty conferred on him in 1896. One can understand a Frenchman objecting to being collared by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various

... before the cavern of Polyphemus the Cyclops. Here Odysseus carries out the cunning plan he has made to free his companions from certain death at the hands of the giant. He blinds the Cyclops with a red-hot stake, and escapes with his friends by clinging to the long fleece of the sheep of Polyphemus, who unsuspectingly lets them out in the morning to graze. Polyphemus, finding himself outwitted by Odysseus,—who makes himself known when at a safe distance,—curses the hero and vows vengeance upon him, ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... with me, and complain'd, Framed as he was of the same clay with me By the same Hand Divine; or shunn'd to share Even my last morsel with the hungry poor, Or shield the uncovered suppliant with the fleece Of my own cherish'd flock. If ere I made Fine gold my confidence, or lifted up My heart in pride, because my wealth was great, Or when I saw the glorious King of Day Gladdening all nations, and the queenly Moon Walking in brightness, was enticed to pay A secret homage,—'twere idolatry ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... tragedy divine Musaeus sung,) Dwelt at Abydos; since him dwelt there none For whom succeeding times make greater moan. His dangling tresses, that were never shorn, Had they been cut, and unto Colchos borne, Would have allured the vent'rous youth of Greece To hazard more than for the golden fleece. Fair Cynthia wished his arms might be her sphere; Grief makes her pale, because she moves not there. His body was as straight as Circe's wand; Jove might have sipped out nectar from his hand. Even as delicious meat is to the taste, So was his neck in touching, and surpassed The white of Pelop's ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe

... snow on mountain brow When shed the clouds their fleece, Or churn of waves when tempest raves, Thy swelling limbs ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... records of the House of Lords, in a letter from a John Button at Amsterdam, who wrote to his brother "with Mr. Wm. Wayte, at the sign of the Horseshoe, Covent Garden." But the taverns of greater note, such as Chatelaine's, the Fleece, the Rose, the Hummums, and Macklin's ill-fated ordinary, belong ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... fur loosens from the skin, and by frequently rolling themselves on the ground it works out to the end of the hair, and in time drops off, leaving little for their summer clothing except the long hair. This season is so short in these high latitudes, that the new fleece begins to appear almost as soon as the old one drops off, so that by the time the cold becomes severe they are again ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... exceedingly stately old man on a gray horse was in the centre. Clad in a purple velvet mantle, and bowing as he went, he looked truly the Kaisar, to whom stately courtesy was second nature. On one side, in black and gold, with the jewel of the Golden Fleece on his breast, rode Maximilian, responding gracefully to the salutations of the people, but his keen gray eye roving in search of the object of Sir Kasimir's salute, and lighting on Christina with such a rapid, amused glance of discovery that, in her confusion, she missed ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... adapted to the production of wool than that of England, the extremes of heat and cold being far greater, and yet the cold not being sufficient to prevent the raising of turnips or feeding from the field in winter. To produce fine fleece-wool, a warm summer and a cool winter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... bright? Is it not Cinthia, she that never sleepes, But walkes about high heaven al the night? O! fayrest goddesse, do thou not envy My love with me to spy: For thou likewise didst love, though now unthought, And for a fleece of wooll, which privily The Latmian shepherd once unto thee brought, His pleasures with thee wrought. Therefore to us be favorable now; And sith of wemens labours thou hast charge, And generation goodly dost enlarge, Encline thy will t'effect our wishfull vow, And the chast wombe informe ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... many Ligatures, that we are apt to think are the Occasion of several Distempers among them which our Country is entirely free from. Instead of those beautiful Feathers with which we adorn our Heads, they often buy up a monstrous Bush of Hair, which covers their Heads, and falls down in a large Fleece below the Middle of their Backs; with which they walk up and down the Streets, and are as proud of it as if it ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... never plough'st the ocean's foam To seek and bring rough pepper home: Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove To bring from thence the scorched clove: Nor, with the loss of thy loved rest, Bring'st home the ingot from the West. No, thy ambition's master-piece Flies no thought higher than a fleece: Or how to pay thy hinds, and clear All scores: and so to end the year: But walk'st about thine own dear bounds, Not envying others' larger grounds: For well thou know'st, 'tis not th' extent Of land makes life, but sweet content. When now the cock (the ploughman's horn) ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick

... with that mighty Arke, Wherein iust Noah did all the world imbarque, With that which after Troyes so famous wracke, From ten yeares trauell brought Vlisses backe, 80 That Argo which to Colchos went from Greece, And in her botome brought the goulden fleece Vnder braue Iason; or that same of Drake, Wherein he did his famous voyage make About the world; or Candishes that went As far as his, about the Continent. And yee milde winds that now I doe implore, Not once to raise the least sand on the ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton

... state-affairs for the welfare of Greece, and therefore knew of this expedition, and might send the Argonauts upon an embassy to the said Princes; and for concealing their design might make the fable of the golden fleece, in relation to the ship of Phrixus whose ensign was a golden ram: and probably their design was to notify the distraction of Egypt, and the invasion thereof by the Ethiopians and Israelites, to the said Princes, and to persuade them to take that opportunity to revolt from Egypt, ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton

... brilliant. Go on. The night is growing late. Soon the silver dawn will steal along the river, and touch with radiance those monstrosities upon the Thames Embankment. John Stuart Mill's badly fitting frockcoat will glow like the golden fleece, and the absurd needle of Cleopatra will be barred with scarlet and with orange. The flagstaff in the Victoria Tower will glitter like an angel's ladder, and the murmur of Covent Garden will be as the murmur of the flowing tide. Oh! Esme, when you are ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... patronage of the country to distribute among those who have access to the King exclusively—they are poets, fiddlers, eunuchs, and profligate women; and every one of them holds, directly or indirectly, some court or other, fiscal, criminal, or civil, through which to fleece the people. Anything so detestable as the Government I have nowhere witnessed, and a man less competent to govern them than the King I have ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... the bird, running like the stag, or creeping like the serpent; without means of defense, in the midst of terrible enemies armed with claws and stings; without means to brave the inclemency of the seasons, in the midst of animals protected by fleece, by scales, by furs; without shelter, when all others have their den, their hole, their shell; without arms, when all about him are armed against him. And yet he has demanded of the lion his cave for a lodging and the lion retires before his ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... declared his rocky lairs Wholly unsuited were to hares. "There is the sheep," he said, "with fleece. ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... how short a distance the helpless boy was from the bank, and that an eddy was setting him in so near that, if he went close down to the rushing water, he might be able to reach out and seize the fleece of the sheep as ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... Neptune as the heroes sought the golden fleece. The place of Uranus had been mapped for nearly one hundred years by these accidental observations. On applying the law of universal gravitation, a slight discrepancy was found between its computed place and its observed place. This discrepancy was exceedingly ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... "business," half factory, half domestic, continued to prevail in the important West of England clothing industry up to the close of the eighteenth century. "The master clothier of the West of England buys his wool from the importer, if it be foreign, or in the fleece if it be of domestic growth; after which, in all the different processes through which it passes, he is under the necessity of employing as many distinct classes of persons; sometimes working in their own houses, sometimes in that of the master clothier, but none of them going out ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... world. In the first place it would be necessary to make a long voyage through unknown seas. There was hardly a hope, or a possibility, that any young man who should undertake this voyage would either succeed in obtaining the Golden Fleece, or would survive to return home, and tell of the perils he had run. The eyes of King Pelias sparkled with joy, therefore, when ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... a newly weaned lamb and carry it off in his claws and fly away. Thereupon the sparrow clapped his wings and said, "I will do even as this one did;" and he waxed proud in his own conceit and mimicked a greater than he. So he flew down forthright and lighted on the back of a fat ram with a thick fleece that was become matted by his lying in his dung and stale till it was like woollen felt. As soon as the sparrow pounced upon the sheep's back he flapped his wings to fly away, but his feet became tangled in the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... sheep in a panic; but where the ostensible subject ended and the metaphor commenced, and which was which at the conclusion, she found it difficult to discern—much as the sheep would, be when he had left his fleece behind him. She could now have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Flanders. His sister, Margaret of York, was married to Charles the Bold at Damme, one of the principal Kontors of the League, at which ceremony he was present; and he attended, later on, a great Chapter of the Knights of the Golden Fleece in Bruges, as the stall-plate bearing his arms in the choir of Notre Dame testifies to this day. He granted the Flemish merchants special privileges of exemption from taxation—as, for instance, to the makers of dinanderie at Middleburg by Bruges, that the goods sent ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

