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Zig

noun
1.
An angular shape characterized by sharp turns in alternating directions.  Synonyms: zag, zigzag.



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"Zig" Quotes from Famous Books



... hunted the landscape with anxious eyes. There was nothing to be seen; no round but the zig-a-zig of the heartless grasshoppers, merry all about him, and the thunder of ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... traced over in many places with tiny red lines which made zig-zags and curves over the blankness of the region south of the ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... up a new monarch in the person of a certain Aspacures, on whose brow he placed the coveted diadem. He then withdrew to his own country, leaving the complete subjection of Armenia to be accomplished by his officers, Cylaces and Artabannes, or, as the Armenian historians call them, Zig ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... make it lose its natural lightness, suppleness and fluent rapidity. What, after all, is the use? She is expected to play the sixths and octaves with the greatest velocity (which no man will accomplish, not even Clementi), and if she tries she will produce a frightful zig-zag, and nothing more. Clementi is a Ciarlatano like all Italians. He writes upon a sonata Presto, or even Prestissimo and alla breve, and plays it Allegro in 4-4 time. I know it because I have heard him! What he does well is his passages in thirds; but ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel

... of the Delmes was a beautiful and picturesque place of worship. With the exception of one massive door-way, whose circular arch and peculiar zig-zag ornament bespoke it co-eval with, or of an earlier date than, the reign of Stephen—and said to have belonged to a ruin apart from the chapel, whose foundations an antiquary could hardly trace—Delme chapel might be considered a well preserved specimen of the ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... spirits, as we sat at supper at a window where we could see London spread out beneath us like a huge black velvet flower, dotted with fiery embroideries, sudden flaring stamens, and rows of ant-like fireflies moving in slow zig-zag processions along and ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne

... there together, Jack frowning earnestly at the needle, and Simms swaying uncertainly at the knees. Suddenly his knees went in altogether, and he made a little zig-zag dash across the room, as though he were taking cover. Jack lumbered after him, instinctively bending his head, too. They were brought up by the piano, which Simms struck with great force. We ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... trail. The Indians had used it for countless generations in their search for pottery clay. It lifted zig-zag over the Coyote Range, giving at the crest this morning a superb view of distant peaks and of gold melting into blue infinities. It dropped zig-zag into canyons that were parched and cracked with late summer heat ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... Provençal sunlight and the call for a hurried departure dispelled such illusions. By noon we were far away from Carcassonne, mounting the rocky slopes of the Cevennes amid a wild and noble landscape; the towering cliffs of the “Causses,” zebraed by zig-zag paths, lay below us, disclosing glimpses of fertile ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... They zig-zagged their tedious way out across the marshy grassland, their thin shoes squelching in the bogs, their trousers unmercifully spattered with the thick, treacley mud. They spoke little, their eyes bent upon the ground, their foreheads wrinkled. On and on and ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... the road that zig-tagged through the forts, batteries and rifle-pits covering the eastern ascent to the Flap-past the wonderful Murrell Spring—so-called because the robber chief had killed, as he stooped to drink of its crystal waters, a rich drover, whom he was pretending to pilot through the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... Aunt Margaret on a big turbine mail boat; they had reached Calais just as an excursion steamer from Margate came up, gay with flags and light dresses, with a band playing ragtime on the well-deck, and people dancing to a concertina at the stern. Now they zig-zagged across, sometimes at full speed, sometimes stopping dead or altering their course in obedience to the destroyer nosing ahead of them through the Channel mist; and she could see the face of the captain on the bridge, strained and anxious. ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... slipping and floundering, along the wet trench, and turned at last into another zig-zag one where a step ran along one side, and men muffled in wet coats stood behind a loopholed parapet. Along the trench was a series of tiny shelters scooped out of the bank, built up with sand-bags, covered ineffectually with wet, shiny, waterproof ground-sheets. In these, men were crouched ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... divided by a string course into two storeys, the lower of which is plain with small round-headed windows; the larger upper storey has on each side three narrow round-headed windows, which form a kind of arcade round the upper part of the tower, surmounted by a zig-zag string course. At the angles are engaged shafts. The massive manner in which the tower was rebuilt in the eleventh century can be better appreciated from within, when we come to the piers which support it. The building has ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant

... any force from attempting so impossible and foolhardy an exploit as the ascent of the high cliffs. The visitor to the historic places around Quebec will be deeply interested in a cove, just above Sillery, now known as Wolfe's Cove, but in old times as the Anse-au-Foulon. A zig-zag and difficult path led from this cove to the top of the height, and Wolfe conceived the hope that it was possible to gain access in this way to the table-land where he could best give battle to Montcalm. He saw that the cliff at this point was defended by only a small guard, under ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... broad steps to gain the choir, two or three to the high altar. To a large extent the old pavement remains, though almost worn-out by the footsteps of centuries. Priceless, though not composed of precious material, it gains its effect [112] by ingenuity and variety in the patterning, zig-zags, chequers, mazes, prevailing respectively, in white and grey, in great square, alternate spaces—the original floor of a medieval church for once untouched. The massive square bases of the pillars of a ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... ascents and descents. The greatest pitch is near the scene of the fight in which Lieutenant Davidson and his command were engaged, where the path, in order to avoid an almost perpendicular declivity, makes a zig zag course. To accomplish the ascent of this mountain on a good riding animal, it takes, at least, two hours; therefore, the height of the mountain can be easily imagined by those accustomed to mountain climbing. On reaching some of these immense ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... yet agitated fashion life went on through Lily's teens: a zig-zag broken course down which the family craft glided on a rapid current of amusement, tugged at by the underflow of a perpetual need—the need of more money. Lily could not recall the time when there had been money enough, and in some vague way her father ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... is in narrow slips, fenced by the customary snake fence, which is nothing more than slabs of trees split coarsely into rails, and set up lengthways in a zig-zag form to give them stability, with struts, or riders, at the angles, to bind them. These farms are about nine hundred feet in width, and four or five miles in depth, being the concessions or allotments made originally by the seigneurs to the censitaires, ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... thought had we for his troubles? WE WERE FREE! In lightning leaps, in curving spurts, in crazy zig-zags—whooping, shrieking with delight, we sped for home ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... cried Oliver, and the slow trudge, trudge was resumed in zig-zags, till Smith halted once more, and stood wiping his ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... stairs that led to her room, and take her seat at the window. Many combinations did those spikes upon the wall assume, many light shapes did the strong iron weave itself into, many golden touches fell upon the rust, while Little Dorrit sat there musing. New zig-zags sprung into the cruel pattern sometimes, when she saw it through a burst of tears; but beautified or hardened still, always over it and under it and through it, she was fain to look in her solitude, seeing everything with that ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... riding, working on a circle is called a volt; in angles, or a zig-zag direction, changes reverse; and on half a circle from a line, a demi-volt. These figures may first be performed separately; but there can be no objection to the demi-volt and changes reverse being afterwards embodied in the exercises on circles. ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous

... not come out, while we went round the church, and admired some good pictures remaining on its walls. The stillness of death prevailed in the town—a sort of unburied Pompeii through its narrow lanes, up and down zig-zag stairs cut in the rock, we sauntered alone, and the noise of our iron-shod heels on the pavement, was the only sound we heard. The rich abbey, it was evident, had formerly fed the town clustering round it, the inhabitants ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various

... land for any first-aid nor to pick up the casualty—excellent problem and demonstration. That oont[28] will simplify it, though. Look here—I'll drop down and land you by it, and then come here again and hover. You bring the beast up—you'll be able to ride most of the way if you zig-zag, and lead him most of the rest. Then you'll have to carry the casualty to the oont and bring ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... on deck, they found the schooner running rapidly up a broad river, between wide expanses of low salt-marshes, bounded by distant pine forests, and studded here and there with groups of cabbage palms. The channel was a regular zig-zag, and they ran now to one side and then far over to the other to escape the coral reefs and oyster bars with which it is filled. This occupied much time; but the breeze was fresh, and within an hour they had run eight miles up the river, and were passing the ruins ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe

... dingy Mausoleum of the genteel:—I rove round Regent's Park, where the plaster is patching off the house walls; where Methodist preachers are holding forth to three little children in the green inclosures, and puffy valetudinarians are cantering in the solitary mud:—I thread the doubtful ZIG-ZAGS of May Fair, where Mrs. Kitty Lorimer's Brougham may be seen drawn up next door to old Lady Lollipop's belozenged family coach;—I roam through Belgravia, that pale and polite district, where all the inhabitants look prim and correct, and the mansions are painted a faint whity-brown: I lose ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... down on this graceful plant, no blossoms are visible; but if we bend the zig-zagged stem backward, we shall discover the little rosy bells swaying from the base of the leaves on curved footstalks (streptos twisted, pous a foot or stalk) very much as the plant's relatives the Solomon's seals grow. In the confident expectation of having ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... but all interesting to the archaeologist and the artist. Such remains as those of the Merovingian crypt at Jouarre, and the various monuments of Provins, well repay the traveller who visits these places on purpose, whilst, as he zig-zags here and there, he will find many a village church of quaint exterior and rich Gothic decoration within. Fontainebleau, being generally included in a visit to Paris, I do not attempt to describe, but prefer to lead the traveller a little off the ordinary track, on which, indeed, he wants no ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... picked her way daintily and gave a cry of delight when after pushing a short distance into the thicket, she found an old rail fence apparently leading off in the direction she wished to go. She climbed it promptly and worked slowly along its zig zag course—a means of locomotion that was comfortingly safe, if somewhat slow. The pups complained over this desertion for they had to worm through the tangle of weeds and ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... of Nagano is slope. Hence its dependence on sericulture. The low stone-strewn roofs of the houses, the railway snow shelters and the zig-zag track which the train takes, hint at the climatic conditions in winter time. Despite the snow—ski-ing has been practised for some years—the summer climate of Nagano has been compared with that of Champagne and there is one vineyard of ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... swooped through Bailleul-aux-Hondains, zig-zagging from kerb to kerb. A speckly cock and his platoon of hens were out in midstream, souvenir-hunting. We took them in the rear before they had time to deploy and sent a cloud of fluff-fricassee sky-high. A Tommy was passing the time o' day with the Hebe of the Hotel des Trois Enfants, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various

