"Wedge" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... A wedge of iron is said to have been found in a joint between the stones of the great pyramid. Here, then, at the dawn of historic times iron seems to be making its way among a bronze-using people. The ancient Chaldeans employed iron as an ornament, but not for implements. With them it ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... edge quart sought flitch match hedge sward bought stitch hatch ledge swarm bright fitch latch wedge thwart plight hitch patch fledge bilge budge fosse breadth twinge bridge judge thong breast print ridge drudge notch cleanse fling hinge grudge blotch friend string ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... heard the stroke of the hatchet, hewing down the trees of the forest. As we came nearer, traces of destruction marked the presence of civilized man; the road was strewn with shattered boughs; trunks of trees, half consumed by fire, or cleft by the wedge, were still standing in the track we were following. We continued to proceed till we reached a wood in which all the trees seemed to have been suddenly struck dead; in the height of summer their boughs ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... room to lie down, or ruminate standing without rubbing shoulders with a restless neighbour, which leaves him little to do beyond riding round occasionally, to keep his "boys" at their posts, and himself alert and ready for emergencies. But a Chinaman's idea of watching cattle is to wedge them into a solid body, and hold them huddled together like a mob of frightened sheep, riding incessantly round them and forcing back every beast that looks as though it might extricate itself from the tangle, and galloping after any that do escape ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... know that the spot where it occurs was, at the time it was formed, far out at sea, covered by the clear water of mid ocean; and when we find that this limestone grows in certain directions earthy and impure, and that layers of shale and sandstone, thin at first, but gradually thickening out in a wedge-shape form, come in between its beds, we know that in those directions we are traveling toward the shore lines of that sea whence the water was receiving from time to time supplies of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... color of ashes and could hardly articulate. He had edged up close to the gangway where the boats were to be filled. Twice he had tried to wedge himself between the First Officer and the rail and twice had been pushed back—the last time with a swing that landed him against ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... grimly, "I know thee and thy tricks, thou the evil one." Then, as his magic had come to him, he used his power, and put Pitcher with her back against a tree; and there she stayed, stuck to it, unable to get away. But the chief and Sable went to the camp. Now Pitcher had a hatchet and wedge, and with much ado she cut herself away, and the Black Cats heard her pounding and chopping all night long. And in the morning she came to them, and there was a great piece of wood sticking to her back, and they laughed her to scorn, and ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... their sloping sides formed an angle with each other. On account of the abrupt acclivity of both, this angle was almost acute, and the ravine between the two resembled a cavity out of which some great wedge had been cut,—like a section taken from the ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... Diana. "I've been at school before, and learnt not to spread myself out. We're on rather a short allowance of space, aren't we? Are these drawers all I've got? I shall have just to wedge my things in. There's my cabin ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... of the hollow in the bullet. It may be easily understood that although this compound bullet was smaller than the bore of the rifle, a blow with the ramrod after loading would drive the conical bullet upon the larger diameter of the boxwood cone, which, acting like a wedge, would expand the lead, thus immediately secured within the barrel. The expansion when fired drove the boxwood into the centre of the bullet, which ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... looked at the Englishman with interest, as he stood before him in his evening dress, broad-shouldered with fine limbs, his clothes fitting well, and looking like a wedge from his broad chest down to ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... Essenes. By reference to the first lesson of this series you will see who and what was this great mystic organization—the Essenic Brotherhood. While resting and studying in their retreats His attention was diverted to the work of Johannen—John the Baptist—and He saw there an opening wedge for the great work that He felt called upon to do among His own people. Dreams of converting His own race—the Jews—to His conception of Truth and Life, crept over Him, and he determined to make this work His ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... water-vessel becomes leaky, the hole should be caulked by stuffing a rag, a wedge of wood, a tuft of grass, or anything else into it, as shown in the upper figure and also in the left side of the lower one (p. 230), and then greasing or waxing it over. A larger rent must be Seized upon, the lips ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... he said brusquely. "Never mind the fee, and take these coppers. They may be of some use to you. Good-bye!" He bowed her out, and closed the door behind her. After all she was the thin edge of the wedge. These wandering people have great powers of recommendation. All large practices have been built up from such foundations. The hangers-on to the kitchen recommend to the kitchen, they to the drawing-room, and so it spreads. At least he could say now that ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Their bills are of almost all forms: in some kinds they are straight; in others curved, sometimes upwards and sometimes downwards; in others they are flat; in some they are in the form of a cone, wedge-shaped, or hooked. The bill enables a bird to take hold of its food, to strip or divide it. It is useful also in carrying materials for its nest, or food to its young; and in the birds of prey, such as the owl, the hawk, the falcon, ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... like a stretched-out egg she was, with one end of the egg running to a point by way of a stern, and the other flattened to an up-and-down wedge-like bow. A heavy black line ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... area, and to blacken the ancestors of the culprit. Note also the description of the sin. Its details are not given, but its inmost nature is. The specification of the 'Babylonish garment,' the 'shekels of silver,' and the 'wedge of gold,' is reserved for the sinner's own confession; but the blackness of the deed is set forth in its principle in verse 1. It was a 'breach of trust,' for so the phrase 'committed a trespass' might be rendered. The expression is frequent in the Pentateuch to describe ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... pieces, sewed together in so neat a manner that on the outside no join could be seen. They were of two kinds, double and single. The single were from twenty to thirty feet long, and twenty-two inches broad in the middle, with wedge-shaped heads and sterns, and decked over at both ends, leaving only a third part open. They