... their noses into the fragrant hay. And when he came home from the long trip to the market town after having wrangled with some of the rascals there, he marvelled at how snow-white they were in the fleece. They were like a special kind of people and yet better than people in general. And yonder were his cows being led off the place like large and foolish women, who are nevertheless kindness itself, and you are fond ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... of this mightie Nauie, was Don Alonso Perez de Guzman duke of Medina Sidonia, Lord of S. Lucar, and knight of the golden Fleece: by reason that the Marques of santa Cruz appointed for the same dignitie, deceased before ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... solution, and that by some most interesting process of precipitation any amount of it can be procured ready for coining. I got a prospectus of the scheme this morning from Shark, Picaroon & Co., Fleece Court, London, and I've brought it for you to read. A most enterprising firm they seem to be. You'll see that it's full of very elaborate scientific details—the results of the analyses that have ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... thereupon sent Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, provided with a magic chain and ring, upon both of which the name of God was engraved. He also provided him with a fleece of wool and sundry skins with wine. Then Benaiah went and sank a pit below that of Ashmedai, into which he drained off the water and plugged the duct between with the fleece. Then he set to and dug another hole higher up with a channel ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... victorious forces, they exterminated the Saracens, protected the holy see, supported the Cretans in the east, and carried their conquering arms to the utmost confines of the Greek empire. To them, also, the chivalrous institution of the Golden Fleece owes its origin; and so extraordinary were their exploits, that they might pass for fabulous, had they occurred in a more remote age, and did not the concurring testimony of historians unite to stamp them with ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... slew, of the Lernean lake, As did the Hydra of its force partake: By this, too, fell the Erymanthian boar: E'en Cerberus did his weak strength deplore. This sinewy arm did overcome with ease That dragon, guardian of the Golden Fleece. My many conquests let some others trace; It's mine to say, I never ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... readily be imagined that anything like civilization, as at present understood, must have been next to impossible under such circumstances. "Miserable indeed," says Carlyle, "was the condition of the aboriginal savage, glaring fiercely from under his fleece of hair, which with the beard reached down to his loins, and hung round them like a matted cloak; the rest of his body sheeted in its thick natural fell. He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living on wild fruits; or, as the ancient ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... burning flame consume it in this day;—may the spell of the sorcerer be cast out, that I may behold the light!" The ceremony could be prolonged at will: the sick person pulled to pieces the cluster of dates, the bunch of flowers, a fleece of wool, some goats' hair, a skein of dyed thread, and a bean, which were all in turn consumed in the fire. At each stage of the operation he repeated the formula, introducing into it one or two expressions characterizing the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... in going to Ukerewe, but to the more elevated and friendly island of Mzita, this being a more suitable observatory than the former. These negroes' manoeuvres are quite incomprehensible. If Mahaya had desired to fleece me—and one can hardly give a despotic negro credit for anything short of that—he surely would have tried to detain me under false hopes, and have thus necessitated my spending cloths in his village; while, on the contrary, he lost all chance of gaining ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... only a trap to fleece the unsuspecting out of their money. Tom was posted, and only went in to have a little fun. He meant to wait and hear what Mr. Ferguson had to propose before forming any ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger

... widow had one solitary Sheep. At shearing time, wishing to take his fleece and to avoid expense, she sheared him herself, but used the shears so unskillfully that with the fleece she sheared the flesh. The Sheep, writhing with pain, said, "Why do you hurt me so, Mistress? What weight can my blood add to the wool? ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... it came to risking her money at the tables. Others in the house made themselves as irritating to Lord Dauntrey in their selfish obstinacy as Dodo; and all his hopes centred upon Mary. She was a lamb whom his wife had cleverly caught in the bushes, a lamb with golden fleece. He would have liked above all things to help her win this first night; but curiously enough she lost monotonously, no matter what game she tried, unless Prince Giovanni Della Robbia pushed money on to ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... And deems 'tis time to flower; Though not a whisper of her voice he hear, The buried bulb does know The signals of the year, And hails far Summer with his lifted spear. The gorse-field dark, by sudden, gold caprice, Turns, here and there, into a Jason's fleece; Lilies, that soon in Autumn slipp'd their gowns of green, And vanish'd into earth, And came again, ere Autumn died, to birth, Stand full-array'd, amidst the wavering shower, And perfect for the Summer, less the flower; In nook of pale or crevice ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore

... Denmark, "Thorwaldsen has quite wasted his time in Rome." Doubting his genius just when it embraced him most affectionately; not expecting a victory, while he already stood on its open road, he modelled "Jason who has Gained the Golden Fleece." It was this that Thorwaldsen would have gained in the kingdom of arts, and which he now thought he must resign. The figure stood there in clay, many eyes looked carelessly on it, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... many a face fairer than that of the Ludovician Juno or the Venus of Medici. There is the Saxon blonde with the deep blue eye, whose glances return love for love, whose silken tresses rest upon her shoulders like a wealth of golden fleece, each thread of which looks like a ray of the morning sunbeam. There is the Latin brunette with the deep, black, piercing eye, whose jetty lashes rest like silken fringe upon the pearly texture of her dainty cheek, looking like raven's ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... side. So I did with the six, for but six were left out of the twelve who had ventured with me from the ship. And there was one mighty ram, far larger than alt the others, and to this I clung, grasping the fleece tight with both my hands. So we all waited for the morning. And when the morning came, the rams rushed forth to the pasture; but the giant sat in the door and felt the back of each as it went by, nor thought to try what might be underneath. ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church

... his spectacles up on to his forehead, and making his long fleece of painfully thin hair uncover his baldness. "I can't understand that any young girl of any—any upbringing, any upbringing whatever, should want to choose such a—such ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... the imperial power; Nothing but nature may command its awe; Nor can thy people own a surer pledge, That thou art gentle, than thy filial love. I say no more. Much yet is to be done, Ere thou mak'st booty of the golden fleece. Expect no easy victory! Czar Boris rules with strong and skilful hand; You take the field against no common man. He that by merit hath achieved the throne, Is not puffed from his seat by popular breath; His deeds do serve to him for ancestors. To your good fortune I commend you ...
— Demetrius - A Play • Frederich Schiller