... lifted; and then the blocks were cast into the tub, the knots untied themselves, and slipped elastically back into their places, and the serpents were momentarily at rest until the body bent again to another block. Out and in they flew, supple and silent, quick as lightning playing in the heavens; they zig-zagged and shot this way and that, tying and untying themselves, darting out and doubling back, advancing and retiring in rhythmic action, graceful and easy, powerful and inevitable. Bending and rising, the swaying bodies gleamed and glistened with greasy ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... the other, would ruin me for everlastingly. It ain't pleasant to have such a burr as that stick on to your tail, especially if you have no comb to get it off, is it? A politician is like a bee; he travels a zig-zag course every way, turnin' first to the right and then to the left, now makin' a dive at the wild honeysuckle, and then at the sweet briar; now at the buck-wheat blossom, and then at the rose; he is here ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... miles long. From Dir the road is a triumph of engineering. In many places it is carried on wooden galleries perched on the faces of steep and tremendous cliffs, and at others it works round spurs by astounding zig-zags, or is scarped from the mountain side. At the end of the road is Fort Chitral with a garrison of two battalions, one company of sappers, ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill

... but some young men had been using sacred things in a profane and unlawful way, when the occurrence, which was variously explained, took place. The story of the Appearance in the chamber was, I suppose, invented afterwards; but of the injury to the building there could be no question; and the zig-zag line, where the mortar is a little thicker than before, is still distinctly visible. The queer burnt spots, called the "Devil's footsteps," had never attracted attention before this time, though there is no evidence that they had not existed previously, except that of ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... themselves perfectly at Gibraltar; where there is marching and counter- marching, challenging and relieving guard all the night through. And not here in Commercial Square alone, but all over the huge Rock in the darkness—all through the mysterious zig-zags, and round the dark cannon-ball pyramids, and along the vast rock-galleries, and up to the topmost flagstaff, where the sentry can look out over two seas, poor fellows are marching and clapping muskets, and crying "All's Well," ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... breathlessly, peering into the dark interior whence there was borne to their nostrils a musty odor. A large bat whisked across the opening, and as they started back alarmed he returned with swift zig-zag cuts and vanished ghostlike ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... with Nature's curtains, formed of the long strands of small-leaved ivy; and there, if you liked, you could look down, to the left, upon a lovely garden, the mossy roofs of mill and house, all to the left; while to the right you looked up the zig-zag gorge with its closed-in, often perpendicular walls, to see the glancing waters of the stream, and far up, the great plunging fall, flashing with light when the sun was overhead, deep in shadow as it passed onward towards ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn

... road, disappearing into the roadside ditch. The motor car lurched around the curve in the road, zig-zagged past Miss Elting, then became a rolling ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge

... before now been obliged to reclaim on casks of mouldy mess-pork. At which Ocock ceased coddling his chin to point a straight forefinger at him, with a triumphant: "You see!"—But Purdy who, sick and tired of the discussion, had withdrawn to the window to watch the rain zig-zag in runlets down the dusty panes, and hiss and spatter on the sill; Purdy puckered his lips to a ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... of sight before he turned to take up, irresolutely, the trail that zig-zagged into the cedar brake. But once he had started he went ahead rapidly, jumping the wounded buck within five minutes and giving him no time to lie down again. And after he had covered a quarter of a mile Steve saw that it was much as he had ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... open in their round, golden circle, and it beat the air with its front limbs, using them as though they were hands. It reminded him of a toy made with straight slips of wood nailed zig-zag one on the other, which by a similar movement regulated the exercise of the little soldiers fastened thereon. Then he thought of his home and of his mother, and overcome by great sorrow he again began to weep. His limbs ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... to an honest man. Some of the traps were civil enough; aye, they felt the shame of their duty; but there were among them devils at heart, who enjoyed the fun, because their cupidity could not bear the sight of the zig-zag uninterrupted muster of piles of rich-looking washing stuff, and the envy which blinded their eyes prevented them from taking into account the overwhelming number of shicers close by, round about, all along. Hence ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... caravans, Hamed's, Hassan's, and my own, left Tura by a road which zig-zagged towards all points through the tall matama fields. In an hour's time we had passed Tura Perro, or Western Tura, and had entered the forest again, whence the Wakimbu of Tura obtain their honey, and where they excavate deep traps for the elephants with which the forest ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... with the rear guard of the camp coming a few miles behind them. And, indeed, if such an idea had entered the heads of any of the party it must soon have fled before the difficulty of getting along at all. It was a steep zig-zag path, and looking upwards you could see it zigging and zagging right away to the sky line. Poor Foster-mother, who came last, could not take her eyes off it, for the bends immediately above her were filled with the most terrifying sights. First her stout husband, who seemed ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel

... suffering from a bad attack of yaws) propelled the craft from her forward part in erratic zig-zags; amidships sat Captain Kettle in a Madeira chair under a green-lined white umbrella; and behind him squatted his personal attendant, a Krooboy, bearing the fine old Coast name of Brass Pan. The crushed marigold smell from the river closed them in, and the banks crept ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... but black spots danced before his eyes, and Helen's beautiful clear writing zig-zagged up ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay

... like your humble servan', Poor wights! nae rules nor roads observin, To right or left eternal swervin, They zig-zag on; Till, curst with age, obscure ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... Hospenthal is much the same distance as from Hyde Park Corner to the Oxford Street end of Tottenham Court Road. From Hospenthal to the hospice on the top of the pass is about equal to the space between Tottenham Court Road and Bow; and from Bow you must go down three thousand feet of zig- zags into Stratford, for Airolo. I have made the deviation from the straight line about the same in one case as in the other; in each, the direct distance is nine and a half miles. The whole distance from Fluelen, on the Lake of Lucerne, to Biasca, ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... one who travels through the Highlands must be painfully conscious of, has been trees shapeless and crooked, giving no shelter, and unpleasing in view. A ludicrous illustration of this may be seen from the Highland Railway between Forres and Dunphail, the larches having grown up zig-zag, according as the several winds happened to prevail. It is well known that no regular plantation can in beauty equal a natural one. There is too much stiffness and form, but the man of taste will avoid straight lines, and utilize the undulations ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various

... heat and dirt below, the steamer steadily plowed its way up stream, meeting with no vessel bound down, or even a drifting barge; nor did I perceive the slightest sign of any settlement along the banks. Our course ran zig-zag from shore to shore in an endeavor to follow the main channel, and progress was slow, the wheelsman evidently not being well acquainted with the stream. The cry of a leadsman forward was almost constant. ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... rigidly-waxed mustaches and regarding the warm beauty of their countrywomen through keen, appreciative eyes, not untinged with sensuousness. Here and there a common hombre in short jacket, wide, low-crowned sombrero and red sash, zig-zagged through the pleasure-seekers to cut into a darker side street whence drifted pungent whiffs of garlic, black olives and peppers from the stalls of the street salad-venders. Occasionally a Moor in fez and wide-bagging ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... storehouse. M. De la Rue regards it as being not only the oldest architectural relic in Caen, but as an erection of the tenth century. He founds this opinion upon its construction, destitute of any tower; upon the circular arches of its door and windows; upon its zig-zag mouldings; upon the monsters of its corbel-table; and, above all, upon the peculiarity of its position; the choir being turned to the west, and the front to the east. It was, according to him, in the eleventh century, ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... of Dolores, by judicious zig-zagging, and by glow and painful advances, we finally reached the viga,—the mules thoroughly blown, but the Teniente and the instruments safe. The latter were speedily set up, and the observations, which were to exercise so important an influence as a basis for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... was ordered to relieve a number of men who had been a good many hours in the trenches, and just as the shadows of evening were falling they crept along the Potijze Road towards the communication trench. An hour later Tom had taken up his post in the zig-zag cutting with a feeling that something of importance was ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking

... in the arched heads of doorways. A common feature was the arcade running round the walls below the windows, either in the exterior, interior, or both; the caps and arches are generally carved elaborately and richly with ornaments, the chevron or zig-zag enrichment being a characteristic feature. The windows are always single and ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story

... having been burnt. A very thorough restoration has given the building a rather new aspect, but this does not detract from the interest of the church. The chancel arch is richly ornamented with two patterns of zig-zag work, the south door of the nave has a peculiar decoration of double beak-heads, and though some of the early windows have been replaced by lancets, a few of the ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home

... his tail with a firm grasp and follow. When he moved rapidly, I was helped up the mountain. When he slackened his pace, then came the resting spell. The engineering instinct of the horse tells him how to reduce grades by angles, and Bobby led me up the mountains in zig-zag courses, I following always with the firm grasp of the tail that meant we would not part company, ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... Courfeyrac, and Combeferre were among those who had taken to the Rue Bassompierre, shouting: "To the barricades!" In the Rue Lesdiguieres they had met an old man walking along. What had attracted their attention was that the goodman was walking in a zig-zag, as though he were intoxicated. Moreover, he had his hat in his hand, although it had been raining all the morning, and was raining pretty briskly at the very time. Courfeyrac had recognized Father Mabeuf. He knew him through having many times accompanied ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... once put his nose down close to the ground and began to run all over the place. Up and down he went, back and forth—zig-zagging, twisting, doubling and turning. And everywhere he went, the Doctor ran behind him, close at his heels—till he was terribly ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... had ceased to love him, and he had persecuted her for a long while with supplication. "She is at one with herself always," he said, and he tried to understand her. "She is one of those whose course through life is straight, and not zig-zag, as mine is." He liked to see her turn and look at the baby, and he said, "That love is the permanent and original element of things, it is the universal substance;" and he could trace Ellen's love ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... walked back to Melrose on the east side of the Tweed. Lost the footpath, and for two hours clambered up and down the precipitous cliffs that rise high and abrupt from the river. In many places the zig-zag path was cut into the rock, hardly a foot in breadth, overhanging a precipice which a person of weak nerves could hardly face with composure. At last got out of these dark fastnesses and ascended a range of lofty hills where I found a good carriage road. This elevation commanded the most magnificent ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... difficulty, for the rain had flattened out the prints. At one point he halted and considered. "That's queer," he muttered. "Jim was running here. It wasn't game, neither, for there's no sign of their tracks." He pointed to the zig-zag of moccasin prints in a patch of gravel. "That's the way a man sets his feet when he's in ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... strange procession met their eyes unawares, coming down the zig-zag path that led from the hills to the shore of the lagoon, where their huts were situated. At its head marched two men—tall, straight, and supple—wearing huge feather masks over their faces, and beating tom-toms, decorated with long strings of shiny cowries. After them, in order, ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... was a golden haze under a metal blue sky; afar to the east, sharp edges of the mountains cut purple zig-zags into the salmon pink of the horizon. The rolling waves of the ranges were bathed in a sea of rest, and now and then a bird on the mesquite along an arroya, or resting on branch of flaring occotilla would give out the foreboding call of the long shadows, for the heart ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan

... pewter plate, On the grey disk of the unrippling sea, Beneath an airless, sullen sky of slate Dazzled destroyers zig-zag restlessly, While underneath the sleek and livid tide, Blind monsters nosing through the soundless deep, Lean submarines among blind fishes glide And through ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... gorgeous palaces, had crumbled into ruins, and stars twinkled among their shattered and darkened walls. The moon burned icily above the eastern hills. The nightingales (or John was no true prophet) sang better than they had ever sung before, while bats, hither, thither, flew in startling zig-zags, as if waltzing to the music. And all the air was sweet with the breath ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland

... the sound of Punch, in the old show of “Punch and Judy,” which I think comes nearer to my own interpretation. The body of this bird is in colour a mixture of grey and brown, but its tail and wings are most beautifully marked with dark zig-zag bars, which make it very handsome. In size it is between the blackbird and the lark. Like the woodpecker, it has a very long tongue, which is covered with a glutinous matter, and which it inserts into the grass roots or tree bark, in search of ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... that you're mad. (Cheering outside.) Do you hear them cheering him in the zig-zags of the road? Aren't you after saying that your son's a fool, and how would they be cheering a true ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge

... trees, about twenty feet above the ground, and ran in a zig-zag direction through the woods. It had evidently been put up by men not familiar with the telephone business, for no attempt had been made to go in a straight line, and, in some places the porcelain insulators were carelessly fastened to the trees. ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman

... they reach the goal than two others start off, and thus for two hours, until the sum of victories gained by individuals entitles one party or the other to claim success. The race decided, the runners range themselves in two facing lines, and, preceded by the drum, begin a slow zig-zag march. ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... continual turns, (of which I counted not less than sixty-five) is difficult and embarrassing to any but a crane-necked carriage; though in no place could an overturn produce worse consequence than a roll of a few yards. The distance may be abridged on foot, either by crossing the zig-zags, or by taking the summer path to the right through a fine range of Alpine pasture, which exhibits a profusion of hardy flowers growing up to the edge of the snow-drifts: amongst many others, whose names ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes

... was to carry them to the South Sea King at this moment started nosing into the dock, on a turbulent zig-zag across the harbour; and the men forgot their quarrelling. It brought up at the foot of ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... out on the ant-hill street Rachel covered her face with her hands. When she removed them she caught a glimpse of the figure of Hazlitt walking as if it were a blind man in zig-zags ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... bound by the exaggerated zig-zags of the road, which had been built for artillery, and rose at an easy slope. I went along the bed of the dell before me and took the forest by a little path that led straight upward, and when the path failed, my way was marked ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... lay, I looked whither he pointed, and saw one that ran towards us, yet in mighty strange fashion, reeling in wide zig-zags like a drunken man; and sometimes he checked, only to come on again, and sometimes he fell, only ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... character for storms; Antaichahua is one of the places to which this sort of fearful celebrity belongs. For hours together flash follows flash, painting blood-red cataracts on the naked precipices. The forked lightning darts its zig-zag flashes on the mountain-tops, or, running along the ground, imprints deep furrows in its course; whilst the atmosphere quivers amidst uninterrupted peals of thunder, repeated a thousandfold by the mountain echoes. The traveller, overtaken by these ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... cette espece de montagne qui me persuada la premiere que toutes les montagnes n'avoient pas une meme origine. Le lieu ou j'abjurai mon erreur, etoit un de ces grands chantiers petrifies, qui, par la variete du tortillement, et des zig-zags des fibres du moellon qui le composoit, attira singulierement mon attention. C'etoit un sort grand talus qui venoit d'une face escarpee; j'y montai pour m'approcher du rocher, et je remarquai, avec etonnement, ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton

... his gun in the hollow of his arm and the red setter dog at his heels, crawled forth from the pigsty, looked round as if to make certain he was not watched, and followed the white figure of the girl as she glided up the zig-zag path in the direction of the haughs which formed ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... we zig-zagged from side to side of the river, which at the cataracts is generally nearly a quarter of a mile broad, and in the calmer stretches widens out to half ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... C. Worcester Views of the Benguet Road Working on the Benguet Road Padre Juan Villaverde Benguet Road, Zig-zag Tree Fern, Province of Bontok Ilongot Women Native Policemen Reception Committee of Ifugaos Mountain Scene in the Ifugao Country Mountain Scene between Benawe and Kiangan Inaba, Ifugao Village Ifugao Couple with Adornments of a Wedding Ceremony Ifugao Children ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox

... all as steep as it is here. I believe we might sort of zig-zag down if we were careful. You hold on here just as you are; I'm going to see what it looks ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... about a quarter of a mile, when the float suddenly dipt. My brother and Hall threw the loose coil of ropes they carried on the water, along with the inflated skins. These made it soon evident by their motion that the Mugger had seized the kid. He was dashing across, in a zig-zag direction, down the stream. I ran after him as fast as I could; and paying out the cord from the reel, when I found it impossible to keep up with him. On reaching a place where the banks were steeper than usual, he came to a stand ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... until he reached the goal. There was a great shout that echoed over the earth, but in the heavens there was muttering and grumbling. The referee declared that the winner would live to a good old age, and Zig-Zag Fire promised to come at his call. He was indeed great ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... going very slowly for fear of striking something, zig-zagging meanwhile to avoid snags. As a result they lost direction altogether, and could no longer say which way the river lay. Darkness and water everywhere! The submerged orange-trees, all alike, formed complicated ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... parties were thrown out to scour the woods, right and left. This duty was performed by companies of the Queen's Own. Proceeding in this order for some distance, a volley was fired upon our advancing men from behind the zig-zag fences in the open. Our volunteers accepted the ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... appeared to him that there were two figures away down there, crossing the burn at the foot; and then one of them, in gray—unmistakably the fisher-maiden herself—began the ascent. How she managed to obtain a footing he could not make out; for the path was no path, but merely a zig-zag track on the surface of the loose shingle—shingle so loose that he could see it yield to her every step, while the debris rolled away down to the bed of the burn. But still she fought her way upward, and at last she stood face to face with him, ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... tenderness she attempted to straighten out one leg which was doubled beneath him, but he moaned and sighed so that she desisted, seeing from the limp way that it lay that it was broken. He had evidently fallen on his back; and like a dagger zig-zagging its way through her heart was the thought, "What if that, ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... for any distance, and in the long stretches of road one could see half a mile behind or before. Hewitt was cool and patient, but I got into a fever of worry, excitement, want of breath, and back-ache. At first, for a little, the road zig-zagged, and then the chase was comparatively easy. We waited behind one bend till Wilks had passed the next, and then hurried in his trail, treading in the dustiest parts of the road or on the side grass, when there was any, to deaden the sound of ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... winds along valleys and through pass after pass; and now and then a long zig-zag brings us out of a valley, up to a higher level. The air grows cooler, we are rapidly changing our climate, and afternoon finds us in the region of the sugar-cane and the coffee-plant. We pass immense green cane-fields, protected from the visits of passing muleteers and peasants by ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... with a small stream running along the bottom, the amount of water depending on the melting of the snow in the hills above. There are two places to cross it, one the regular road to Chitral, which zig-zags down the nullah near the mouth, and the other a goat track about half-way between the road and the hills. Both of these had sangars covering their approach on the enemy's side of the nullah, and any attempt to rush them ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon

... by Chopin to avoid the zig-zags of life, to eliminate from it all that was useless, to prevent its crumbling into masses without form, has deprived his own course of incident. The vague lines and indications surrounding his figure like misty clouds, disappear under the touch which would strive to follow or trace their ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... the island is slightly undulating, with the exception of a mountain range which traverses it from east to west, running through nearly its whole length in a zig-zag course, and on the average about twenty-five miles distant ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall

... Wee-zig-yik-keseyook. "Of old times." Far back in the forest, by a brook, dwelt two young men, Abistanooch, the Marten, and Team, the Moose. Of these each had a wigwam, and therewith a grandmother who kept house. And Team hunted and worked industriously, but Master Marten ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... with a large force, marched into the city from Zag-a-zig. He was met with acclamation by the entire populace, and received from the officer in command of the party to which our hero belonged the surrender of Arabi and Toulba Pashas; thus the war of rebellion, ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld

... and white magpie, or mysterious moth-like goatsucker, or tropical kingfisher—more interesting to watch. At twilight I had lingered at the woodside, also in other likely places, and the goatsucker had failed to appear, gliding and zig-zagging hither and thither on his dusky-mottled noiseless wings, and now this still heavier disappointment was mine. I could not find the wryneck. Those quiet grassy orchards, shut in by straggling hedges, should have had him as a favoured summer guest. Creeper and nuthatch, and ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... they passed became every day more and more rugged, until at length it assumed the character of a wild mountainous district. Sometimes they wound their way in a zig-zag manner up the mountain sides, by paths so narrow that they could scarcely find a foot-hold. At other times they descended into narrow valleys where they saw great numbers of wild animals of various kinds, ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne

... came down in torrents, the thunder echoed clap on clap, each detonation preceded by an awful zig-zag of fire. The tempest grew in fury, and, scarce able to ride on the shifting wind, the plaintive voices of the ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... than any boat in water. Indeed, obedience was instantaneous. She whirled round as quickly as one could turn one's hand, requiring promptness and presence of mind in the steersman. Thus, like a bird, with smooth and equable motion, she flew with her delighted passengers, in many a zig-zag, down the Severn, until they had gone as far as desired, when round she spun, and before the breeze, houses, and men, and trees, gliding by as in a race, dashed ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... seemed to regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant. I called down to him, "All right!" and made for that point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough zig-zag descending path notched ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... both uneven and slippery. Moreover Dieppe had not allowed enough for the courage of the natives in the matter of gradients. The road, in fact, belied its cautious appearance. After three or four plausible zig-zags, it turned to rash courses and ran headlong down to the ford—true, it had excuse in the necessity of striking this spot—on a slope hardly less steep than that down which the Captain himself was painfully ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... evening advanced. All at once he heard behind him the galloping of horses, and turning round he counted seven cavaliers, of whom four had muskets on their shoulders. They gained rapidly on Chicot, who, seeing flight was hopeless, contented himself with making his horse move in zig-zags, so as to escape the balls which he expected every moment. He was right, for when they came about fifty feet from him, they fired, but thanks to his maneuver, all the balls missed him. He immediately abandoned the reins and let himself slip to the ground, taking the precaution to have ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... moment to be zig-zagging only a dozen feet or so away, when from the empty air above, as if created on the instant out of nothingness, dropped a noiseless, shadowy shape of wings. It seemed to catch the eccentric little flutterer fairly. But it didn't—for the bat was a marvelous adept at dodging. With a lightning ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts

... response to Lord Hastings' command, but the result was always the same. As long as the pursued continued to zig-zag there was little hope of a ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake

... "Go zig-zag. You'll never get to the top this way," called Tad. "You know how a switchback railroad works? Well, go as nearly like ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin

... a labyrinth of narrow, meandering lanes, and zig-zagging backwards and forwards through all kinds of gardens and rookeries, Halil Patrona arrived at last at ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai

... looked like being real Nicholls-and-Jackson stuff, but, fortunately, a quick zig on my part, coinciding with an adroit zag on the part of the pig, enabled me to win through, and I continued my ride safe, but with the heart fluttering ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... was still "charminger." There seemed no end to the little up-and-down paths and alleys, leading to rustic seats and quaint arbours; no limits to the little pine-wood, down into which led the dearest little zig-zaggy path you ever saw, all bordered with snow-drops and primroses and violets, and later on with periwinkles, and wood anemones, and those bright, starry, white flowers, whose name no ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth

... stream pouring out from the castle gates and running down the steep causeway which zig-zags to the bottom of the hill. A stream of men in uniform, by their square crowned shakos and other insignia, recognisable as Lancers. They had neither weapons nor horses with them; but both, as Rivas knew, would be at the ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... later they rested their horses on the divide. To the west lay Malapi and the plains. Eastward were the heaven-pricking peaks. A long, bright line zig-zagged across the desert and reflected the sun rays. It was the bed of the new road already ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine

... church that preceded the Norman. The first one was of wood, and was totally destroyed. The Saxon remains are a fragment of stone staircase and a piece of wall built in the ancient herring-bone fashion. The Norman remains are four clustered columns, embellished in the zig-zag style. There is not much of commemorative statuary at York, and what there is of it was placed chiefly ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... indeed, the prospect was anything but inviting. On both sides of the creek the soil showed evidences of the severity of the past drought. Great gaping fissures—usun cracks we called them—traversed and zig-zagged the hot, parching ground, on which not a blade of grass was to be seen. Here and there, amid the grey-barked ghostly gums, were oases of green—thickets of stunted sandalwood whose evergreen leaves defied alike the torrid summer heat and the black ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke

... conversation, either by him or me, through the whole week. When the appointed night came, I said to Charley as soon as I was alone, "Go and knock at Mr. Jarndyce's door, Charley, and say you have come from me—'for the letter.'" Charley went up the stairs, and down the stairs, and along the passages—the zig- zag way about the old-fashioned house seemed very long in my listening ears that night—and so came back, along the passages, and down the stairs, and up the stairs, and brought the letter. "Lay it on the table, Charley," said I. So Charley ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... a little irregular yellow staining behind the design. Back fold of apron and fringe stained yellow. 39 6 Background of design (except fringe part) unstained, but back fold of apron and fringe stained yellow. 40 7 Background of upper (zig-zag) part of design unstained, but that of lower (rectangular) part and whole of back fold of apron and fringe stained yellow. 41 10 1/2 Faintly tinted broad horizontal and vertical lines and triangles in figure ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson

... of applause. A little thrill seemed to have found its way, like zig-zag lightning, here and there amongst them. But there were many who sat and smoked in stolid silence. Maraton looked into their faces and sighed to himself. There were too many ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... shut us in; and as the train zig-zagged through jungle and forest and river-valley—stopping now and then to drink deeply at magnificent rivers ablaze with water-lilies—it almost seemed as though it were some kindly Mammoth creature, wandering at ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... clever enough to try to fool anyone who got on to their signalling. They would know what everyone would think — that they would be sending their messages to the East coast, because that is nearest to Germany. That's why they put their first station here. I'll bet they send the flashes zig-zagging all around, but that we'll find they all get east gradually. Now we'll circle around this one until we find out in what direction it is flashing, then we'll know what line we must follow. After that all we've got to do is to ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston

... about "true Westerner;" and, springing out, she had gone scrambling up the slope avoiding delay of the zig-zag by climbing ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... forms of matter, until finally the Absolute Idea is again realized in the Hegelian philosophy. According to Hegel, the dialectic development apparent in nature and history, that is a causative, connected progression from the lower to the higher, in spite of all zig-zag movements and momentary setbacks, is only the stereotype of the self-progression of the Idea from eternity, whither one does not know, but independent at all events of the thought of any human brain. This topsy-turvy ideology had to be put aside. We conceived of ideas as ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels

... of them is fit to be made the exclusive, all-embracing purpose of a life, and, taken together, they are so multifarious that in their diversity they come to be equal to none. How many we have all had! Most of us are like men who zig-zag about, chasing after butterflies! Nor are any such aims certain to be reached during life, and they all are certain ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... your humble servan', Poor wights! nae rules nor roads observin'; To right or left, eternal swervin', They zig-zag on; 'Till curst with age, obscure an' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... of flints, but little higher than the roof. In it is only one bell, inscribed 1759. The entrance into the church on the N. side is through a circular Saxon arch, not much ornamented. On the side is another of the same description, but more ornamented, with zig-zag moulding, &c." Then follow the inscriptions, &c. in the chancel, of Mrs. Elizabeth Brown, John Brown, Thomas Brown; in the nave, of Henry Keable, with extracts from the parish register ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various

... up the mountain side. Before they had taken many steps they were agreeably surprised to find a broad and easy path that followed a zig-zag course toward the summit. ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon

... partaking of some refreshment, we seated ourselves; and, with fresh lamentations, he began to tell me that the grey withered old man whom he had met with my shadow had insensibly led him such a zig-zag race, that he had lost all traces of me, and at last sank down exhausted with fatigue; that, unable to find me, he had returned home, when, shortly after the mob, at Rascal's instigation, assembled violently before the house, ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.

... Closmadeuc, and his opinion should carry weight, thinks that when the Gavr'innis monument was erected the island was connected with the mainland. Three of the supports, forming the walls of the crypt, and all those of the gallery are covered with chevrons or zig-zag ornaments, circles, lozenges, and scrolls of which Fig. 68 will give some idea, and which Merimee compares to the tatooing of the inhabitants of New Zealand. Megalithic monuments of Ireland and certain stones in Northumberland are ornamented ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... and sale of the staple engrossed no less of the people's thought than of their work. A traveler who made a zig-zag journey from Charleston to St. Louis in the early months of 1827, found cotton "a plague." At Charleston, said he, the wharves were stacked and the stores and ships packed with the bales, and the four daily papers and all the patrons ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... be so good!' she answered, feeling a diffidence which was new to her. At that moment the crowd carrying the senseless man began to appear over the cliff, coming up the zig-zag. The Doctor hurried towards him; she followed at a little distance, fearing lest she should hamper him. Under his orders they laid the patient on the weather side of the bonfire so that the smoke would not reach him. The ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... of the little crippled girl already ensconced in the tonneau a single flash of light went zig-zagging crookedly from brow to chin,—and was gone again. "Hello, Fat Father!" piped the shrill little voice. "Hello,—Fat Father!" Yet so subtly was the phrase mouthed, to save your soul you could not have proved just where the greeting ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... particular account. The meeting was to be held on the 15th, and by the morning of the 13th I had reached a place called Wargrave, on the Thames. There I hired a light canoe, and thence proceeded down the river in a somewhat zig-zag manner, narrowly examining the banks on either side, and keeping a sharp out-look for some board, or sign, or house, that would seem to betoken any sort of connection with the word "Aesopi." In this way I passed a fruitless ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel

... the south of England, but is usually a migrating bird, arriving during the first moon in November; it is not difficult to shoot when it first rises, but when steam is really up and it is zig-zagging between the branches of an oak, it takes a good shot to make sure of it. I shall never forget the first woodcock I shot as a boy; it was a thick misty day in November, I fired, and though I felt certain I had not missed, the smoke hung and the ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... "when a voice or a passage of music sounds or is sung before a phonograph, its modulations received upon the diaphragm are written by the needle point upon the surface of the cylinder or disc in a series of fine waving or zig- zag lines of ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... continual loud crepitation, as if a multitude of iron-shod elves were dancing on it. The thunder crashed, roared, reverberated, like the toppling of great edifices. The lightning tore through the black cloud-canopy in long blinding zig-zags. The wind moaned, howled, hooted—and the square chamber where Peter stood shook and rattled under its buffetings, and was full of the chill and the smell of it. Really the whole thing ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... child she had lain and listened to them. Then she noticed that the autumn shadows seemed to make the river darker than the shadows of spring—or was it already the stain of dead leaves? Hale could have told her. Those leaves were floating through the shadows and when the wind moved, others zig-zagged softly down to join them. The wind was helping them on the water, too, and along came one brown leaf that was shaped like a tiny trireme—its stem acting like a rudder and keeping it straight before the breeze—so that ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... Zig-zagging it went On the line of the farm, And the trouble it caused Was often quite warm, |The old line fence|. It was changed every year By decree of the court, To which, when worn out, Our sires ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... bombarded by the British fleet and taken. It was then supposed to be impregnable. It lies at the head of a loch some fifteen miles long, and in some parts but a few hundred yards wide, in a trough between mountains. From Cattaro, at the head of the loch, a zig-zag road leads up the mountain side over the frontier ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell

... account of the resemblance which her lameness made her bear to the letter [Greek: l], or lambda! AEsop was called Theta by his master, from his superior acuteness. Another was called Beta, from his love of beet. It was thus Scarron, with infinite good temper, alluded to his zig-zag body, by comparing himself to the letter ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... and casting patterns of deep shade upon the earth in sharp contrast with the intense yellow sunlight which fringed them where the leafage ceased. An attempt had been made to create formal garden paths and garden beds by sticking rushes into little holes drilled in the ground, but the paths were zig-zag as a drunkard's walk, and the round and oblong beds contained no trace of plants. On either hand rose steep walls of earth, higher than a man, and crowned with prickly thorn bushes. Over them looked ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... a narrow path of zig-zags, veering alternately towards Acre or Tiberias, although those towns were soon concealed by intervening hills; the plain below was a large dark patch of ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... coast, by help of a hoop passing round the tree and the body of the climber—and a ligature so connecting the feet as will enable him to clasp the tree with them—the Malays cut deep notches or steps in the trunk, in a zig-zag manner, sufficient to support the toes or the side of the foot, and thus ascend with the extra, aid only of their arms. This mode is also a dangerous one, as a false step, when near the top of a high tree, generally precipitates the climber to the ground. This notching ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... informed that it was Nagy, about forty miles above Buda Pesth. Here he got some refreshments and started on his last run. A few miles below he saw a very high mountain, surmounted by a cross, up which ran a zig-zag road. At each bend of this road was erected a grotto containing some scene from the Passion of Our Lord. This Way of the Cross is a celebrated place of devotion to the pious people of Buda Pesth. As he passed the mountain he saluted a party of ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... the steep siding from the main road to a track in the bed of the Long Gully, the old grey horse picking his way zig-zag fashion. She was about seventeen, slight in figure, and had a pretty freckled face with a pathetically drooping mouth, and big sad brown eyes. She wore a faded print dress, with an old black riding skirt ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson



Words linked to "Zig" :   angularity, angular shape



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