had outriggers, and some few carried sails, but were generally impelled by short paddles, the blades of which were broadest in the ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... guide, who gravely affirmed, after we had parted, that there must be two sorts of Americans, as these we had just left did not at all resemble those he had conducted to the convent. May this little incident prove an entering wedge to some new ideas in the Valais, on the subject of the ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... trees can be successfully top-grafted in the manner spoken of above, and the month of April is the best time to perform the operation. The outfit necessary to perform the operation of grafting is a small hand-saw, a hatchet, a wedge, grafting-knife, and wax ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... down to the gallery the world was empty and still, a clear inky-blue sky above and a rippled veil of still, thin sunlit cirrus below, through which one saw a racing drift of rain-cloud, and never a glimpse of sea. Throb, throb, throb, throb, went the engines, and the long, undulating wedge of airships hurried after the flagship like a flight of swans after their leader. Save for the quiver of the engines it was as noiseless as a dream. And down there, somewhere in the wind and rain, guns roared, shells ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... will do—cut into shape as depicted (Diagram 2) can be fitted, but very loosely to allow of thin wedges being used to tighten the grip (Diagram 3). They must be very gently pushed in, or the border of the violin will be damaged. Some paper placed between the wedge and the border will help in preserving the latter from injury or marks. The above suggestions are only intended to be applicable when the violinist may be out of reach of any professional or competent repairer. Gum arabic or dextrine are not comparable with ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... shabby soldiers, all carrying huge sacks of eatables, stormed the doors, smashed the windows, and poured into all the compartments, filling up the aisles and even climbing onto the roof. Three of us managed to wedge our way into a compartment, but almost immediately about twenty soldiers entered.... There was room for only four people; we argued, expostulated, and the conductor joined us-but the soldiers merely laughed. Were they to bother about the comfort ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... the same long upper lip, the same thin, firm mouth, the prominent chin which was a family characteristic of the Underhills, and the jutting Underhill nose. Most of the Underhills came into the world looking as though they meant to drive their way through life like a wedge. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... common opinion that the densest mixture is obtained by a mixture of gradually increasing sizes of grains is incorrect; there must be enough difference in the size of the grains to provide voids so large that the smaller grains will enter them and not wedge the larger grains apart. Turning now to the shape of the grains, the tests showed that rounded grains give less voids than angular grains. Using sand having a composition of L{5}M{3}F{2} Feret got the ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... and supported by a strong rearguard of smaller armed merchantmen, and by two oared wings on either flank composed of royal and private vessels combined. The vanguard was to be marshalled with its three ranks so adjusted that its general form was that of a blunt wedge. In the first rank come eight of the large merchantmen, mainly Hanseatic vessels; in the second, ten of the royal navy and one private vessel; in the third, nineteen second-rate merchantmen. The tactical aim is clearly that the heavy Hanseatic ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... an old man in the bargain," added Tom as he quickened his steps involuntarily; "I can see that bully Tony Pollock leading the lot; yes, and the other fellows must be his cronies, Wedge McGuffey and ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... wedge-shaped blocks, which by reason of their shape give support one to another, and to the [Sidenote: Arches.] super-imposed weight, the resulting load being transmitted through the blocks to the abutments upon which the ends of the arch rest. An arch should be composed of such materials ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... armful of it in when it stiffened, fighting free of him, owing to Ponting and the other fellow not having made good. They clung for a moment without moving, resting, and Raft glancing down saw far away below the narrow deck driving wedge-like through the foam-capped seas. ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... first suppose a portion of those speaking a language to have been separated off from the main body of its speakers, either through their forsaking for one cause or other of their native seats, or by the intrusion of a hostile people, like a wedge, between them and the others, forcibly keeping them asunder, and cutting off their communications one with the other, as the Saxons intruded between the Britons of Cornwall and of Wales. In such a case it will inevitably ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... There will be no regular breakfast today. You must get the steward to cut you a chunk of cold meat, put it between two slices of bread, and make a sandwich of it. As to tea, ask him to give you a bottle and to pour your tea into that; then, if you wedge yourself into a corner, you will find that you are able to manage your breakfast comfortably, and can amuse yourself watching people trying to balance a cup of tea ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... had only boards fastened on their arms by way of shields, some had halberts, which had been used by their fathers at the battle of Morgarten, others two-handed swords and battleaxes. They drew themselves up in the form of a wedge and ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reaches its terminus at Laruns, we are fairly among the highlands. Rising wedge-shaped beyond the town, dividing all progress, is a mountain,—not a hill. To the left and right of it pass the roads we are in turn to follow. On the left, two miles beyond the fork or three from the railway's end, will be found Eaux Bonnes; on the right, at the same distance, is ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... reached the hospital, the blonde person was with Gracie. The blonde person had been crying, and it had not improved her appearance. Her nose looked like a pink wedge driven into the white triangle of her face. Screens had been placed around the bed. A priest with a rosy, good-humored face was ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... definite objection could be raised; but Tanner's Lane always felt that if once a man differed so far from his fellows as not to drink beer and spirits, there was no knowing where the division might end. "It was the thin end of the wedge," Mr. Broad observed confidentially to Bushel once when ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... house. My two friends, Mackellar and Wells, took a sympathetic interest in the lantern proceedings, which was well, because, being a druggist, Wells knew about making the gas and could prevent trouble on that tack. It was before the day of charged tanks. The gas we made was contained in wedge-shaped rubber bags, in a frame with weights on top that gave the necessary pressure. Mackellar volunteered to be the weight, and sat on the bags, at our first seance, while Wells superintended the gas and I read the written directions. We were getting along nicely when I came to a place enjoining ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... twisting this way, then that, had nearly made good the passage, when our fat friend, who was puffing and blowing behind us like a high pressure engine, cried out, "Halt, ahead there! I am stuck as tight as a wedge in a log!" Halt we did, when the guide, looking at our friend, who was in truth "wedg'd in the rocky way and sticking fast," cried out, "I told you, when you said at the Pine Apple Bush, that you felt especially happy, to wait till you got to the Winding Way, to see how you ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt
... to me, or you won't get another piece," threatened Bob, holding a wedge of pie temptingly in Jimmy's direction. "Am I an angel, Doughnuts, or not? Yes—pie. ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... in two minutes, the blue-jackets circling out like a fan, and pressing their enemy into a helpless mass against the rail. For a moment the fight was furious, every man for himself, then the Lieutenant drove like a wedge into the bunch, and it was all over. I struggled to my feet, still viewing all through a mist, and swaying back and forward as I endeavored to steady myself on the rolling deck. There was no one at the wheel, and the bow of the Sea ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... man," continued the "King." "I may not be too smart, but still things don't have to be driven into me with a wedge. If Sylvia and Harley were left to themselves, they would fall deep in love, I can see that; but I tell you, Mr. Grayson, she's mine, she belongs to me, because I've earned her, and because she's promised herself to me, too, an' ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... wedge has done its business very well; two or three more will finish it." He then took up another larger wedge, and, inserting the bottom of it between the wood and the top of the former one, which was now completely buried ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... written, graven neatly in straight lines across the stone, and looking to casual inspection like nothing so much as random flights of arrow-heads. The resemblance is so striking that this is sometimes called the arrow-head character, though it is more generally known as the wedge or cuneiform character. The inscriptions on the flanks of the lions are, however, only makeshift books. But the veritable books are no farther away than the next room beyond the hall of Asurnazirpal. They occupy part of a series of cases placed down the centre of this room. Perhaps it is not too ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... upland at the head of the ravine, and took semicircular form again on the flat, broad summit of the second hill. In the meadows at the base of these hills a brook flowing from the ravine had created a great swamp, somewhat in the shape of a wedge pointing outward from the mouth of the valley. The lines of the enemy, edging this tract of mire, were consequently in the shape of an open V. Thus the military situation at this particular point may be pictorially represented ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... and not legal grounds. In like manner, wherever the franchise was limited, the limit is attempted to be removed. We are, in fact, fast merging into a mere pure democracy,1 for the first blow on the point of the wedge that secures the franchise, weakens it so that it is sure to come out at last. Our liberals know this as well ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Chlamydophorus, is a dweller in the sand-dunes of Mendoza, and has never colonized the grassy pampas. The Tatusia hybrida, called "little mule" from the length of its ears, and the Dasypus tricinctus, which, when disturbed, rolls itself into a ball, the wedge-shaped head and wedge-shaped tail admirably fitting into the deep-cut shell side by side; and the quirquincho (Dasypus minutus), all inhabit the pampa, are diurnal, and feed exclusively on insects, chiefly ants. Wherever the country becomes settled, these three disappear, ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... new impetus and a wave of Mohammedanism swept eastward, erecting the great kingdoms of Melle, the Songhay, Bornu, and the Hausa states. The older Negro culture was not overthrown, but, like a great wedge, pushed upward and inward from Yoruba, and gave stubborn battle to the newer culture for seven or ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... herself compelled to recognise that she had a plane surface before her, that her teeth could not lay hold of it, and that it was no more than a vain presentment. She smelled the picture, tried to wedge in behind the frame, looked at us both with a glance of questioning and wonder, and returned to her place, where she disdainfully went to sleep again, refusing to have anything more to do with the painted individual. Myrza's features will not be lost to posterity, for there ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... much more rapidly than that of Sweden and it ended the century with a shipping three times as great. Its commercial interests thus made free-trade the economic doctrine of Norway, while protection became that of Sweden, and this was the wedge that in time forced the two ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... bone is put in place by grasping the patient's elbow and pulling directly down in line with the arm, which is held slightly away from the side of the patient, while an assistant steadies and pulls up the shoulder. Then a wedge-shaped pad, long enough to reach from the patient's armpit to his elbow (made of cotton wadding or blanketing sewed in a cotton case) and about four inches wide and three inches thick at one end, tapering up to a point at the other, is placed against the patient's side with the ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... a little bunch of mignonette upon her breast, just at the point where the slashing of her bodice ended, and the gray gave way to a wedge of virginal white, as if her sempstress had started to lay bare her heart. The flowers quivered as from some internal agitation, nestling their pale gold spikes against ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... aligned in a triangular formation about Mallard and his sponsors and, with Captain Bull Hargis of the Traffic Squad as its massive apex, this human ploughshare literally slugged a path through the mob to the side entrance of the hall. By sheer force the living wedge made a furrow in the multitude—a furrow that instantly closed in behind it as it pressed forward. Undoubtedly the policemen saved Congressman Mallard from being crushed and buffeted down under the caressing hands of those who strove with his bodyguard ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... the words of MS. books, to the 15th century, run on continuously without spacing; and as to punctuation, little or nothing was known. In the Greek works on papyrus before Christ, there are to be found certain marks indicating pauses, such as the wedge-shaped sign (>). In Biblical MSS., however, the division of the text into lines enabled the reader the more easily to understand the meaning, and was an assistance to him in public reading. As many blunders were made by the monks in transcribing and re-transcribing the ancient MSS., the assistance ...