... from L10 to L15, and a better saddle or gig horse, from L20 to L30, than could be obtained in this country for double the money. Very good milch-cows may be bought from L5 to L10; working oxen for about the same price; and fine young breeding ewes from L1 to L3, according to the quality of their fleece. Low as these prices may appear they are in a great measure fictitious; since there is confessedly more stock of all sorts in the colony, than is necessary for its population. It accordingly frequently happens, ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... the Mediterranean long before the Turks took up the trade; indeed, ever since boats were built their capabilities for plunder must have been realized. The filibustering expedition of Jason and the loot of the Golden Fleece is an early instance, and the Greeks at all times have distinguished themselves by acting up to Jason's example by sea and land. The Moslems, however, were some time in accustoming themselves to the perils of the deep. At first they marvelled ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... then, to decorate this wonderous court, Were stolen from the waves and petrified; Or, moulded by some imitative gnome, And scaled all o'er with gems, they were but stone, Casting their showers and rainbows 'neath the dome. To man or angel's eye might not be known. No snowy fleece in these sad realms was found, Nor silken ball by maiden loved so well; But ranged in lightest garniture around, In seemly folds, a shining tapestry fell. And fibres of asbestos, bleached in fire, And all with pearls and sparkling gems o'erflecked, Of that strange court composed ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... more hopeless drizzle. The occasions upon which this was a dreary truth blotted out or blurred the exceptions, when in liquid ultramarine deeps of sky, floated islands and mountains of snow-white fleece, of a beauty of which she had before had ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... two large muscles which cover the side of the forehead, and the sharp projection of the centre of the frontal bone, which is also thick. Our encampment was on the south at the distance of sixteen miles from that of last night; the fleece and skin of the bear were a heavy burden for two men, and the oil amounted ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... the delivery end. Instead of the sliver being wound upon the roller in the usual way, it runs upon a sheet of linen, P, as in the case of carding for felt, with a to-and-fro motion in the direction of the axis of the rollers. In this way one or more layers of the fleece can be placed on the sheet, which in that case passes backwards and forwards from roller S to R, and vice versa. It is, in fact, the bat arrangement used for felt, only with this difference, that the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various

... only to the literary historian. These great amateurs have secured an eternity of gilt edges, an immortality of morocco. Absurd prices are given for any trash that belonged to them, and the writer of this notice has bought for four shillings an Elzevir classic, which when it bears the golden fleece of Longepierre is worth about 100 pounds. Longepierre, D'Hoym, McCarthy, and the Duc de la Valliere, with all their treasures, are less interesting to us than Graille, Coche and Loque, the neglected daughters of Louis ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang

... disappeared. A burning, steady heat descended from the sun in a golden mist, and Jeanne walked her horse along, enjoying the stillness, and every now and then looking up at a tiny white cloud which hung like a snowy fleece in the midst of the bright blue sky. She went down into the valley leading to the sea, between the two great arches which are called the gates of Etretat, and went slowly ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... celebrating a festival in honor of Poseidon when Jason appeared, having lost one of his sandals in crossing a river. As a means of averting the danger, he imposed upon Jason the task, deemed desperate, of bringing back to Iolchos the "Golden Fleece." The result was the memorable Argonautic expedition of the ship Argo, to the distant land of Colchis, on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. Jason invited the noblest youth of Greece to join him in this voyage of danger and glory. Fifty illustrious persons joined him, including ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... European powers; and reliant upon the kingship of cotton inducing early recognition, both believed that the ships of England and France—disregarding the impotent paper closure—would soon crowd southern wharves and exchange the royal fleece for the luxuries, no less than the necessaries, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... for his delinquency, to the king 300 marks, to the queen L20, to Prince Edward L60, to the Lord Souch L6, 13s. 4d." When the fortune of war changed and the Barons were victorious at Lewes, "then did the other side fleece the Abbot of Peterburgh for his contribution to the king." After Evesham again the king repeated his exactions, and the unfortunate abbot had to pay enormously. The total amount that he paid on these ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting

... on the other. Never was a fairer field for hostile enterprise, or one more easily harried without fear of reprisal, and well knowing this, Assyria set herself from Ashurnatsirpal's time forward systematically to bully and fleece Syria. It was almost the yearly practice of Shalmaneser II to march down to the Middle Euphrates, ferry his army across, and levy blackmail on Carchemish and the other north Syrian cities as far as Cilicia on the one hand and Damascus ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth

... this time the mayor was boasting that he had put an end to gambling and prize fighting in the city; but here a swarm of professional gamblers had leagued themselves with the police to fleece the strikebreakers; and any night, in the big open space in front of Brown's, one might see brawny Negroes stripped to the waist and pounding each other for money, while a howling throng of three or four thousand surged about, men and women, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... since been called the St. Andrew's cross. Certain of his relics were brought to Scotland in the fourth century, and he has since that time been honoured as the patron saint of that country. He is also the patron saint of the Burgundian Order, the Golden Fleece.] ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... both the Spunge and Pencill were his owne; That himselfe judged himselfe, could singly do, And was at last Beaumont and Fletcher too; Else we had lost his Shepherdesse, a piece Even and smooth, spun from a finer fleece, Where softnesse raignes, where passions passions greet, Gentle and high, as floods of Balsam meet. Where dressed in white expressions, sit bright Loves, Drawne, like their fairest Queen, by milkie Doves; A piece, which Johnson ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher

... creek creep cheer deer deed deep feed feel feet fleece green heel heed indeed keep keel keen kneel meek need needle peel peep queer screen seed seen sheet sheep sleep sleeve sneeze squeeze street speech steeple steet sweep sleet teeth weep ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... de Lanoy (Launoy, in Verard's 1st ed.) created a knight of the Golden Fleece in 1451; an officer of the household of the D. of Burgundy. Louis XI, on his accession, created him Governor of Lille, and Bailli of Amiens, and sent him on a secret mission to the King of England. Charles le Temeraire, indignant with Lanoy ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... himself with ridicule at this game of private intrigue rather than real diplomatic negotiation; and, notwithstanding all the trouble he took, he obtained nothing by it, "the gratitude of Madame des Ursins excepted, who made Philip V. give him the Golden Fleece, the rank of grandee, the Walloon company of the bodyguard—everything, in fact, ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... one. Ulysses was wrecked off Circe's island and at other places. Rather let us be the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece." ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... supercilious station-master to the ill-paid wretch that handles our baggage. Mine is the first bicycle the Tiflis & Baku Railroad has ever carried. Having no precedent to govern themselves by, and, withal, ever eager to fleece and overcharge, the railway officials charge double rates for it; that is, twice as much as an ordinary package of the same weight. No baggage is carried free on the Tiflis & Baku Railroad except what one takes with him ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... domestic stock should also excite the attention of those who wish to embellish their grounds, as well as to improve the quality of their mutton—obtaining, withal, a fleece of valuable wool. These are the Southdown, and the Cotswold, Leicester, or other improved breeds of long-wooled sheep. There is no more peaceful, or beautiful small animal to be seen, in an open park, or ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen

... his view mother and daughter as they slowly moved, encircling each other's waist. The painter paused and noted the general loveliness of the picture; the setting sun had splashed the blue basin overhead with delicate pinks, and in the fretted edges of some high floating cloud-fleece there was a glint of fire. The smooth grass parquet swept gracefully to the semicircle of dark green trees, against the foliage of which the virginal white of the gowns was transposed to an ivory tone by the blue and green keys in sky ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... for the wonder with which I hear Kinghood still spoken of, even among thoughtful men, as if governed nations were a personal property, and might be bought and sold, or otherwise acquired, as sheep, of whose flesh their king was to feed, and whose fleece he was to gather; as if Achilles' indignant epithet of base kings, "people-eating," were the constant and proper title of all monarchs; and the enlargement of a king's dominion meant the same thing as the increase of a private man's estate! Kings who think so, however powerful, can no more ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin

... disinterestedness, incur large weekly expenses in advertising their willingness to forward to sufferers the means of self-cure "on receipt of two postage stamps." In a word, one and all of these pirates have only one common aim and aspiration—to fleece the fools who are credulous ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... bellying sail behind, and all around wet air and splashing grey sea, the stem ploughing it up silver and white and green, and away aft under the bend of the sail there would be Jason and the steersman, possibly Medea, with the curl out of her hair, and perhaps just a touch of the golden fleece, just a fleck of pale yellow to enliven the minor tints! Round the bows there would be men listening to the song, watching the stem pound into the green hollows—now, I remember! I have seen this—I'd forgotten. But the Orpheus was in faded blue ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... taking advantage; it's the war against capital. Do you mean to say that because a man's name is known he should make me pay just what he likes? because he's an artist, he has no price, no fixed rate, he has a right to fleece me? Why, according to that he might ask me a million for it. It's like the doctors who make you pay according to your fortune. To begin with, how does any one know what I have? I call it an iniquity. Yes, four hundred pounds; what do you think ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt

... commencement of the present century the favourite game was Faro, and as it was a decided advantage to hold the Bank, masters and mistresses, less scrupulous than Wilberforce, frequently volunteered to fleece and amuse the company. But scandal having made busy with the names of some of them, it became usual to hire a professed gamester at five or ten guineas a night, to set up a table for the evening, just as any operatic professional might now-a-days be ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... a great part, and this influences the native as well against the mestizo as against the Castilian. Enough takes place to the present day to justify this feeling; but formerly, when the most thrifty subjects could buy governorships, and shamelessly fleece their provinces, such outrageous abuses are said to have been permitted until, in process of time, suspicion has become a kind of instinct ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... province was not great in quantity, but antient in true nobility. A place," said he, "privileged by the most excellent Princess the High Governor of the whole Island, wherein are store of Gentlemen of the whole Realm, that repair thither to learn to rule and obey by Law, to yield their fleece to their Prince and Commonweal; as also to use all other exercises of body and mind whereunto nature most aptly serveth to adorn, by speaking, countenance, gesture, and use of apparel the person of a Gentleman; whereby amity is obtained, and continued, that Gentlemen ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... friend; but I was horribly weary of Paris. The outcome of the first enterprise, on which I had founded all my hopes, and which came to a bad end in consequence of the utter rascality of my two partners, who combined to cheat and fleece me—me, though everything was done by my energy—made me give up the pursuit of a fortune after the loss of three years of my life. One of these years was spent in the law courts, and perhaps I should have come worse ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac

... material, supported by massive buttresses, and as a whole is surpassingly grand. High up over the central doorway of the main front is placed in carved stone the insignia of the order of the Golden Fleece. The interior is as effective and elegant as that of any church we can recall, having some fine old bronzes and valuable paintings, the latter well worthy of special attention, and embracing some thirty examples. The woodwork upon the grand altar shows an artistic excellence which is rarely excelled. ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... from his shoulders. He was a gleaming, florid young fellow. His hair, thick and yellow, was cut very short, and he wore a closely trimmed beard, long enough on the chin to curl a little. Even his eyebrows were thick and yellow, like fleece. He had lively blue eyes—Thea looked up at them with great interest as he sat chatting and swinging his foot rhythmically. He was easily familiar, and frankly so. Wherever people met young Ottenburg, in his office, on shipboard, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... psychological arguments on the other side. If the well-to-do, who would have to pay the Levy or subscribe to the Compulsory Loan, would prefer that system to a high income tax, there is no more to be said. A tax that is popular with the payer, as compared with other modes of shearing his fleece, needs no further recommendation. But, in view of the probability of the experiment, once tried, being shortly and frequently repeated, I Very much doubt whether this is so; as far as I have been able by personal inquiry to test opinion on the point I have found it almost unanimously ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers

... so he bade his shepherd go off to the mountain where the flock were feeding, and bring him back the best he could find. And the shepherd chose out the largest and fattest of the sheep and the one with the whitest fleece; then he tied its feet together and put it across his shoulder, for he had a long way ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... have Hermes of the Phidian period, as the floating cumulus cloud, almost shapeless (as you see him at this distance); with the tortoise-shell lyre in his hand, barred with black, and a fleece of white cloud, not level but oblique, under his feet. (Compare the "dia ton koilon—plagiai," and the relations of the "aigidos eniochos Athana," with the clouds as the moon's messengers, in Aristophanes; and note of Hermes generally, that you never find him ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... they were astonished at seeing a new and singular species of quadrupeds, the camel-sheep, so called from their resemblance to these two kinds of animals. They saw the 'llama' domesticated and trained to carrying burdens, and the 'alpaca,' a smaller species, reared on account of its valuable fleece. ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... maintain, That from thy justice thou could'st not refrain. So that Romish Pharaoh, a tyrant most cruel, Hath brought us again into captivity, And instead of the pure flood of thy gospel, Hath poisoned our souls with devilish Hypocrisy, Unable to maintain it, but by murthering Tyranny; Seeking rather the fleece than the health of the sheep, Which are appointed for him for ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... the sight. Her face had a brightness that was like that of the Mirage at noon, and the eyes that gazed on him were like two great opals; she appeared clothed in a white shining mist, and her hair spread wide on her shoulders looked white—whiter than a lamb's fleece, and powdered with fine gold that sparkled and quivered and ran through it like sparks of yellow fire: and on her head she wore a crown that was like a diamond seen by candle-light, or like a dewdrop in the sun, and every moment it changed its colour, and by turns was a red flame, ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.

... heaving breast of a golden sea! In California at this season the dome of heaven is cloudless; but I still dream of what must be done for the bringing-out of Tu-toch-anula's coronation-day majesties by the broken winter sky of fleece and fire. The height of his precipice is nearly four thousand feet perpendicular; his name is supposed to be that of the Valley's tutelar deity. He also rejoices in a Spanish alias,—some Mission Indian having attempted to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... innocent chins to the chill air of the Yankee coast! And our viny locks! were they also to be shorn? Was a grand sheep-shearing, such as they annually have at Nantucket, to take place; and our ignoble barbers to carry off the fleece? ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... that make at morn The dew-drops quiver on the spiders' webs! You, O ye wingless Airs! that creep between The rigid stems of heath and bitten furze, Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon, The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed— Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless damp, Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb. Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin Gnomes! With prickles sharper than his darts bemock His little Godship, making him perforce Creep through a thorn-bush ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons

... dimly see the usefulness. With some things in this grand spectacle we were wholly charmed, and doubtless had most delight in the little child who personated John the Baptist, and who was quite naked, but for a fleece folded about him: he bore the cross-headed staff in one small hand, and led with the other a lamb much tied up with blue ribbon. Here and there in the procession little girls, exquisitely dressed, and gifted by fond mothers with wings and aureoles, walked, scattering ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... imperial tent of their great Queen 465 Of woven exhalations, underlaid With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid With crimson silk—cressets from the serene Hung there, and on the water for her tread 470 A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn, Dyed in the beams of ...
— The Witch of Atlas • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... "Union Recorder,"—"Their gray hairs and bent figures, recalling as they did the happy paternal eastern homes of the spectators, and the blessings that fell from venerable lips when they left those homes to journey in quest of the Golden Fleece on Occidental Slopes, caused many to burst into tears." The nearer facts, that many of these spectators were orphans, that a few were unable to establish any legal parentage whatever, that others had enjoyed a State's guardianship and discipline, and that a majority had left their ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... for burning, Allen-a-Dale has no furrow for turning, Allen-a-Dale has no fleece for the spinning, Yet Allen-a-Dale has red gold for the winning; Come, read me my riddle! come, hearken my tale! And tell me the craft of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various



Words linked to "Fleece" :   cheat, shear, chisel, squeeze, sheepskin, bill, surcharge, undercharge, gazump, overcharge, soak, hook, fleecy, rip off, charge, rob, textile, pluck, cloth, wool, Golden Fleece, material, plume, pelage, gouge, trim, fabric, coat, shave, rack, China fleece vine, wring, extort



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