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noun
Turf  n.  (pl. turfs, obs. turves)  
1.
That upper stratum of earth and vegetable mold which is filled with the roots of grass and other small plants, so as to adhere and form a kind of mat; sward; sod. "At his head a grass-green turf." "The Greek historian sets her in the field on a high heap of turves."
2.
Peat, especially when prepared for fuel. See Peat.
3.
Race course; horse racing; preceded by the. "We... claim the honors of the turf." Note: Turf is often used adjectively, or to form compounds which are generally self-explaining; as, turf ashes, turf cutter or turf-cutter, turf pit or turf-pit, turf-built, turf-clad, turf-covered, etc.
Turf ant (Zool.), a small European ant (Formica flava) which makes small ant-hills on heaths and commons.
Turf drain, a drain made with turf or peat.
Turf hedge, a hedge or fence formed with turf and plants of different kinds.
Turf house, a house or shed formed of turf, common in the northern parts of Europe.
Turf moss a tract of turfy, mossy, or boggy land.
Turf spade, a spade for cutting and digging turf, longer and narrower than the common spade.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Turf" Quotes from Famous Books



... is a dell, suddenly making a cleft in the mountain-side, only five yards wide at the bottom, which is the pebble bed of a wintry torrent, but is dry in the summer. On the side towards the village, the slope upwards was of soft green turf, scattered with hazel, rowan, and alder bushes, and full of singing birds. On the other side, the ascent was nearly perpendicular, and composed of sharp rocks, partly adorned with bushes and ivy, and here and there ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... had yielded me white lilies, according to its wont, or red roses with sweet smelling savour, I had plucked them from the countryside, or from the turf of my little garden, and had sent them, small gifts for great ladies! But since I lack the first, I e'en pay the second, for he presents roses in the eyes of love, who offers only violets. Yet, these ...
— Early Double Monasteries - A Paper read before the Heretics' Society on December 6th, 1914 • Constance Stoney

... queer start, though, all the same," muttered Prosper, whose face was very pale. And casting a look at the other dead who lay scattered about the avenue, under the trees and on the turf, some thirty brave fellows, among them Lieutenant Rochas, riddled with wounds and surrounded still by the shreds of the flag, he added seriously and with great respect: "There must have been some very pretty fighting about here! I don't much believe we shall find the ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... do for the muddy-minded lucubrations of Mr. JEREMY and his servile tribe of moon-calves. I have public duties to perform, and if, in the course of my comments on racing, I should find myself occasionally compelled to run counter to the imbecile prejudices of some of the aristocratic patrons of the turf, I can assure my readers that I shall not flinch from the task. I therefore repeat that, in the middle of last month, the Duke of DUMPSHIRE killed two trainers, and that up to the present time the Jockey Club have not enforced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various

... brackish water, amid which innumerable projecting roots spread snares for the feet. The sun, now well advanced, gave me the points of the compass, and, holding the rifle-stock before my face, I cleared a path through the dense growth, and emerged from the low marsh land upon smooth turf, where some brush found foothold, yet not so thickly ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... behind the fast horses, but the pottering round the flower-garden with Mrs. Costell. He had been reading up a little on flowers and gardening, and he was glad to swap his theoretical for her practical knowledge. Candor compels the statement that he enjoyed the long hours stretched on the turf, or sitting idly on the veranda, puffing ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... death-sleep: some forward sun-rays broke through the clouds of this sombre sky of Scotland; the snow melted, the lake broke its ice-crust, the first buds opened, the green turf reappeared; everything came out of its prison at the joyous approach of spring, and it was a great grief to Mary to see that she alone was condemned to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... visitor to a grassy terrace which ran along the south side of the house, and was screened from the forest by an alley of apple trees, and from the east wind by a hedge of yew. Here, where the last rays of the sun threw sinuous shadows on the turf, and Paris seemed a million miles away, they were walking up and down, the sound of their laughter breaking the woodland silence. Mademoiselle had a fan, with which and an air of convent coquetry she occasionally shaded her eyes. The King carried his hat in his hand. It was such an adventure ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... enveloped the warm, sunny garden. Old Sol poured his golden light down upon the emerald turf, the leafy trees, the brilliant flowerbeds and the white walls of the villa. Under the green arch of the trees, where luminous insects, white and flame-colored butterflies, aimlessly chased one another, Marsa half slumbered ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... these selected spots, Ned Hinkley proceeded, leaving his companions above, where, in shade themselves, and lying at ease upon the smooth turf, they could watch his successes, and at the same time enjoy the coup d'oeil, which was singularly beautiful, afforded by the whole surrounding expanse. The tarn, like the dark mysterious dwelling of an Undine, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... my breast, and red in my eyes; From peak to peak of sunrise pil'd That set space glowing, With flames from air-based crater's blowing— I downward swept, beguiled By the close-set forest gilded and spread A sea for the lordly tread, Of a God's wardship— I broke its leafy turf with my breast; My iron lip I dipp'd in the cool of each whispering crest; From thy leafy steeps, I saw in my deeps, Red coral the flame necked oriole— But never the stir of a soul Heard I in ye— Great is ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... which consisted of boudoir, bedroom, and dressing room opening into each other, so that, as Claudia entered the first, she had the vista of the three before her eyes. The floors were covered with Turkey carpets so soft and deep in texture that they yielded like turf under the tread. And the heavy furniture was all of black walnut; and the draperies were all of golden-brown satin damask ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... untrodden solitudes Its lovely days are passed; And the sunny turf is its fragrant bier When ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers

... across the heather, and Lisle turned toward the turf shelter indicated. As he approached it, a girl appeared and glanced at him with very obvious curiosity; but as he supposed that she was the sister of his late companion he did not expect any diffidence from her. She was short in stature and slight in figure, and dressed in grayish brown; hat, ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... like the preceding, only that one boy mounts on the back of another, who is called his Horse, another boy does the same, and the two mounted boys endeavour to pull each other from the saddle. This play is harmless when a soft piece of turf is chosen, but dangerous on ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin

... told you three months ago that I had paid your gambling debts for the last time. I make one exception. I will pay them once again—with the money you have stolen, which you may keep. Much good may it do you!" He flung the pocket-book on the turf at Hugo's feet as he spoke. "Take it. You have paid dearly enough for it, God knows. For the future, sir, manage your own affairs; my house is no longer ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... a piece of ground three feet long and two wide, dug and cleared, and where there could be no choking from other plants, I marked all the seedlings of our native weeds as they came up, and out of 357 no less than 295 were destroyed, chiefly by slugs and insects. If turf which has long been mown—and the case would be the same with turf closely browsed by quadrupeds—be let to grow, the more vigorous plants gradually kill the less vigorous though fully grown plants; thus out of twenty species growing on a little plot ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... enthusiasm of the people was like a great conflagration, like a prairie fire before a wild tornado. A little more than twenty years had passed since Owen Lovejoy, brother of Elijah Lovejoy, on the bank of the Mississippi, kneeling on the turf not then green over the grave of the brother who had been killed for his fidelity to freedom, had sworn eternal war against slavery. From that time on, he and his associate Abolitionists had gone forth preaching their crusade against oppression, with hearts of fire and tongues of lightning; ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... drowned men drift down in the green silence, Dropping from fingers of surf. I looked for the head of Mr. Apollinax rolling under a chair Or grinning over a screen With seaweed in its hair. I heard the beat of centaur's hoofs over the hard turf As his dry and passionate talk devoured the afternoon. "He is a charming man"—"But after all what did he mean?"— "His pointed ears... He must be unbalanced,"— "There was something he said that I might have ...
— Poems • T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot

... show out good and have some grandeur around them. Those goats now! Browsing on the blossoms of the bushes they would be, or the herbs that give out a sweet smell. Stir yourself, Staffy, and throw your eye on that turf beyond in the corner. It is that wet you could wring from it splashes and streams. Let you rise the ashes from the sods are on the hearth and redden them with a goosewing, if there is a goosewing to be found. There is no greater beauty to be met with than the leaping ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory

... Then the boat struck off from Diver's Rock and pushed straight over for the rocks of Shahweetah. As it neared them, the dear old trees stood forth more plainly to view, each one for itself; and the wonted footholds, on turf and stone, could be told and could be seen, apart one from the other. Poor Winnie could not look at them then, but she put her head down and sobbed her ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... Brougham, could (had he pleased) have lodged an information against him, seeing that he was then looking over the hedge. And this charge naturally won the more credit, because it was notorious and past denying that his lordship was a capital horseman, fond of horses, and much connected with the turf. To this hour, therefore, amongst some worthy shepherds and others, it is a received article of their creed, and (as they justly observe in northern pronunciation,) a shamful thing to be told, that Lord Lowther was once a horse stealer, and that he ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... the beck, and speeding over the wide brown waste. The huntsman warily shapes his course so as to avoid any limestone-quarries or turf-pits. He points out a jack-o'-lantern dancing merrily on the surface of a dangerous morass, and tells a dismal tale of a traveller lured into it by the delusive ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... shell approached nearer to the walls than its preceding brother, none reached the ramparts. For with the discharge of the eighth shell and the explosion of the first core bomb filled with lyddite among the sleeping animals huddled on the turf in front of the grandstands, something happened which the poor shepherds ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train

... a narrow terrace at the rear of the building, which was sodded with turf and starred with pansies and ox-eyed daisies, and on the wide, stone window sills sat boxes and vases filled with maiden-hair ferns and oxalis, with heliotrope and double white violets. Three lines of tables ran down this bright pretty room, and in the centre ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... my milk-skinned, flaxen-haired, buxom English mother. It is a tiny village of a dozen straw-thatched cottages in which I lived. I hear again blackbirds and thrushes in the hedges, and see again bluebells spilling out from the oak woods and over the velvet turf like a creaming of blue water. And most of all I remember a great, hairy-fetlocked stallion, often led dancing, sidling, and nickering down the narrow street. I was frightened of the huge beast and always fled screaming to my mother, clutching her skirts ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... was backed out from the hangar now, and rested on the great smooth landing field, its tremendous quarter million ton mass of lux and relux sinking a great, smooth depression in the turf of the field. They were waiting now for the arrival of the Ortolian ship. Zezdon Afthen assured them it would be there in a ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell

... the flowers that garlanded the rocks, all seemed as if the earth had been arrayed for some gala-day; but the moment she had passed the portal, the silent, mossy court, with its pale marble nymph, its lull of falling water, its turf snow-dropt with daisies and fragrant with blue and white violets, and the surrounding cloistered walks, with their pictured figures of pious history, all came with a sad and soothing influence on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... bramble nigh, Offers its berries to the schoolboy's hand, In vain—they grow too near the dead. Yet here, Nature, rebuking the neglect of man, Plants often, by the ancient mossy stone, The brier-rose, and upon the broken turf That clothes the fresher grave, the strawberry plant Sprinkles its swell with blossoms, and lays forth Her ruddy, ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... gruesome spectacle. Some of our forces were in line on an old, grass-grown country road that ran through thick woods. The wheels of wagons, running for many years right in the same ruts, had cut through the turf, so that the surface of the road was somewhat lower than the adjacent ground. To men firing on their knees this afforded a slight natural breast-work, which was substantial protection. In front of this position, ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell

... the knee, we commenced stumbling and bolting along the great stones and ruts of the causeway; this we cleared without any accident, farther than my slipping once into the ditch, and now found ourselves upon the open hill-side, splashing freely over the soaked turf and slippery pathway. I was in high spirits, and though squirting the black puddle to my knees at every step, and seeing no more of the road I was to travel on than another one in advance, yet faced onward with great ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... the open fields. Why they are placed away from the village I was not told; but I would like to know. They have very much the look of underground dairy-cellars, and are built of great stones covered with turf. One or two men can go into an ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various

... she slowly advanced, a glad surprise shining out of her soft quiet eyes. That was as her gaze met mine. As her looks fell on the woman lying stiff, convulsed on the earth, they became full of tender pity; and she came forward to try and lift her up. Seating herself on the turf, she took Bridget's head into her lap; and, with gentle touches, she arranged the dishevelled grey hair streaming thick and wild ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... may fly, it has to come back to earth as we all do. It comes to our lawn to feed upon earthworms. The other birds are all busy picking up some minute fly or insect that harbors in the grass, but the plover is here for game that harbors in the turf. His methods are like those of the robin searching for grubs or angle-worms. He scrutinizes the turf very carefully as he runs about over it, making frequent drives into it with his bill, but only now and then seizing the prey of which he is in search. When he ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... with which we have gained our most important victories, which should be handed down as heirlooms from father to son, are not the sword and the lance, but the bushwhack, the turf-cutter, the spade, and the bog hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow, and begrimed with the dust of many a hard-fought field. The very winds blew the Indian's cornfield into the meadow, and pointed out the way which he had not the skill to follow. He had no better implement ...
— Walking • Henry David Thoreau

... daydreams much of the energy that they might otherwise have used in life's real battle. But the greyness of commonplace existence became more bearable when they listened to tales of the heroic deeds of the past. In the evening, the living-room (bastofa), built of turf and stone, became a little more cheerful, and hunger was forgotten, while a member of the household read, or sang, about far-away knights and heroes, and the banquets they gave in splendid halls. In their ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... are soft or cheerful (except perhaps a strong red, which is cheerful) are unfit to produce grand images. An immense mountain covered with a shining green turf, is nothing, in this respect, to one dark and gloomy; the cloudy sky is more grand than the blue; and night more sublime and solemn than day. Therefore in historical painting, a gay or gaudy drapery can never have a happy effect: and in buildings, when the highest degree of the sublime ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... time the poor man hid this oddity with such skill that we might never have heard of it. But one of his servants learned the secret, and suffered so much from keeping it to himself that he had to unburden his mind at last. Out into the meadows he went, hollowed a little place in the turf, whispered the strange news into it quite softly, and heaped the earth over again. Alas! a bed of reeds sprang up there before long, and whispered in turn to the grass-blades. Year after year they grew again, ever ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody

... curiously lazy," she said; "perhaps from our long drive." She seated herself on the turf. "Talk to me, Mr. Siward—in that ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... most perfect ease was established, just as much as if we had been dining with the Duke of York, and he seemed delighted. He made one or two little speeches, one recommending that a stop should be put to the exportation of horses. He twice gave 'The Turf,' and at the end the Duke of Richmond asked his leave to give a toast, and again gave 'The King.' He thanked all the gentlemen, and said that there was no man who had the interests of the turf more at heart than himself, that he was ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... my Arvie's gone. Whatever will me and the children do? Whatever will I do? Whatever will I do? My God! I wish I was under the turf." ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... hesitation, he answered, "I often dream things. One night I dreamt that I was walking on a wild barren common; there were many bare places where people had cut turf, and there were prickly furze-bushes about. I knew there were some did open mine-shafts there, for people sometimes fell into them at night; but I was walking along without thinking of danger, and was not afraid, though it ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... except the center one, are beautifully carpeted with green turf, which gives them a very pleasant aspect. In the center of the second court is a lion with his paw on a ball, a copy of one of the lions of St. Mark ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... the inlet and the others on the bayau and island.- observed a speceies of small wild onion growing among the moss on the rocks, they resemble the shives of our gardens and grow remarkably close together forming a perfect turf; they are quite as agreeably flavoured as the shives. on the North side of the columbia a little above the entrance of this inlet a considerable river discharges itself. this stream the natives call the Cah-wah-na-hi-ooks. it is 150 yards wide and at present ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... houses, the side windows faced each other across two hundred feet of intervening turf. The windows of one house were duly fitted with window-screens, holland shades and clean, fresh white curtains; for it was May, and Berwick ladies were rarely dilatory with their "Spring-cleaning." But the other house showed no window dressings, and the sashes were flung open ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells

... from some reason or other, perhaps because she could not bear to go home in shame and disgrace, she sought out a very lonely hiding-place among the hills, and with her own hands reared rough walls of turf and stones, until she had formed such a rude hut as would just give shelter to her and her boy. There they lived, uncared for and solitary, until the husband came back, after suffering his twenty-one years' punishment, and entered into a little spot of land entirely his own. Then, ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton

... the turf, the sky, the birds, the house, the automobile, and Jarvis, the stuffed chauffeur, leaped together for an instant in one whirling, dancing mass of which I was the centre. And then, out of the chaos, as it separated itself once more into its ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... broken rapid into the black pool below, and swept with a wide, foaming back-water under the steep rock which turned its force. The soft green bank before me was sleeping beneath the shade of the weeping birches, where bluebells and primroses grew thick in the short smooth turf, and, though they had long shed their blossoms, the bright patches of their clusters were yet visible among the tall foxgloves, which still retained the purple bells upon their tops. The bank looked softer, and greener, and more inviting than ever it had done ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... years ago,[6] the moon Shone on a battle plain; Cold through that glowing night of June Lay steeds and riders slain; And daisies, bending 'neath strange dew, Wept in the silver light; The very turf a regal hue Assumed that ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... the voices of some men, who sat down upon the turf but a few yards from where he was concealed. The conversation he little heeded; but it had roused him, and his first feeling was to return to the cottage, that he might reflect over his plans; but although the men spoke in a low ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... the gardens and with which he had later on a closer and more painful acquaintance, the tussock fibres being fastened inside to light poles that were attached to rafters placed horizontally, while the ridges outside were covered with bands of green turf, firmly ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... projecting above them. The oriel window cast its slowly moving shadow on the half-timber walls; and the many lattice casements, with their small diamond-shaped panes, glistened in the sun as in the days gone by. The garden-plots were unchanged, and the smooth turf on the terraces was as green and soft as when he ran along them at his mother's side. The old house brought to his mind his mother rather than his wife. It was full of associations and memories of her, with her sweet, humble, self-sacrificing nature. There was repose and healing in ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... the bridle-gate which admitted to the park on this side, and cantered over the soft turf almost in the tracks of Fitzpiers's horse, till he reached the clump of trees under which his precursor had halted. The whitish object that was indistinctly visible here in the gloom of the boughs he found to be Darling, as ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... cold of winter. The storm whistles so fiercely across the brown plateau that the low heather bends still lower and the small juniper trees make themselves still smaller. The wind in the Venn chases along whistling and shrieking, clamouring and howling, pries into the quagmires and turf pits, whips up the muddy puddles, throws itself forcibly into the thickets of fir trees that have just been replanted, so that they groan and moan and creak as they cower, and then rages on round ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig

... Starry flowers spangled the sod, the grass was flushed with emerald, while the tender green of a willow copse formed a background for her lissom figure as she leaned forward to stroke the neck of the big gray horse, which pawed at the elastic turf. There was bright sunshine above us, dimming even the sweep of azure, and a glorious rush of breeze. All spoke of life and courage, and I strove to cheer her, until a horseman swept into sight across a rise, and my teeth closed together when I recognized ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... about in the farmyard beyond, and the milk-cans glittered with brightness, hung out to sweeten. The court was so full of flowers that they crept out upon the low-covered wall and horse-mount, and were even to be found self-sown upon the turf that bordered the path to the back of the house. I fancied that my Sunday coat was scented for days afterwards by the bushes of sweetbriar and the fraxinella that perfumed the air. From time to time cousin Holman put her hand into a covered ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... and shook the rein. But none of all those damsels durst say a word to him or ask him whither he went, for they feared his face, and the sorrow of his heart. So he got him out of the garth and turned toward the sea-shore, and they saw the glitter of his spear-point a minute over the turf-wall, and heard the clatter of his horse-hoofs as he galloped over the hard way; and thus ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris

... sortes Virgilianae[obs3]; rouge et noir[Fr], hazard, ante, chuck-a-luck, crack-loo [obs3][U.S.], craps, faro, roulette, pitch and toss, chuck, farthing, cup tossing, heads or tails cross and pile, poker-dice; wager; bet, betting; gambling; the turf. gaming house, gambling house, betting house; bucket shop; gambling joint; totalizator, totalizer; hell; betting ring; dice, dice box. [person who takes chances] gambler, gamester; man of the turf; adventurer; dicer|!. V. chance &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... wood peeped out from under the trees, the only house in sight except the distant white specks on far off farms, and the little wandering village in the river-threaded valley. It sat right on the turf,—no road, no path even, and the dark woods shadowed the ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... author says: "If two neighbours dispute respecting the boundaries of their possessions, let a piece of turf of the contested land be dug up by the judge, and brought by him into the court, and the two parties shall touch it with the points of their swords, calling on the Most High to witness their claims. After this let them combat, and let victory ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... but to Henry, ambition had become a monomania, and to it he was ready to make every conceivable sacrifice, including—if necessary—his health. There were days when he told himself that he would pay a thousand dollars merely to have green turf under his feet, blue sky above, and no worries in his soul—but he wouldn't sacrifice an hour of supervision over his theatre. There were days when he felt that he would give up his chance of salvation if only ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall

... sound morality is equally conspicuous among them. Gaming, so far from being a fashionable vice, is confined entirely to the lower class of people; among gentlemen it is deemed disgraceful. Many of them, it is true, are fond of the turf; but they pursue the sports of it merely as an amusement and recreation, not a business. As to hunting, the country gentlemen occasionally engage in it, but surely there is nothing criminal in this! From my education and other pursuits I have seldom participated in it myself; but I consider ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... as the murmur of noise in a dream. Speechless with joy, Hyde clasped Cornelia's slender fingers, and they went together down the few broad low steps which led them into the green shadows of the trees. How soft was the grassy turf! How exquisite the westering sunlight, sifting through the maple leaves! They looked into each other's eyes and smiled, but were too happy to speak. For they had suddenly come into that land, which is ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... is the Madonna by Francia in the Munich Gallery, where the divine Infant lies on the flowery turf; and the mother, standing before him and looking down on him, seems on the point of sinking on her knees in a transport of tenderness and devotion. This, to my feeling, is one of the most perfect pictures in the world; it leaves nothing to be desired. With all the simplicity of ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson

... you may smell the roses as soon as you get to the entrance of the valley. Wych Hazel's dream has been realized. The valley is a garden of roses. They climb the walls of the cottages, they cluster on the palings, they stand by the way side. They are set in a ground of smoothest green; for the turf everywhere is perfectly cared for as if the valley were a park; smooth and rich and luxuriant, it carpets the whole valley, except only where the footpaths run and where the houses and gardens stand. The houses nowhere stand close together; there is plenty of garden room; and maples ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... busy idlers (that is not intended for a joke)—I go racing a bit, and of course "have a bit on" like other people, and having tried all the turf-prophets in turn, with unsatisfactory results, I was delighted to hear from a friend that "a new DANIEL had come to judgment" in the person of a tipster on Punch, who was "wonderful good"—(it was just the time when she did blunder on to a winner)—and I made up my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 12, 1892 • Various

... nature to everlasting sterility. The low islands, and even some of the higher, which lie scattered up and down the sound, are indeed mostly covered with shrubs and herbage, the soil a black rotten turf, evidently composed, by length of time, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... while that of the burghers and their wives had, never faltered. Their main hope now was in a fortification which they had been constructing inside the Brussels gate—a demilune of considerable strength. Behind it was a breastwork of turf and masonry, to serve as a last bulwark when every other defence should be forced. The whole had been surrounded by a foss thirty feet in depth, and the besiegers, as they mounted upon the breaches which they had at last effected in the outer ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... of her associates, were fined the next year for unlawful gaming. Fox and other gamesters of the wild time supplemented the faro-bank by betting at Newmarket. It was a notable period in the history of the turf, for many great men, specially of the whig party, were eager and judicious breeders. Such were the king's uncle, Cumberland, the breeder of Eclipse, Grafton, Rockingham, Egremont, Richmond, and Sir Charles Bunbury, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... short time they reached widow Buckley's cabin, who, on understanding that it was Reilly who sought admittance, lost not a moment in opening the door and letting them in. There was no candle lit when they entered, but there was a bright turf fire "blinkin' bonnilie" in the fireplace, from which a mellow light emanated that danced upon the few plain plates that were neatly ranged upon her humble dresser, but which fell still more strongly upon a clean and well-swept hearth, on one side of which ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... Clovelly?" he puffed at last, and they flung themselves down on the short, springy turf between the drone of the sea below and the light summer wind among the inland trees. They were looking into a combe half full of old, high furze in gay bloom that ran up to a fringe of brambles and ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... by careful observance of my principle has stacked up a goodly array of chips towards his winter's keep. All this goes to show that if a man will bet sanely and avoid "going for the gloves" he can make a modest competence on the Turf. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various

... had lost their roofs. In the field they halted. The grass was brilliant emerald and the wood and the distant hills were shades of clear deep blue. Wisps of pale-blue mist lay across the field. In the turf here and there were small clean bites, that might have been made by some strange animal. The ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos

... small distance they saw a thick wood, which they no sooner entered than they perceived that they were approaching the habitations of men. The shrubs were diligently cut away to open walks where the shades ware darkest; the boughs of opposite trees were artificially interwoven; seats of flowery turf were raised in vacant spaces; and a rivulet that wantoned along the side of a winding path had its banks sometimes opened into small basins, and its stream sometimes obstructed by little mounds of stone heaped together to increase ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson

... fur slur tart cart bur furl star turf first curl gird jerk lard fern bird dart firm scar card char spar hurl lark hurt part arch turn blur purr pert spur hard barn darn carp herd dark burn term hark yard start shirt bark yarn harp sharp clerk skirt chirp park spark ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett

... while Cleopatra wished him to thrust Rome aside and return to Egypt with her, to reign there as an independent king. To her Rome was almost a barbarian city. In it she could not hold sway as she could in her beautiful Alexandria, with its blue skies and velvet turf and tropical flowers. At Rome Antony would be distracted by the cares of state, and she would lose her lover. At Alexandria she would have him for ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... led the way through a little shaded path at the back of the church; behind a farmhouse and up a slight acclivity, on the side of which the rocks in different places appeared through the green turf, and the crowd followed him at a ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... how readily the Young Guardsman imagines himself to be an adept in the mysteries of the turf. With a light heart and a heavy betting-book he faces the hoary sinners who lay the odds. Nor is it until he has lost more money than his father can well afford that he discovers that the raw inexperience even ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various

... one and the same person. Certainly this is the natural sense of the combination of the terms ‮גבר־ציד‬. To this might easily be added man-hunter and slave-maker, a worthy attribute of Nimrod. The gentlemen of the turf, of the Bentinck school, ought, however to protest against this supposition. Properly Nimrod is the Hercules of the Moors of North Africa. According to them he emerged from the East, overran and founded several cities in The Sahara, conquered all before him, put his feet upon the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... it returned and lifted a bit of paper from the roadway, with a new respect, perhaps, and the two of them frolicked away over close-shaven turf. It was a merry game they played there in the spring sunlight. The paper fluttered a little, whirled over and over, and scuttled off through the grass; with a gust of mirth, the wind was after it, now gained upon it, now lost ground in eddying about ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... rock wall, those increasing and flattened gullies which mark the higher slope. Here and there an unmelted patch of snow appeared, grass could be seen, and at last we were upon the roll of the high land where it runs up steeply to the ridge of the chain. Moss and the sponging of moisture in the turf were beneath our feet, the path disappeared, and our climb got steeper and steeper; and still the little man went on before, pressing eagerly and breasting the hill. I neither felt fatigue nor noticed that I did not feel it. The extreme angle of the slope suited my mood, nor was I conscious ...
— On Something • H. Belloc

... these determined huntsmen—for the Prince de Loudon and the Duc de Rhetore are of the race of Nimrod, and the best shots of the faubourg Saint-Germain—was attracted by a loud altercation; and they spurred their horses to an open space at the entrance to the forest of Rosembray, famous for its mossy turf, which was appointed for the meet. The cause of the quarrel was soon apparent. The Prince de Loudon, afflicted with anglomania, had brought out his own hunting establishment, which was exclusively Britannic, and placed it ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... Rob saw that it would be easy for him and Merritt to drop down on the turf below. Tubby must be taken care of first, and so Rob snatched a sheet off a bed, and twisted it into the ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson

... Anglomania, it has already spoiled everything.] These "worthy people" admit that for such words as "jockey," "lawn-tennis," and "sport," for which there are no equivalents in the French language, there is some excuse, but why, they ask, is "turf" better than pelouse; "flirter," meaning "to flirt," than fleureter (conter fleurette, to say pretty, gallant things); "garden-party" than une partie de jardin; "five o'clock" than cinq heures? Is "boarding-house" any more euphonious than hotel meuble, or "tub" than bassin? Scarcely! ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... time when I went to the classical seminary ov Firdramore! when I'd bring my sod o' turf undher my arm, and sit down on my shnug boss o' straw, wid my back to the masther and my shins to the fire, and score my sum in Dives's denominations ov the double rule o' three, or play fox and geese wid purty Jane Cruise that sat next me, as plisantly as the day was long, widout any ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... cottage near the gates; and the new house, which is hidden in trees, is of no interest. The park, however, is still ranged by its beautiful deer, and still possesses an avenue of chestnut trees and rolling wastes of turf. It is everywhere as ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... grassy knoll close to the water was Chris flat on his back, his mouth open, fast asleep. A half dozen fine bass lay on the grass beside him, the end of his fishing line was tied to one ebony leg, and a coil of slack line lay upon the turf. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... square and brown, haven't I? with many green-shuttered windows. The grounds were large and well-kept—almost too spick and span, for one expects twenty-six children to leave behind them such marks of good times as paper dolls and picture-books, croquet-mallets and tennis balls on trampled turf. ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin

... layer of earth and rotton rock between the surface of the field and the bed rock. It is a very difficult problem to maintain this cover of earth and it is very easy to lose it. Sometimes it is lost through over-pasturing and destruction of turf; but ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... hath the spoiler found thee, Brother of our love! Autumn's faded earth around thee, And its storms above! Evermore that turf lie lightly, And, with future showers, O'er thy slumbers fresh and brightly Blow the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... her fingers from the rock, into which they seemed to have grown, Mysie grasped the proffered hand, and the next moment was safe upon the turf. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... rushing and foaming below us; the lofty mountains rising in front, and the rich vegetation which clothed the cliffs behind; the huts nestling under the trees; the blazing fire, surrounded by our party; the animals grazing on the green turf which carpeted the ground. There was sufficient danger to create some excitement, and yet not enough to prevent us from enjoying our supper and entering into an animated conversation. The padre and the doctor ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston

... cut through the brush and the turf grass in a charming bit of old orchard on the hilltop, to be restored for the benefit of ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson

... chicken-pies and lobster-salads, mayonaise of salmon and daintily-glazed cutlets in paper frills, inexhaustible treasure of pound-cake and strawberries and cream, with a pyramid of hothouse pines and peaches in the centre of the turf-spread banquet. And for the wines, there were no effervescent compounds from the laboratory of the wine-chemist—Lady Laura's guests were not thirsty cockneys, requiring to be refreshed by "fizz"—but ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... turf with their bayonets turning, And his cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... to stick to it—and on they went, running when the turf was smooth and the slope easy, climbing over stones, helping themselves up rocks by the branches of trees, creeping through narrow openings between tree trunks and rocks, and so on and on, up and up, till at last they stood on the very top of the hill where ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit

... the ground in full view in the orchard twenty yards away, and, spying my motionless figure, pauses and regards me long and intently. His eye serves him, and not his nose. Finally concluding that I am not dangerous, he stoops to the turf for his beloved ants and other insects, but lifts his head every few seconds to see that no danger is imminent. Not one moment is he off his guard. A hawk may suddenly swoop from the air above, or a four-footed foe approach from any side. ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs

... The turf on a putting-green must be dense and low, and tough enough to stand a lot of rough usage. A combination of Rhode Island Bent and Creeping Bent is about the best thing for this purpose. To check up, just refer back to your ...
— Making a Lawn • Luke Joseph Doogue

... endured: a stifling cold; the folk passing about like smoking chimneys; the wide hearth in the hall piled high with fuel; some of the spring birds that had already blundered north into our neighbourhood besieging the windows of the house or trotting on the frozen turf like things distracted. About noon there came a blink of sunshine; showing a very pretty, wintry, frosty landscape of white hills and woods, with Crail's lugger waiting for a wind under the Craig Head, and the smoke mounting straight into the air ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Vanity adorn the marble tomb With trophies, rhymes, and 'scutcheons of renown, In the deep dungeon of some Gothic dome, Where night and desolation ever frown. Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down, Where a green, grassy turf is all I crave, With here and there a violet bestrewn, Fast by a brook, or fountain's murmuring wave; And many an evening sun shine sweetly ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... pay a visit to the shanties of the Irish and Canadians. He says that they sell and exchange these small houses among themselves continually. They may be built in three or four days, and are valued at four or five dollars. When the turf that is piled against the walls of some of them becomes covered with grass, it makes quite a picturesque object. It was almost dusk—just candle-lighting time—when we visited them. A young Frenchwoman, with a baby ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... beautiful verdure. The hills are lofty, but not mountainous, though the summits of them are quite naked. The soil in the valleys is rich, and of a considerable depth; and at the foot of almost every hill there is a brook, the water of which has a reddish hue, like that which runs through our turf bogs in England, but it is by no means ill tasted, and upon the whole proved to be the best that we took in during our voyage. We ranged the coast to the streight, and had soundings all the way from 40 to 20 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... Sussex Downs and seaside cliffs, and as a boy walking from my first school at Rottingdean to visit my people at Brighton, from Saturday to Sunday night, I have passed hundreds of traps consisting of rectangular holes cut in the turf, having horsehair nooses inside, set by the shepherds who took thousands of wheatears to the poulterers' shops in the town. They were then considered a great delicacy. Other professional bird-catchers operated with large clap-nets, and a string attached ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... met at Edinburgh with a case, remarkable as to its extent, of hygrometric action, assisted a little perhaps by very slight solvent power. Some turf had been well-dried by long exposure in a covered place to the atmosphere, but being then submitted to the action of a hydrostatic press, it yielded, by the mere influence of the pressure, ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... stir there; he delighted, above all things, to accompany me walking about the garden, hearing the birds, getting the smell of the fresh earth, and rejoicing in the sunshine. He followed me and gambolled like a dog, rolling over on the turf and exhibiting his delight in a hundred ways. If I worked, he sat and watched me, or looked off over the bank, and kept his ear open to the twitter in the cherry-trees. When it stormed, he was sure to sit at the window, keenly ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... shooting in the vicinity of Wolferton. The station lies in a charming valley, and emerging from its grounds, you have before you a picturesque drive along a well gravelled road, bordered with velvety turf, and backed with ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... understood that Gerald Chisholm was a barrister, and betting on the turf was not an amusement he would have associated with ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... softly at himself, and went on. He was in the shade now, but beyond him was a moonlit space where stood the little arched gateway in the hedge. He went toward it, his footsteps making scant sound on the soft turf; reached it; passed—but no, he didn't pass through just then. Instead he stopped suddenly, drew in his breath and stared wonderingly into the startled face ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour

... them; the coverlid is scarlet, the white sheet folded half way back over it; the young girl lies straight, bending neither at waist nor knee, the sheet rising and falling over her in a narrow unbroken wave, like the shape of the coverlid of the last sleep, when the turf scarcely rises. She is some seventeen or eighteen years old, her head is turned towards us on the pillow, the cheek resting on her hand, as if she were thinking, yet utterly calm in sleep, and almost colourless. Her hair is tied with a narrow riband, and divided into two wreaths, which encircle ...
— Saint Ursula - Story of Ursula and Dream of Ursula • John Ruskin

... the sweat streamed off his face, and he could feel it trickling all over his body. But above him the green bastions rose defiant, and the dark ring of oaks promised coolness. He pressed on, and higher, and at last began to crawl up the vallum, on hands and knees, grasping the turf and here and there the roots that had burst through the red earth. And then he lay, panting with deep ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... in grasping the two short handles which projected from the long curved shaft, and, summoning all his strength, he tried to move the scythe in the way the mowers were doing. But at the first attempt the sharp point stuck in the turf, and instantly the long handle flew up, turned over, and hit him a hard crack, square between the eyes, that felled him ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley



Words linked to "Turf" :   sod, city district, colloquialism, lily turf, divot, turf out, jurisdiction, greensward, sward, soil, ground, land, turf war, cover



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