— The Importance of the Proof-reader - A Paper read before the Club of Odd Volumes, in Boston, by John Wilson • John Wilson
... to Van Diemen's Land. The Colonial-office had long projected making the Cape a penal colony, and it was supposed that political convicts would not be objected to. The colonists believed that this was merely the plan of insinuating the thin edge of the wedge, which would ensure the whole being driven home. John Mitchell was among the convicts; that gentleman having suffered at Bermuda from the climate, the government desired in mercy to place him in one more salubrious for persons afflicted with pulmonary ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... made in the stock after the stem has been neatly cut across. The cleft is a vertical cut of about an inch in length. This is made through the centre of the stock. The scion is made to fit down into this, so naturally it is cut like a wedge. But there should be cuts made on both sides of the scion diagonally to form this wedge. So two cut surfaces of cambium are laid bare to fit against two similar surfaces of the stock. If the stock is several times thicker than the graft or scion, there should be two of these ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... he nearly got. Kelly's nightstick got his pneumonia gas jet, or whatever you call it. He's still quiet, in the station house—You know old man Van Cleft, who owns sky-scrapers down town, don't you?—Well, he's the center of this flying wedge of excitement. His family are fine people, I understand. His daughter was to be married next week. Monty, that wedding'll be postponed, and old Van Cleft won't worry over dispossess papers for his tenants for the rest of the ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... sustaining the pride and reputation of the Earth when the waiters closed in on both combatants with their famous flying wedge formation and bore them outside, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... in his pocket. That evening he was with Rose and remained pretty late. When he sought his room he could not sleep, so he ran over the statement. It was a captivating showing. The mine was called the "Wedge of Gold." It was located in the Transvaal. The main ledge was fully sixteen feet wide, with an easy average value of six pounds per ton in free gold, besides deposits and spurs that went much higher. The vein was exposed for several hundred feet, and opened by a shaft 300 feet deep, with ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... was capable of staking his whole future on the soundness of his own thinking, on his own ability to forecast the inevitable. Without waiting for the results of the Proclamation to appear, but in full confidence that he had driven a wedge between the Jacobins proper and the mere Abolitionists, he threw down the gage of battle on the issue of a constitutional dictatorship. Two days after issuing the Proclamation he virtually proclaimed himself dictator. He did so by means of a proclamation which divested ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... about the middle of March, in the following manner: Dig away the ground around the vine you wish to graft, until you come to a smooth place to insert your scion; then cut off the vine with a sharp knife, and insert one or two scions, as in common cleft-grafting, taking care to cut the wedge on the scion very thin, with shoulders on both sides, as shown in Figure 4, cutting your scion to two eyes, to better insure success. Great care must be taken to insert the scion properly, as the inner bark or liber of the vine is very thin, and the success ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... not inferior in strength or courage: but at length the Romans, after long and repeated efforts, drove in with their even front and closely compacted line, that part of the enemy's line in the form of a wedge, which projected beyond the rest, which was too thin, and therefore deficient in strength. These men, thus driven back and hastily retreating, they closely pursued; and as they urged their course without interruption through ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... more nor less than a carrying out of the principle of the wedge. The ball formed the apex; the fellows got up close to it, so as never to let it out of reach of their four feet. Behind these two came three with locked arms, and behind the three, four. The men in the middle pushed straight ahead, and those at the sides inwards towards ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... below I saw him again. The archway to street sent toward us a deep wedge of shadow. He had a cloak which he wrapped around him and a large round hat which he drew low over his gray-blue eyes. With a firm step he crossed to the archway where the purple ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... outline. Its boughs are strong and spreading. The buds, conspicuous for their size, are protected by a coat of a glutinous substance, which is impervious to water; in spring this melts, and the bud-scales are then cast off. The leaves are composed of seven radiating leaflets (long-wedge-shaped); when young they are downy and drooping. From the early date of its leafing year by year, a horse-chestnut in the Tuileries is known as the "Marronnier du 20 mars." The flowers of the horse-chestnut, which are white dashed with red and yellow, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... as by a thin wedge driven between them, with astonishing force, and are generally ruptured rather than yield. If not ruptured, they close again, as Dr. Canby informs me in a letter, "with quite a loud flap." But if the end of a leaf ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... next process. The narrow or hilling hoe follows the operation of the sprouting hoe. It is generally from six to eight inches wide, and ten or twelve in the length of the blade, according to the strength of the person who is to use it; the blade is thin, and by means of a movable wedge which is driven into the eye of the hoe, it can be set more or less digging (as it is termed), that is, on a greater or less angle with the helve, at pleasure. In this respect there are few instances where the American ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... bower it illuminated with strange radiancy the dainty disorder of deserted lunch, made prisms out of the wine-glasses, painted the white cloth with wedge-shaped rainbows, and flooded the cavernous interiors of the half-eaten fowl with a pathetic ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... Triangles of the Soldier class are formidable, it may be readily inferred that far more formidable are our Women. For if a Soldier is a wedge, a Woman is a needle; being, so to speak, ALL point, at least at the two extremities. Add to this the power of making herself practically invisible at will, and you will perceive that a Female, in Flatland, is a creature by no means ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... exultation. They were showing Jackson what they could do! They were proving to him that he could not win always. His joy was warranted. No such confusion had ever before existed in Jackson's army. The Northern charge was driven like a wedge of steel ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... but on poles forty or fifty feet high. This is the manner in which it is gathered. The farmer, attended by his wife, goes out, and slipping a loose loop of rope over his feet to keep them together, so that when he gets the trunk of a tree between them it may fit like a wedge, he clasps one of the trees with his hands and goes up at a surprising rate. He carries with him a long rope, and when he reaches the top, he fastens one end of it to the tree, and throws the other to his ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... familiar facts of which great use has been made as an entering wedge for the Homoeopathic doctrine. They have been suffered to pass current so long that it is time they should be nailed to the counter, a little operation which I undertake, with perfect ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... cured An abject passion, long with pain endured: To Vashti for an easy boon he sued; She scorn'd his suit, and rage his love subdued: Soon to its aid a softer passion came, And from his breast expell'd the former flame: Like wedge by wedge displaced, the nuptial ties He breaks, and soon another bride supplies.— But if you wish to see the bosom (war Of Jealousy and Love) in deadly jar, Behold that royal Jew! the dire control Of Love and Hate by ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... but hesitated to stretch ourselves on the dirty earthen floor. On looking round the room, we, however, discovered two pieces of board, or rather what are called shingles, being portions of a log of wood split by a wedge. Using these as spades, we managed, with considerable trouble, to scrape a space clear of dirt, of sufficient size to enable us all to sit on the ground. We were going to place our backs against the wall, but Aboh warned us that ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... lower end, but is too shallow to be of any service to commerce. Hatteras and Ocracoke inlets admit sea-going vessels. It is thirty-eight miles from Whalebone Inlet to Cape Lookout, which projects like a wedge into the sea nearly three miles from the mainland, and there is not another passage through the narrow beach in all that distance that is of any use to the mariner. Following the trend of the coast for eleven miles from the point of Cape Lookout, there ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... saw through their schemes and fully realized the impending danger. In the reintroduction of Catholic ceremonies which Melanchthon regarded as entirely harmless, Flacius beheld nothing but the entering wedge, which would gradually be followed by the entire mass of Romish errors and abuses and the absolute dominance of Pope and Emperor over the Lutheran Church. The obedience demanded by the Emperor, said Flacius, consists in this, that "we abandon our true doctrine and adopt the godless Papacy." ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... the harvest of the mescal. With baskets on their backs the women go out to gather the plants. Their implements consist of a stick about two inches in diameter and three feet long, wedge-shaped and sharpened at one end, and a broad hatchet-like knife. On reaching a plant, the woman places the sharp end of the stick at its base and by a blow with a stone severs the root and pries it up. Nothing could be more primitive. The women of the Stone Age who gathered ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... into it without peril of observation from below. Return to your commands, gentlemen, and with the order of march see personally that your men move quietly. We must strike quick and hard, driving the wedge home with ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... makin' pies." All Sarah's ire had died away; to-night she set a large plump apple-pie slyly on the table—an apple-pie with ample allowance of lard in the crust thereof; and she felt not the slightest exultation, only honest pleasure, when she saw, without seeming to, Cephas cut off a goodly wedge, after ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... scraping hedgecreeper, and a piperly pickthanke, but you must not bee discouraged by theyr talke, for the most part of those beggerly contemners of wit, are huge burlybond butchers like Aiax, good for nothing but to strike right downe blowes on a wedge with a cleauing beetle, or stande hammering all daie vppon barres of yron. The whelpes of a Beare neuer grow but sleeping, and these bearewards hauing big limmes shall bee preferd though they doe nothing. You haue read stories, (He bee sworne he neuer lookte in booke in his life) how many ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... large forms; colorless to brown. The body is globular or oval or wedge-shape, sometimes quadrangular. The stalk is variable, sometimes 1 mm. in length. The diameter of the stalk increases from the point of attachment to the body of the animal; it is usually striated either longitudinally ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins
... strong, that waited to pour down upon them. I briskly issued my command, and four men detached themselves and let down the bridge. It fell with a crash, and ere those without had well grasped the situation we had hurled ourselves across and into them with the force of a wedge, flinging them to right and to left as we crashed through with hideous slaughter. The bridge swung up again when the last of Giacomo's mercenaries was across, and we were shut out, in the midst of that ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... turning all the light yellow. The clock now had a silent hall to tick in, and an audience of four or five somnolent merchants. By degrees white figures with shady hats came in at the door, admitting a wedge of the hot summer day, and shutting it out again. After resting in the dimness for a minute, they went upstairs. Simultaneously, the clock wheezed one, and the gong sounded, beginning softly, working itself into a frenzy, and ceasing. There was a pause. Then all those ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... ceiling supporting a huge water-tank, to which supplies were pumped no doubt from the river. Having groped their way in the semi-darkness to this spot, they barred the door of the room by driving a wedge in above the latch, and then, thoroughly tired out after their long tramp and their adventures of the previous day and night, they lay down to sleep, careless almost of ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... and compare them with the character of the leaders and the inevitable tendency of their teachings, they must be convinced that the apparently innocent measure of woman suffrage as a remedy for woman's wrongs in over-crowded populations, is but a pretext or entering wedge by which to open Pandora's box and let loose upon society a pestilential brood to destroy all that is pure and beautiful in human nature, and all that has been achieved by organized associations in religion, morality and refinement; that the whole plan is coarse, sensual and agrarian, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the waves of different lengths part company as they travel through it, and the light is spread out in a band of rainbow-colour. The waves are sorted out according to their lengths in the "obstacle race" through the glass. Anyone may see this for himself by holding up a wedge-shaped piece of crystal between the sunlight and the eye; the prism separates the sunlight into its constituent colours, and these various colours will be seen quite readily. Or the thing may be realised in ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... almost round at first, the latter conspicuous only when seeding; then their pappus is white, and about 1/3 in. long. Stem: A smooth, branching shrub, 3 to 10 ft. high. Leaves: Thick, lower ones ovate to wedge-shaped, coarsely angular-toothed; upper ones smaller, few-toothed or entire. Preferred Habitat: Salt marshes, tidewater streams, often far from the coast. Flowering Season: September-November Distribution: The Atlantic and Gulf ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... and battery after battery of flying artillery ranged along the ridge. But it seemed to me the larger, heavier force had been concentrated upon our left, massed there in deeper lines, as if that were the point selected from whence the attacking wedge was to be driven. The intervening ground sloped so gently forward, while the hill crest was so thickly crowned with trees, it looked an ideal position from which to advance in line of attack. Upon my right there appeared a break in the solidity of our line, but even as I noted it, wondering ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... being still a desideratum, I had recourse to the old wedge of coloured glass, of an uniform neutral tint, the distance between whose extremes, or between transparency and total opacity, was one foot. A moveable arm carrying a brass plate with a slit and a vernier, enables the ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... this thin mechanical vein.—I have something more to say about trees. I have brought down this slice of hemlock to show you. Tree blew down in my woods (that were) in 1852. Twelve feet and a half round, fair girth;—nine feet, where I got my section, higher up. This is a wedge, going to the centre, of the general shape of a slice of apple-pie in a large and not opulent family. Length, about eighteen inches. I have studied the growth of this tree by its rings, and it is curious. Three hundred ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... who came over with the steaming pannikin, and watched Vanheimert as he sipped and smacked his lips, while Stingaree at his distance watched them both. The pannikin was accompanied by a tin-plate full of cold mutton and a wedge of baking-powder bread, which between them prevented the ravening man from observing how closely he was himself observed as he assuaged his pangs. There was, however, something in the nature of a muttered altercation between the bushrangers when Howie was sent ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... the boot. This was having each leg fastened between two planks and drawn together in an iron ring, after which wedges were driven in between the middle planks; the ordinary question was with four wedges, the extraordinary with eight. At the third wedge Lachaussee said he was ready to speak; so the question was stopped, and he was carried into the choir of the chapel stretched on a mattress, where, in a weak voice—for he could hardly speak—he begged for half an hour to recover himself. We give a verbatim extract ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Louis's new political wedge, the Women's Trade Union League, continues to be a perfectly good political wedge. When there is legislation wanted, all kinds of organizations invariably call upon this league of the working women, whose purpose ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... of which the result was that the caravan adopted a wedge-shaped formation like to that of a great flock of wildfowl on the wing. Harut stationed himself almost at the apex of the triangle. I with Hans and Marut were about the centre of the line, while Ragnall and Savage were placed opposite to us in the right line, ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... and discovered a twisted-up wedge of paper, which, by its battered look and peculiar shape, had evidently been stuck at some time under the door to keep it from closing-to. He quietly pocketed this prize, on the chance of its being useful, and after possessing himself of the sack and ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... thus the entering wedge for the educator. In answering the needs of these thousands upon thousands of submerged mothers, it is possible to use their interest as the foundation for education in prophylaxis, hygiene and infant welfare. The potential mother ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... with the bloody heads of the squire's former wives ranged upon it. The lady dropped the key in her horror, and on picking it up found it covered with blood-stains, which nothing could remove, while the door stood a handbreadth open, as if an invisible wedge had fallen between the door and ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... prepared. Still he was not the man to be disheartened; nor had he ever possessed the courage to refuse a battle when: offered. Upon this occasion it would be difficult to retreat without disaster and disgrace, but it was equally difficult to achieve a victory. Thrust, as he was, like a wedge into the very heart of a hostile country, he was obliged to force his way through, or to remain in his enemy's power. Moreover, and worst of all, his troops were in a state of mutiny for their wages. While he talked to them of honor, they howled ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Pyrrhic victory, Parthian dart, and Homeric laughter; quos deus vult and nil de mortuis; Sturm und Drang; masterly inactivity, unctuous rectitude, mute inglorious Miltons, and damned good-natured friends; the sword of Damocles, the thin edge of the wedge, the long arm of coincidence, and the soul of goodness in things evil; Hobson's choice, Frankenstein's monster, Macaulay's schoolboy, Lord Burleigh's nod, Sir Boyle Roche's bird, Mahomed's coffin, and Davy ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... internecine spirit of all Balkan history. The fate and future of Bulgaria, Servia, and Montenegro now depend on the issue of the great European conflict. The same thing is true of Turkey, into which meanwhile Russian forces, traversing the Caucasus, have driven a dangerous wedge through Armenia towards Mesopotamia. Roumania has thus far maintained the policy of neutrality to which she adhered so successfully in the first Balkan war—a policy which in view of her geographical situation, with Bulgaria ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman
... accord at the moment when the priest is about to lift the Host. All was unfamiliar and splendid, and we came away, feeling as if our own little wedding-group would have been lost in so magnificent a tabernacle. The Grande Place, on which lay the wedge-like shadow of the high-towered Hotel de Ville, was perhaps as thronged a honeycomb of buzzing populace as when Alva looked out upon it to see the execution of Egmont and Horn. Among all the good-natured Netherlandish countenances ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... last we came to a little round green flat, right under the rock walls which rose up a couple of thousand feet above it on two sides. On the flat was an old hut—very old it seemed to be, but not in bad trim for all that. The roof was of shingles, split, thick, and wedge shaped; the walls of heavy ironbark slabs, and there was a ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... close to the man he had seized, using him as a shield against the others. The pack swayed down the hall into the wedge of light thrown by the lamp in ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... no unusual solicitude in the minds of Republicans had their inspiration been confined to political opponents, but suddenly there came to the aid of the Democrats a formidable array of Republicans. Although the entering wedge was a difference of policy growing out of conditions in the Southern States, other reasons contributed to the rupture. The removal of Motley as minister to England, coming so soon after Sumner's successful resistance to the San Domingo ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... ([dot staccato symbol] or [wedge staccato symbol]) means a long quick stroke, either up or down as the case may be. The absence of slurs indicates a separate stroke of the bow for each tone. Sometimes the player is directed to use ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... invitation to "come over to the wake. They'll have a hell of a time." And the event fully redeemed the promise. The whole Gap turned out to do the dead bully honor. I have not heard from the Gap, and hardly from Hell's Kitchen, in five years. The last news from the Kitchen was when the thin wedge of a column of negroes, in their up-town migration, tried to squeeze in, and provoked a race war; but that in fairness should not be laid up against it. In certain local aspects it might be accounted ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... constant self-flattery of the English, nearly every Irishman is an anti-Irish Irishman. But here again popular phraseology hits the right word. This fairly educated and fairly wealthy Protestant wedge which is driven into the country at Dublin and elsewhere is a thing not easy superficially to summarise in any term. It cannot be described merely as a minority; for a minority means the part of a nation which is conquered. But this thing means something that conquers, and is not entirely part of ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... stopped worrying myself and regained my normal spirits, to the annoyance of my father who was at that time inveighing against Russia and the ritualistic vicar of our parish, and had a lot to say about the thin end of the wedge. He told me that I must take more interest in politics, and he made both Fred and me promise that we would speak at debating ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... so that the two wedges in each groove would lie heads and points. With a bar of iron about two inches and a half broad, a quarter of an inch thick, and two feet and a half long, the ends being square, he could easily (as with a rammer) drive down one wedge upon the other; very gently at first, so that the opposite pairs of wedges being equally tightened, they would equally resist each other, and the stone would therefore keep place. A couple of wedges were also, in like manner, pitched at the ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... time of Charles the First the width was increased, and a contrivance was introduced for doubling the area of the top when required, by two flaps which drew out from either end, and, by means of a wedge-shaped arrangement, the centre or main table top was lowered, and the whole table, thus increased, became level. Illustrations taken from Mr. G.T. Robinson's article on furniture in the "Art Journal" of 1881, represent a "Drawinge table," which was the name by which these ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... slab of tobacco from his pocket, cut off a wedge and pressed it into the leather pouch of his cheek. "Guess he's been in Starkfield too many winters. Most of the ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... and well annotated by Prof. Tawney, who, however, affects asterisks and has considerably bowdlerised sundry of the tales, e. g. the Monkey who picked out the Wedge (vol. ii. 28). This tale, by the by, is found in the Khirad Afroz (i. 128) and in the Anwar-i-Suhayli (chapt. i.) and gave rise to the Persian proverb, "What has a monkey to do with carpentering?" It is ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... to wedge in all the dog biscuits, the total weight being about 5 tons; Meares is reluctant to feed the dogs on seal, but I think we ought to do ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... best was to withdraw the great wedge which depressed the muzzle of his gun, the corporal doing the same; and then, after a careful aim-taking, both pieces roared out a salute to the coming infantry, which was marching forward in ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... snow-banked room was nearly dark, she stopped, threw up her head, and looked at Sheila. The girl was sitting on the lowest step of the ladder washing some dried apples. Her face had thinned to a silvery wedge between the thick square masses of her hair. There was a haunted look in her clear eyes. ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... very near the tree. He crept stealthily on his hands and knees through the bracken, and as stealthily climbed the wedge of outcrop, and then leaped like a wild cat on the tree. With incredible activity he lifted the balancing stone, and as the tree began to move, in a flash of perception transferred it to the other side ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... stones rudely cemented together with wet clay and ashes against the logs, and a hole cut in the roof, formed the chimney and hearth in this primitive dwelling. The chinks were filled with wedge-shaped pieces of wood, and plastered with clay: the trees, being chiefly oaks and pines, afforded no moss. This deficiency rather surprised the boys, for in the thick forest and close cedar swamps, moss grows in abundance on the north side of the trees, especially on the cedar, ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... fishermen from the coast fought their way toward their comrades. Many of them were armed with long knives; some had pistols; others used their empty rifles as clubs. A dozen more men and they would have split like a wedge through the Mormon mass. Above the din of battle Nathaniel's voice rose in thundering shouts to the men in the sea, and close beside him he heard Neil shrieking out a name between his blows. Like demons they fought straight ahead, slashing ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... think California greater. I don't. The greatness of a country does not in all cases turn on its great rogues. New-York and Washington may not assent; but, Mr. PUNCHINELLO, isn't it so? These may give it character, but of the sort nobody is anxious to carry in his pocket as a wedge by which to enter good, genteel society. "Character," says a leading mind, "is every thing." Quite true; and if of the right sort, will take a man speedily to the noose. Biddy can get the most stunning of characters at the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... enthusiasm manifested itself most fiercely was as we have seen not favourable to literature. Puritanism drove itself like a wedge into the art of the time, broadening as it went. Had there been no more in it than the moral earnestness and religiousness of Sidney and Spenser, Cavalier would not have differed from Roundhead, and there might have been no civil war; each ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... tries any fool thing like that," continued Bob, who, like most of the boys of that section of the country, had heard these matters discussed so often that he had them at his tongue's end. "I tell you that the events of yesterday are an entering wedge. We are tired of the company of those Yankees up North, and now we are going to get rid of them and have a government of our own; see if we don't. Why should we not? The people up there do not belong to the same race we do. They are regicides and Roundheads—plodding, stingy folks, in ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... his mallet high, And struck the wedge quite bold, Until it made the wood quick fly Like feathers with no hold, Blown by ...
— Sugar and Spice • James Johnson
... to his scat, he untied the string, and unwrapped the brown paper. Then great was his surprise to find a dainty lunch lying within. There were several slices of choice home-made bread, two pieces of cake, a large wedge of pumpkin-pie, ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... Veracity, and to shew what we Intend; it not being Essential to the Genuineness of a Colour to be Durable. For a fading Leaf, that is ready to Rot, and moulder into Dust, may have as true a Yellow, as a Wedge of Gold, which so obstinately resists both Time and Fire. And the reason, why I take occasion from the former Experiment to subjoyn this general Advertisement, is, that I have several times observ'd, that the Mixture resulting from the Oyls of Vitriol, and of Anniseeds, though it acquire a ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... savory—and placed it on the serving-table near the open window. There was a bit, of wire loose at the lower end of the screen, and, in the one second Marguerite's back was turned—just one second, but just long enough—Missy saw a velvety nose fumble with the loose wire, saw a sleek neck wedge itself through the crevice, and a long red tongue lap ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... first wedge of civilization fairly driven into the northwest mountains of North Carolina. A narrow-gauge railway, starting from Johnson City, follows up the narrow gorge of the Doe River, and pushes into the heart of the iron mines at Cranberry, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... kutimo. wean : debrustigi, demamigi. weapon : batalilo, armilo. wear : porti; ("—out") eluzi; ("—away") konsumigxi. weary : laca. weather : vetero. "-cock," ventoflago. weave : teksi, plekti. wedding : edzigxo. wedge : kojno. weed : sarki; malbonherbo; "sea-," fuko, algo. weep : plori. weigh : (ascertain the weight) pesi; (have weight) pezi. weight : pezo, pezilo. welcome : bonvenigi; bonvenu! weld : kunforgxi. well : bone; nu!; puto. west : okcidento. whale : baleno. wharf ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... is splendid in plumage, and in shape is far more graceful than his domesticated brother. In early winter the wild ducks fly overhead in a wedge-shaped phalanx, and by and by they pair, and if disturbed start up with a sudden quack, quack from the copse-wood pond. Broods of downy wild ducks have been brought in by boys, but it has almost always ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge |
