Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Zigzag   /zˈɪgzæg/   Listen
Zigzag

adjective
1.
Having short sharp turns or angles.  Synonym: zig-zag.



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Zigzag" Quotes from Famous Books



... afterwards a gap of a foot or more may be seen between each. When the floes are pressed together it is difficult and sometimes impossible to force a way through, but when there is release of pressure the sum of many little gaps allows one to take a zigzag path.' ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... in the kitchen, but the rays of the uplifted candle showed a zigzag crack on the wall ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith

... more; I know the rest," Saunders said, under his breath. "I congratulate you. I congratulate you with all my heart." He held out his hand, but Mostyn warded it off, his cigar cutting red zigzag lines in ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... the History of Louisiana has his recollection recalled to the reigns of Charles VIII. in France; of Henry VII. of England; and Ferdinand and Isabella, of course; with notices of various movements in those countries in their several reigns. The second chapter is got up in the same manner, taking a zigzag course over our continent, north, south, east, and west, with occasional excursions to Europe to keep up the variety. This procedure often produces an assemblage of events, as we have said, on the same page, rather startling to ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... and while some cleared off the woods and sowed turnip-seed, others cut a zigzag road up the height, and others built two forts, one at the summit, and one on the shore below. The forts finished, the Vicomte de Beaupre took command, while Cartier went with two boats to explore the rapids ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... God coming over the narrow zigzag path that led across a Shetland peat moss. Swiftly and surely he stepped. Bottomless bogs of black peat-water were on each side of him, but he had neither fear nor hesitation. He walked like one who knew his way was ordered, and when the moss was passed, he pursued his journey over the ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... the buttery made when the inductive effect was required; but as the particular action might be supposed to be exerted only at the moments of making and breaking contact, the induction was produced in another way. Several feet of copper wire were stretched in wide zigzag forms, representing the letter W, on one surface of a broad board; a second wire was stretched in precisely similar forms on a second board, so that when brought near the first, the wires should everywhere ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... still Eleanor waits on the verandah, with widely-opened eyes, staring along the zigzag path by which Carol rode away. She remembers he turned back to look at her three times, kissing his hand twice. What can have detained him? Surely he knows ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... to pay in occasional panics for the serenity Consult the family means—waste your time Convictions are generally first impressions Country can go on very well without so much speech-making Crazy zigzag of policy in almost every stroke (of history) Dialectical stiffness Effort to be reticent concerning Nevil, and communicative Give our consciences to the keeping of the parsons Hates a compromise Man owes a duty ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger

... a perfect perpendicular detached mass of rock, half round which rushed a mountain torrent, the approach being a very steep zigzag with now ruinous defences, a very steep and difficult ascent. It is true from a low entranced cave at the foot a secret stair led up from the garden, of which I shall have more to say in relating some incidents of the Count's earlier history, as confessed ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... some eight rods of the game, we lay perfectly quiet for a moment, when his rifle spoke out and its voice rung and re-echoed among the surrounding hills as if a whole platoon of musketry were blazing all around us. The deer made three or four desperate leaps in a zigzag direction, and then went down. When we got to him, he was dead. He was a fine two year old buck, with spike horns, and in excellent condition. We took his saddle and skin and ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... the ruin'd shrine he stept, And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang Shrill, chill with flakes of foam. He, stepping down By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, Came on the shining levels ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson

... a better path for you up the hill," he said; "I must speak to Sam Wright about it." And carefully he flung the noiseless zigzag of light back and forth in front of her, and told some more stories that he ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... work is attended to, knows a great deal less. Tobacco, cotton, rice, hemp, indigo, the improvement in Indian corn, and many other important products, are all the result of African skill and labor in this country. And the introduction of the zigzag, or "Virginia Worm Fence," is purely of African origin. Nor was their skill as herdsmen inferior to their other attainments, being among the most accomplished trainers and horsemen in the world. Indeed, to this class of men may be indebted the entire ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany

... gossiping, sauntering about, or comparing their guns and other weapons. Their women, heavily laden, and square in figure, were transacting the real business of the market. Amid the throng I looked out for some special friends of mine, and soon espied them driving their mule down the zigzag road. "O Laurie," said I, "yonder is the group I want to introduce to you; look at my pretty peasant-wife Spira, and Basil her husband; is he not a grand specimen? six feet three, and so broad-shouldered, and such a frank ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... eastern Massachusetts, specially on buttercups and dandelions, and providentially on potatoes, looks down on no greener fields in these days than it saw in the spring of 1775, fenced in and fenced off by the zigzag snake-fences of 'Zekiel ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... light—ominously—grey with a tinge of yellow in its depths. Uncle William hurried down the face of the cliff, a telescope in his hand. Now and then he paused on the zigzag path and swept the bay with it. The ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee

... a leisurely circuit of the two sides of the principal square, was now beginning the ascent of the steep zigzag road to the Palace, which stood on the terraced height of the plateau that commanded the city. The party in the coach caught glimpses of its massive but ornate towers with fantastic spires and turrets, and its ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... gulf between. We turned to the left along the edge of the rock, and so by a narrow path reached and crossed to the other side of the isthmus. We then found that the path led to the foot of the rock, formerly island, of the keep, and thence in a zigzag up the face of it to the top. We followed it, and after a great climb reached a door in a modern battlement. Entering, we found ourselves amidst grass, and ruins haggard with age. We turned and surveyed the path by which we had come. It was steep and somewhat difficult. ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... main road, and had not been visited by any of the troop—as the major had ascertained before starting. The account was not reassuring. The guide reported that it stood on a rock, which rose perpendicularly some eighty or a hundred feet from the plain; the only access being by a zigzag road cut in the face of the cliff, with a gateway defended by a gun, and loopholed walls at each turn, and with a very strong wall all round the edge of the rock. The garrison, they had learned from the persons at the farm, was some three hundred strong, the ordinary number of retainers ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... sign of Helena. He strode along, singing to himself, and spinning his towel rhythmically. A small path led him across a field and down a zigzag in front of the cliffs. Some nooks, sheltered from the wind, were warm with sunshine, scented of honeysuckle and of thyme. He took a sprig of woodbine that was coloured of cream and butter. The grass wetted his brown shoes and ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... beds made of round poles. The night was piercingly cold. The wished-for morning came at last, and long before the sun looked over the mountains we were on our march. It was the same terrible road, running zigzag, or "quingo" fashion, up to Camino Real, where it was suddenly converted ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... more or less patterned. The rosette and the band here too constituted the chief resource of the artist, who, however, often introduced with good effect other well-known ornaments, as the guilloche, the boss and cross, the zigzag, etc. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... broken down by Monk's soldiers during the civil war, and had never been replaced, therefore presented no obstacle to Bothwell and his party. The avenue, very steep and narrow, and causewayed with large round stones, ascended the side of the precipitous bank in an oblique and zigzag course, now showing now hiding a view of the tower and its exterior bulwarks, which seemed to rise almost perpendicularly above their heads. The fragments of Gothic defences which it exhibited were upon such a scale of strength, as induced Bothwell to exclaim, "It's well this place ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... the very miserableness of the cornstalks with their disheveled blades hanging like tattered banners and rattling discordantly in the rising wind. Wandering without purpose, Ralph followed the rows of stalks first one way and then the other in a zigzag line, turning a right angle every minute or two. At last he came out in a woods mostly of beech, and he pleased his melancholy fancy by kicking the dry and silky leaves before him in billows, while the soughing of the wind through the long, vibrant boughs and slender twigs of ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston

... All the rough-scuff of the countryside promptly gathered there, and elbowed, with equal indifference, the honest miner, the less honest saloon-keeper, and the capitalist, the degree of whose claim to that laudatory adjective was not to be so easily fixed. No one seemed out of place in the crazy, zigzag streets, no sound seemed foreign to this new, conglomerate atmosphere. The fluent profanity of the mule-driver, the shrill laugh of the dance-hall; the prolonged rattle and final roar of the ore-chute, the steady pick of the laborer at the prospect-hole;—each played its part to burden ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... gazed down so far that all things on the sea level had shrunk into nothingness, and the big warship we had seen in coming was no larger than a beetle, we gazed still farther up to the line where sky and mountain met. And always, there were the grey-white, zigzag lines scored on the ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... lay over the river and the three-hundred-foot abrupt hills on the far side. Had they been able to make out the tops of these hills, they would have seen a few poplar trees. A steep brown road that started from the end of a ferry and mounted zigzag into the fog, was the beginning of a trail that at once passed into a desolate wilderness. They were within sight of the endless untraveled land that reached, unbroken by ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler

... of one, two, or three lines of shelter-trenches lying parallel, measuring twenty or twenty-five inches in width, and varying in length according to the number they hold; the trenches were joined together by zigzag approaches and by a line of reinforced trenches (armed with machine guns), which were almost completely proof against rifle, machine gun, or gun fire. The ordinary German trenches were almost invisible from 350 yards away, a distance which permitted ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... Lacerated or torn wounds.—There is not so much bleeding in these cases as in clean cuts, because the blood-vessels are torn across in a zigzag manner, and not divided straight across. In other respects, however, they are more serious than ordinary cuts, being often followed by inflammation, mortification, fever, and in some cases by locked-jaw. Foreign substances are also more likely to remain in them.—Treatment. Stop ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... now steered this way and that, sometimes backed, and then sent forward again. After about an hour of this zigzag work Mr. Gibbs ordered the ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton

... the lead, piloting over party after party in safety. Arriving on the shore, they found a bold perpendicular bluff several hundred feet high confronting them. Pursuing a zigzag trail around the eminence, the top was at last reached, and they emerged into a rough country, broken by ravines and hills. Passing a day at a small Mexican village, they set off, the next morning, in search of the Apaches. Carson's keen, quick eye caught ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott

... difficult to do this, the low sunlight dazzling his eyes by glancing from the river away there, and from the 'carriers' (as they were called) in his path— narrow artificial brooks for conducting the water over the grass. His course was something of a zigzag from the necessity of finding points in these carriers convenient for jumping. Thus peering and leaping and winding, he drew near the Exe, the central river of the ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy

... was walking along the edge of the green mound on which the Montmartre telegraph stands. Below me, along one of the zigzag paths which wind up the hill, a man and a girl were coming up, and arrested my attention. The man wore a shaggy coat, which gave him some resemblance to a wild beast; and he held a thick stick in his hand, with which he described various strange figures in the air. He spoke very loud, and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... up at Miss Rubie all the while she was talking, but I noticed Dunie Foster did. I was trying to rub that zigzag stream of sirup off my apron; and O, how sick I grew! Would she ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May

... sage Washington his arm extends, Points every movement, every work defends, Bids closer quarters, bloodier strokes proceed, New batteries blaze and heavier squadrons bleed. Line within line fresh parallels enclose; Here runs a zigzag, there a mantlet grows, Round the pent foe approaching breastworks rise, And bombs, like meteors, vault the flaming skies. Night, with her hovering wings, asserts in vain The shades, the silence of her rightful reign; High roars her canopy with fiery flakes, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... turning it to the wall. It was very heavy; I could scarcely lift it. Pausing a moment, and looking forward at its shattered face in utter anguish of despair, I saw again, repeated in a hundred jagged splinters, up and down in zigzag confusion, in demoniac omnipresence, the uncanny eye, the spectral shape, which had so appalled me. The little phantom had arisen, its slim finger was outstretched,—it beckoned, slowly beckoned, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... I am afraid, that more of the house is coming down. Look at this great zigzag crack in the wall!—and how loose the plaster hangs in that part of the ceiling! I really think,—I am quite sure, we ought not ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau

... As night closed in, incessant flashes of white sheet lightning almost blinded us. Each white flash was riven by red forks of flame, until, with the horizon one constant blaze, the plain seemed a vast sea of fire. Over our heads, in great zigzag lines, shot the fire fluid, as the thunder rattled, roared, crashed, and broke around us; then, in a momentary lull, came torrents of rain, rushing madly across the sward, and drowning the noise of the fast-flying train, as if some fiend ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon

... those on the other side, from the edge of the sand, and ascending in a succession of terraces, whose faces were so steep that it was almost impossible to scale them. They could be ascended in succession, however, by means of the ravines and numerous gullies which rose in rugged and zigzag lines from the beach to the mountain tops. In the very first of these gullies in which the exploring party landed, they found the remains of an Esquimau summer encampment. These consisted of a few ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... necessary to cross this depression, and by a narrow ledge at the foot of the great cliff gain the other side, where another zigzag ascent brought them onto the rocky slope leading over a quarter of a mile of huge ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... himself leaning forward, instinctively desiring to help the laboring animals. The bends in the trail were sudden and at brief intervals. It was as though those responsible for the original clearing of the road had realized the impossibility of a direct ascent, and had chosen the zigzag path as the only means of ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... day, the ship ploughed remorselessly on. It was steered a bewildering zigzag course to outwit the submarines. The second day of the voyage saw us in the Bay of Biscay, a hundred miles off Cape Finisterre. The sun got steadily hotter, and the ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... Coming near the beach, I saw, not only the boatmen, but half the people of the town, lurking behind buildings; some, now and then braving the fury of the storm to look away to sea, and blown sheer out of their course in trying to get zigzag back. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... the fourth in the rear. At the base of the citadel, crowding against one another, a group of houses stood within the circle of a wall, whose outlines undulated with the unevenness of the soil. A zigzag road, cutting through the rocks, joined the city to the fortress, the walls of which were about one hundred and twenty cubits high, having numerous angles and ornamental towers that stood out like jewels in this crown ...
— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert

... great coward, though strong as an ox, and whipping with ease every man who could force him into a fight. So that, in the whole man, a sensitive observer would have felt a peculiar pathos, as though nature had given him a desire to be, and no power to become, and had then sent him on his zigzag way, never to dream wherein his ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.

... sometimes set a stiff beard upon a face without expression, or arranged the hair of the head in an old-fashioned manner, and, while making the drapery fly out in a direction opposed to that of the figure, gave to it formal zigzag lines, which could only be proper if it were hanging down in quiet. At other times, while they gave to the human figure all the truth to which their art had then reached, they yet gave to the drapery these stiff ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... one for the unaccustomed rider, whose hands and feet were chilled almost beyond feeling by the unwonted cold. But it was arm-chair ease compared with the experience on the other side, as the pony pluckily pounded his way up the zigzag path for the summit of the hill. How either guide or pony could see a path will ever remain a puzzle. The over-hanging vegetation blotted out any recognisable landmarks; not even the ribbon of a road was visible to the eye. But the top was reached, and believing we ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid

... effects of her long sleep and the cold endured—it is a wonder how she had stood the latter at all—and when, with a subdued inward sort of hum, she finally launched herself in flight, she nearly fell to the ground before righting herself and flying in a zigzag ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... friction more than other parts, and soon betray the damage by their threadbare, dingy look, as is the case in the example just cited. The method for grounding the quatrefoils is remarkable for being done in a long zigzag diaper ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... that, in the country of the Ojibways, the lightning is last seen in the autumn, and as the Algonkins, both in their language and pictography, were accustomed to assimilate the lightning in its zigzag course to the sinuous motion of the serpent,[2] the meteorological character of this myth ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton

... we may take the description of another object, a curious metal casket brought to Europe by a member of the Punitive Expedition. In design, according to Ling Roth, this casket "is bold and artistic; the high relief of the bizarre face and the zigzag conventionalized serpents and tadpoles being well thrown up by enchasing of the ground work. The proportions are all good, and this is especially the case with an enchasing of the enclosed lines." Ling Roth says that ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... was that in this zigzag race, the mustang, from practice perhaps, had the advantage; and while it continued, he ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... mountain whence they were tormenting us. The artillerymen kept up a fire at us from the cannon, which consisted of light six-pounders, but owing to our movement they could not get the elevation. We slowly scaled the hill zigzag fashion to baffle their aim, until we got so close that the cannon could not possibly touch us, owing to a slight mound on the hill. We were then within a hundred yards of them, and I took their number, and found at the same time that they had no firearms with them but the cannon, ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence

... sawyers; that is to say, sunken trees, presenting a jagged or pointed end above the surface of the water. As the channel of the river frequently shifted from side to side according to the bends and sand-banks, the boat had, in the same way, to advance in a zigzag course. Often a part of the crew would have to leap into the water at the shallows, and wade along with the towing line, while their comrades on board toilfully assisted with oar and setting pole. Sometimes the boat would seem to be retained motionless, as ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... conceived, and carried out in darkness. But suddenly the day broke. Heralded by the snuffle of the horses, light began glimmering over a chaos of lines and shadows, pale as mother-o'-pearl. The stars faded, and in a smouldering zigzag the dawn fled along the mountain tops, flinging out little isles of cloud. From a lake, curled in a hollow like a patch of smoke, came the cry of a water-bird. A cuckoo started a soft mocking; and close to the carriage a lark flew up. Beasts and men alike stood still, drinking in the air-sweet ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... At length, we left the path altogether, and pulling down a snake fence, passed through the gap into open fields. It was all plain sailing here, and a great relief after groping through the dim woodland; we encountered no obstacle but an occasional "zigzag," easily demolished, till we came to a deep hollow, where the guide dismounted—evidently rather vague as to his bearings—and proceeded to feel his way. Somewhere about here there was a "branch" (or rivulet) to be crossed, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... the centre of the clattering, yelling column. It fluctuated; the warriors who were there did not like to be aimed at; they began to zigzag, caracole, and diverge to right or left; several halted and commenced using their bows. At one of these archers, whose arrow already trembled on the string, Thurstane let fly, sending him out of the saddle. Then he felt a quick, sharp pain in his left arm, ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... begin in Portland and end in San Francisco. You may start talking about preserving peaches, and halt on the latest sensation. It is often very amusing to trace the line of such converse: it moves in a zigzag course, and terminates many miles out of the original direction. By this discursiveness I do not mean gossip. Of course talk of that kind has no good part in conversation: it is the slave of ignorance and ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder

... straight or zigzag, dotted, slightly elevated, dark-gray or blackish thread-like linear formations, varying in length from an eighth to a half ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon

... fro in zigzag line, and emitting those peculiar doleful notes invented for them, automobiles were mixed up in apparently inextricable confusion with all this hurly-burly of vehicles, while the trams clanged ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... about this time, but whenever I did slumber, it followed infallibly that I was quickly roused with a start, while the words "Basseterre," "Guadaloupe," seemed pronounced over my pillow, or ran athwart the darkness round and before me, in zigzag characters of red ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... Bot. Mag. 4039.—A tiny plant, similar in habit to R. penduliflora, but with brown branches, the small joints angled, and bearing silky hairs. The branches and joints are set at zigzag angles. Flowers pale yellow, produced in autumn on the younger joints. Fruits white, Mistletoe-like. A small, delicate plant from Buenos Ayres, not more than 6 in. high. This ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson

... One of these days I might be amused to read it. Besides, it took me such a devil of a time to write. It was good of you to keep things to yourself although I laid down no conditions of secrecy. I might have known it." He stared at the hill-side opposite, with its zigzag path through the vines marked by the figures of zealous pedestrians, and then he said suddenly: "If I asked you not to come and see our show you would set me down as ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... nothing is extraordinary in human nature. What we consider the normal never happens. Nature's course is always zigzag, and no one can ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... seems to me, you are liable to go to the opposite extreme. The truth is, your intellectual insight seems to me greater than your breadth of view, your penetration greater than your comprehension; and the consequence has been a course of thought, as I believe you are aware, somewhat zigzag. ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... should have done so if the great streaks of lightning which now and then shot zigzag through the sky had taken the shape of words and bid us all beware. I was not one to be daunted, and knew no other course than that of advance when once a stroke of justice had been planned, and the direction for its fulfilment marked ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... zigzag course southward across the desert, trotting down the aisles, cantering in wide, bare patches, walking through the clumps of cacti. The desert seemed all of a sameness to Dick—a wilderness of rocks and jagged growths hemmed in by lowering ranges, always looking close, yet never ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... at Kettleness is on the top of the huge cliffs, and to reach the shore one must climb down a zigzag path. It is a broad and solid pathway until halfway down, where it assumes the character of a goat-track, being a mere treading down of the loose shale of which the enormous cliff is formed. The sliding down of the ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home

... come upon what looked like an old path leading toward the lake, and decided to follow it instead of keeping down the stream with its zigzag course. Sure enough it took them directly to Cabin Point, although in many places the bushes had sadly overgrown the trail, and ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen

... Warhorse's ears went up again. His courage seemed to revive in their distress. He made a straight dash for the Haven; but the straight dash was just what the Hounds could do, and within a hundred yards he was turned again, to begin another desperate game of zigzag. Then the dog-men saw danger for their Dogs, and two new ones were slipped—two fresh Hounds; surely they could end the race. But they did not. The first two were vanquished—gasping—out of it, but the next two were racing ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... A sharp zigzag, a swish over a bridge, where as one rather felt than saw the full green Anio dashing through rocks; and just at sunset we came upon Subiaco—rising violet, with its great pointing castle mound, from the green valley of water and budding poplars into a purple and fiery sky. Then in the ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee

... to the right of the elbow of the main sap, a zigzag ran out of the ravine on the left flank of Bainbridge's battery, No. 8, toward the bastion. Upon this approach, because of its directness, the use of the sap-roller, or some equivalent for it, could never be given up until the ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... to advance behind. Individuals, such as runners, adopted a zigzag course with success; we lost very few. Platoons and companies got mixed, but it was not difficult to retell off. Perhaps control was easier owing to very little rifle-fire from our side and the majority of enemy shells landing on ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... to awake us to see it; we could quite picture to ourselves its beauties by the scenery in the Black Canyon we came through yesterday by daylight. The engineering all along the line is marvellous, the way we rose nearly 7,000 feet by a zigzag over the Marshall Pass, or the Great Divide, going down nearly as many feet on the other side and then through these canyons, which are only narrow gorges for a raging torrent to rush through on its ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall

... going westward for a pleasure-trip. The company is alluring and the pleasures exciting. After following the sun for 21:30 six days, he turns east on the seventh, satisfied if he can only imagine himself drifting in the right direction. By- and-by, ashamed of his zigzag course, he would borrow 22:1 the passport of some wiser pilgrim, thinking with the aid of this to find and follow ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... they will find an extremely rich collection of bottle-brush-flowered, zigzag-leaved, grey-tinted, odd-looking things, to most eyes rather strange than beautiful, notwithstanding that one of them is named Banksia speciosa. They are the 'Botany Bays' of old-fashioned gardeners, but are more in the shrub and tree line than that of flowering ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... boards around the edges or by laying wood carpeting over the regular floor. One caution concerning fancy floors; don't make them too fanciful. We don't like to feel that we're treading under foot a rare work of art, and I've seen certain zigzag patterns which merely to look at fairly makes one stagger. Thresholds are on the floor, but not of them, nor of anything else, for that matter, and though somewhat useful in poetry, are often provoking stumbling-blocks in practice. Necessary at ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner

... passed the Barnard house the Pembroke woman partly drew rein again; the old horse meandered in a zigzag curve, with his head lopping. "That's where Charlotte Barnard lives," she said. Suddenly she lowered her voice. "There she is now, out in ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Tarzan and Ta-den sprang forward toward the foot of the cliff. The pithecanthropus was the first to reach it and the ape-man saw him spring upward for a handhold on the lowest peg above him. Now Tarzan saw other pegs roughly paralleling each other in zigzag rows up the cliff face. He sprang and caught one of these, pulled himself upward by one hand until he could reach a second with his other hand; and when he had ascended far enough to use his feet, discovered ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... and the Date-palm becoming more abundant, we encamped in a grove of these trees. All were curiously distorted; the trunks growing zigzag, from the practice of yearly tapping the alternate sides for toddy. The incision is just below the crown, and slopes upwards and inwards: a vessel is hung below the wound, and the juice conducted into it by a little piece of bamboo. This operation spoils the ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... the wintry sea-wind was now whistling hoarse and shrill, she seemed to pause a moment as if to recollect the way. 'We maun go the precise track,' she said, and continued to go forward, but rather in a zigzag and involved course than according to her former steady and direct line of motion. At length she guided them through the mazes of the wood to a little open glade of about a quarter of an acre, surrounded by trees and bushes, which made a wild and irregular ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... followed hard— Lightning broke forth out of the cloud, Zigzag and dart, cleaving their way Slantwise to ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher

... hedge, scenting the breezes with its balmy "honeysuckle," or sweet wild rose—song-birds filling the air with melody, and stately castles, towering o'er the peasant's lowly home, while far as the eye can reach 'twill rest but on some fair village dome or farm. Here the worm or zigzag fence runs round the irregularly-shaped clearings, in the same rustic garb it wore when a denizen of the forest. The wild flowers here have no perfume, but the raspberries, which grow luxuriantly ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan

... throes, and ah's and oh's. Far famed his flock for frightning; And thundering with his voice, the while His eyes zigzag like lightning. ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... is coming this way; you have danced with him but once, and he is a very desirable partner; so, pray, accept, if he asks you," said Mrs. Carroll, watching a far-off individual who seemed steering his zigzag course toward them. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... a plump little chap in a speckled coat, And he sits on the zigzag rails remote, Where he whistles at breezy, bracing morn, When the buckwheat is ripe, and stacked is the corn: "Bob ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate

... Tolpatchery in this manner, but with much desertion, much dispiritment, in his main body,—the HOOPS upon him all loose, so to speak,—staggers zigzag back towards Budweis, and the Lobkowitz Party there; intending nothing more upon the Prussians;—capable now, think some NON-Prussians, of being well swept out of Budweis, and over the horizon altogether. If only his Prussian Majesty will co-operate! thinks ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... opened up to view, with a narrow strip of yellow shingle round the base of the cliffs, which here lost for a short distance their rugged character, though not their height, and were covered with herbage. A zigzag path led to the top, and the whole neighbourhood was full of ocean-worn coves and gullies, some of them dry, and many filled with water, while others were filled at high tide, and left empty when the ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne

... towing-path—no more din there now, but great single cries of "Zuleika!"—leapt figures innumerable through rain to river. The arrested boats of the other crews drifted zigzag hither and thither. The dropped oars rocked and clashed, sank and rebounded, as the men plunged across them ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... "Labyrinth" certainly is the fittest word to call it. I always had a fairly accurate sense of direction; but, standing in many places in this giant battlefield, it was impossible for me to say where were the Germans and where the French, so completely was I turned around on account of the constant zigzag of the trench lines. Sometimes, when I was positive that a furious cannonade coming from a certain position was German, it turned out to be French. At other times, when I thought I was safely going in the direction of the French, I was hauled back ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... at some distance to the left, and I could see that it was an immense quantity of heated matter like lava, occupying the upper and middle parts of a hill, and descending here and there almost to the bottom in a zigzag and tortuous manner. Between me and the hill of the burning object lay a deep ravine. After a time I came to a house, against the door of which a man was leaning. "What is all that ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... no little appropriateness, Trifolium pratense perenne, which has reference to the mildly perennial habit of growth in this plant. In common phrase it is known by such names as Large, Tall, Saplin or Sapling, Giant, Meadow, Perennial Red, Red Perennial Meadow, Pea Vine, Zigzag, Wavy Stemmed, Soiling, and Cow clover or Cow grass. Each of these names has reference to some peculiarity of growth in the plant. For instance, the terms Large, Tall, Saplin and Giant have reference ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw

... few excited zigzag turns on the leaf and pulled at his head, to Maya's intense concern. However, the little bee had observed by this time that there wasn't much sense to be got out of his head ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels

... my dismay the creature flew straight for the great mire, and my acquaintance never paused for an instant, bounding from tuft to tuft behind it, his green net waving in the air. His gray clothes and jerky, zigzag, irregular progress made him not unlike some huge moth himself. I was standing watching his pursuit with a mixture of admiration for his extraordinary activity and fear lest he should lose his footing in the treacherous ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... detached himself from the window-sill, and set the lawnmower on another zigzag journey. His hat, his coat, and his trousers hung limper than ever. He moved wearily, and at the end of the garden he sat down under a cherry-tree to muse on the strange, sad fact that his new employer promised to be not one whit more ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... it creak and grind as it wore heavily down, taking up the whole track with careful zigzag tackings; they could see, as it turned, how the pole stood sharp up between the shoulders of the straining wheel horses, as their haunches pressed out either way, and their backs hollowed, and their noses came together, and ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... nearly a yard in height; it then made a fine circle in 10 hrs. 45 m. During the next few days it continued to move, but irregularly. On August 15th the shoot followed, during a period of 10 hrs. 40 m., a long and deeply zigzag course and then made a broad ellipse. The figure apparently represented three ellipses, each of which averaged 3 hrs. ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin

... shore, and the square mass of Kronborg Castle, under the guns of which the Sound dues have been so long demanded, appeared in sight. In spite of its bare, wintry aspect, the panorama was charming. The picturesque Gothic buttresses and gables of Kronborg rose above the zigzag of its turfed outworks; beyond were the houses and gardens of Helsingor (Elsinore)—while on the glassy breast of the Sound a fleet of merchant vessels lay at anchor, and beyond, the fields and towns of Sweden gleamed in the light of the setting sun. Yet ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... 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 zigzag 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, some of which the Indians ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... the Angel Plateau may be obtained than from Yavapai Point, and an excellent outlook over the narrow break in the great wall, where the shattering of the strata and the deposition of talus and vegetable matter made possible the building of the zigzag portion of the trail near the top. The faulting of the strata is clearly seen, and the observer will not fail to note that the strata of the left arm of El Tovar Amphitheatre are thrust up some one hundred to two hundred ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... sunset light The gray day darkened into night, A night made hoary with the swarm And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, A zigzag wavering to and fro Crossed and recrossed the winged snow: And ere the early bed-time came The white drift piled the window-frame, And, through the glass, the clothes-line posts Looked in like tall ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... sea. You must have the necessary conditions and surroundings. Man is a product; you must have the soil and food. The obstacles presented by nature must not be so great that man cannot, by reasonable industry and courage, overcome them. There is upon this world only a narrow belt of land, circling zigzag the globe, upon which you can produce men and women of talent. In the Southern Hemisphere the real climate that man needs falls mostly upon the sea, and the result is, that the southern half of our world has never produced a man or woman of great genius. In the far ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll

... Long Kai had the mark of a ripe durian on each shoulder in front and an immature one above each nipple. On the lower part of the upper arm was a tatu of an edible root, in Penihing called rayong. Over the back of his right hand, toward the knuckles, he had a zigzag mark representing the excrescences of the durian fruit. In regard to the presence of spirits, number of souls, blians, disease, and its cure, restrictions for pregnant women, the child's cradle—the ideas of the Bukats are identical with those of the Penihings, ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... mass. Yet I remember no cold caused by this rude baptism. My mother remained several days with us, and as the weather was fine she accompanied us to the neighbouring heights—the Kirschberg, to which, after the peaceful cemetery of the institute was left behind, a zigzag path led; the Kohn, at whose foot rose the Upper House; and the Steiger, from whose base flowed the Schaalbach, and whose summit afforded a view of a great portion ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of jungle-covered mountains, where the ground is so steep that a man is forced to cling to the underwood for support, the elephants still plough their irresistible course. In descending or ascending these places, the elephant a always describes a zigzag, and thus lessens the abruptness of the inclination. Their immense weight acting on their broad feet, bordered by sharp horny toes, cuts away the side of the hill at every stride and forms a level step; thus they are enabled to skirt the sides of precipitous hills ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... rosy in breeding season. Nests very abundantly in the marshes of Minnesota and northward. Nest made of grasses and placed in the marsh grass barely above the surface of the water. Eggs same color as the last but the markings more inclined to zigzag lines. Size 2.10 x 1.40. Data.—Heron Lake, Minn., May 26, 1885. Nest of wet sedge stalks and rubbish placed in a bunch of standing sedge in shallow water; at least five thousand birds in rookery. Collector, ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed

... he drew it; there was no mystery or witchcraft in it. Nothing was ever more natural than the conduct of the dog. When he saw Westgate frightened out of his wits at nothing, trying to run as for dear life when there was no pursuer, staggering and pitching along in a zigzag direction with very eccentric motions, falling heels over head, and then crawling along, holding himself up by the fence, and all the time looking back with terror, and perhaps attempting to express his consternation, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... map of London would be needed to display the wild and zigzag course of one day's journey undertaken by an uncle and his nephew; or, to speak more truly, of a nephew and his uncle. For the nephew, a schoolboy on a holiday, was in theory the god in the car, or in the cab, tram, tube, and so on, while his ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... forms—a naked female stretches out her arms after a cow; a man clothed in a shenti endeavours to seize a horse. The pond is edged by papyrus plants, which are alternately in blossom and in bud. A zigzag barrier separates this central ornamentation from that of the outer part of the dish. Here a marsh is represented in which are growing papyrus and other water-plants. Aquatic birds swim on the surface ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... the time her voice reached Owen's ears the men had scattered, running in all directions. Several ran directly away from the house, others toward it, some went toward the corners of the building nearest them. All were running zigzag fashion. ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... cornice is the Venetian, in which the rain from the tiles is received in a stone gutter supported by small brackets, delicately moulded, and having its outer lower edge decorated with the English dogtooth moulding, whose sharp zigzag mingles richly with the curved edges of the tiling. I know no cornice more beautiful in ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... mountains, beyond which further progress seemed impracticable. Precipitous rocks, with their slopes of debris at foot, closed in the valley all round, excepting only the narrow gullet by which we had come; but, following the footpath, a way up the mountain-side gradually disclosed itself—a zigzag up the face of what seemed to be a sheer precipice—and this we were told was the road to Dormilhouse. The zigzag path is known as the Tourniquet. The ascent is long, steep, and fatiguing. As we passed up, we observed that the precipice ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... enough to cast its lurid reflections on the vacant-staring wrecks of windows and of walls, gaping like the shattered skulls of a civilization which was no more. To the nostrils of the man and woman up floated an acrid, pitchy smell. And birds, dislodged from sleep, began to zigzag about, aimlessly, with frightened cries. One even dashed against the building, close at hand; and fell, a fluttering, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... they were not certain. Then they stopped playing and talked, and their voices sounded goblin-like in their dark recess, where candles were carried about in an uncertain wavering manner, reminding Ruth of the flickering zigzag motion ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... place of repentance" for him, and fled from it, it still pursued him, "holloaing after him, 'Return, return!'" And return he did, but not all at once, or without many a fresh struggle. With his usual graphic power he describes the zigzag path by which he made his way. His hot and cold fits alternated with fearful suddenness. "As Esau beat him down, Christ raised him up." "His life hung in doubt, not knowing which way he should tip." More sensible evidence came. "One day," he tells us, "as I walked to and fro in a good man's shop"—we ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... the archangels dwelt alone waiting for that great day when the elected dead should rise and enter the Presence together, for he was a simple old man who had read and thought little; but he had a zigzag of fancy in his humble mind, and he saw his friends and his ancestors' friends as I have related to you, soul and body in the deep undreaming sleep of death, but sleep, not a rotted body deserted by its affrighted mate; and to all ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... Norwegian was still addressing these sentences to me, we had crossed the rivulet that gurgled through the valley, and commenced our ascending zigzag way. The skins and bones of sheep destroyed by the wolves that infest these mountains were scattered on every hand, and the foot-marks of these furious brutes and bears were plainly distinguishable on those parts of the soil moistened by the snow-water, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... wanted to reach an object, his hand described a sort of zigzag before it succeeded in reaching what it was in search of, and after a little while this movement annoyed me so that I turned aside my head in ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... Luckily, no flash had preceded it, and Nan, rifle in hand, slid safely down to the end of the lean-to, where de Spain, waiting, caught one foot on his shoulder, and helped her to the ground. He tried again to make her stay behind the house. Finding his efforts vain, he directed her how to make a zigzag advance, how to utilize for cover every rock and tree she could find in the line toward the pine, and, above all, to throw herself flat and sidewise after every shot—and ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... I began to suspect that things were not to go as smoothly as when I was taught on the lake. "We cannot ascend this steep hill straight forward, for the skees would slip backward. We must ascend in zigzag," said Joseff; and then with his staff he showed me how we were to go. "Follow my furrow, then it will be easier for you," said he. I found it hard enough, and slow work. When we reached the top of the hill we were very warm, though that day it was ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu

... to the grotto, and I will follow her," said Adolphe. On this therefore they agreed. Now the grotto was a natural excavation in a high rock, which stood precipitously upright over the establishment of the baths. A steep zigzag path with almost never- ending steps had been made along the face of the rock from a little flower garden attached to the house which lay immediately under the mountain. Close along the front of the ...
— La Mere Bauche from Tales of All Countries • Anthony Trollope

... The zigzag path to descend to the lake was so steep and dangerous that we were forced to leave our oxen with a guide, who was to take them to Magungo and wait for our arrival. We commenced the descent of the steep pass on foot. I led the ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... velocity of the current very considerably, while there would be no timber upon the banks to obstruct its navigation in future; and being nearly straight, the timber which might float in at the head, would be apt to go clear through. There are also many places above this where the river, in its zigzag course, forms such complete peninsulas, as to be easier cut through at the necks than to remove the obstructions from the bends—which if done, would also lessen ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln

... molecules, both in liquids and in gases, is so minute as to be beyond the reach of the most powerful microscope. This free path in liquids is a zigzag course, owing to the perpetual collisions with other molecules. The molecular behavior of liquids differs from that of gases only in what is called surface tension. Liquids have a skin, a peculiar ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... the affairs of the earth to note the darkening sky. The tempest broke upon us unawares. The wind fairly roared through the branches high above us; blinding flashes of lightning blazed in the shadows of the wood. Huge boughs were wrenched bodily off by the blast. Streaks of flame ran zigzag down the sides of the tall, straight hemlocks. The forest fairly rocked under the ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... led to no very remarkable results. Right across the channel of the river was a deep fissure only eighty feet wide, into which the whole volume of the river, a thousand yards broad, tumbled to the depth of a hundred feet[44], the fissure being continued in zigzag form for thirty miles, so that the stream had to change its course from right to left and left to right, and went through the hills boiling and roaring, sending up columns of steam, formed by the compression of the water falling into ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... surface of first pair of wings fawn, with a reddish hue, densely covered with hair-like scales, with shorter and somewhat square scales beneath, the scales over the nervures, being reddish; an indistinct line of seven obscure spots still more indistinctly connected by a zigzag reddish line, runs across the wing nearly parallel to its apical margin, and nearer the tip of the wing than the middle. (In one of the two specimens this band of spots is obsolete, or nearly so, as are the reddish coloured nervures.) Second pair of ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... in the streets of Maraucourt when the villagers saw the head of the firm seated beside a little girl wearing a hat of black straw and a black dress, who was gravely driving old Coco at a straight trot instead of the zigzag course that William forced the old animal to take in spite of herself. What was happening? Where was this little girl going? They questioned one another as they stood at the doors, for few people in the village ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot

... town Wampus turned into a smooth, hard wagon road that ran in zigzag fashion near the railroad grade. The car bowled along right merrily for some twenty miles, when the driver turned to the right and skimmed along a high plateau. It was green and seemed fertile, but scarcely a farmhouse could they see, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne

... the thought that presently admiring British tars would be congratulating us upon our notable capture; and just about then the merchant steamer must have sighted us, for she veered suddenly toward the north, and a moment later dense volumes of smoke issued from her funnels. Then, steering a zigzag course, she fled from us as though we had been the bubonic plague. I altered the course of the submarine and set off in chase; but the steamer was faster than we, and soon left us ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... specialist in strikes. This one was quick, energetic, jerky, yet strong. And it was a hungry strike. A fish that is hungry can almost always be hooked. I let this one run a little and then hooked him. He felt light, but savage. He took line in short, zigzag rushes. I fancied it was a bonita, but Sam shook his head. With about a hundred yards of line out, the fish leaped. He was golden. He had a huge, blunt, bow-shaped head and a narrow tail. The distance was pretty far, and I had no certainty to ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... to its size, enabling it to run upon the surface of the aquatic vegetation, as if it were solid ground. It was in the month of January, their breeding season, and at every turn of the boat we started them up in pairs. Their flat, open nests generally contained five flesh-colored eggs, streaked in zigzag with dark brown lines. The other waders were a snow-white heron, another ash-colored, smaller species, and a large white stork. The ash-colored herons were always in pairs, the white one always single, standing quiet and alone on the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... is a narrow depression in the ridge, commanded on each side by high pine-clad mountains. The approach to it from the Kuram valley was up a steep, narrow, zigzag path, commanded throughout its entire length from the adjacent heights, and difficult to ascend on account of the extreme roughness of the road, which was covered with large fragments of rocks and boulders. Every point of the ascent ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... from a bureau-drawer, stripped the worn, patched old cotton nightgown from the skeleton-like body, and, handling the invalid with a strong, sure touch, slipped on a soft, woolly outing-flannel wrapper with a curious trimming of zigzag braid down the front. Mrs. Purdon opened her eyes very slightly, but shut them again at her sister's quick command, "You lay still, Em'line, and drink some of this brandy." She obeyed without comment, but after a pause she opened her eyes again and looked down at the new garment which ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... that it was feasible to provide a road for his Majesty directly from his barrack to the beach; but that in view of the great height of the cliff it would be necessary to moderate the rapidity of the descent by making the road zigzag. "Make it as you wish," said the Emperor, "only let it be ready for use in three days." The skillful engineer went to work, and in three days and three nights the road was constructed of stone, bound together with iron clamps; and the Emperor, charmed with so much ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... of the Porta Romana, I walked for some distance along the city wall, and then, turning to the left, toiled up the hill of Bellosguardo, through narrow zigzag lanes between high walls of stone or plastered brick, where the sun had the fairest chance to frizzle me. There were scattered villas and houses, here and there concentrating into a little bit of a street, paved with ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... hill behind it. Along this shoulder were walls and gateways. An enemy attacking these would be exposed to the fire from the summit of the rock. From the point where the shoulder joined the rock, a zigzag road had been cut, with enormous labour, in the face of the ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... heart I followed the trail in its zigzag course down the steep mountain-side, which was vocal with the chanting call of myriads of partridges. Covey after covey flushed around me; the whole country, far and near, seemed to be alive with them. Before the end of that trip I got to hate and dread partridges more than any living thing, ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... of the laws of terrestrial curvature, thought he might look from the tower into-the port of Cadiz. The tower is riven, and it may be climbed along the edges of the crack. We got to the top of it; thence descended the curious Mediterranean Stair—a zigzag, mostly of steps down a steeply falling slope, amid palmetto brush, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... saw through the open door that the New Testament exercise was over. The teacher, Mrs. Desire Cushman, a tall, slender woman, in a flounced calico dress, was walking up and down the room; a class of boys and girls stood in a zigzag line before her, swaying to and fro, and drawling the multiplication table. She was yawning as I entered, which exercise forbade her speaking, and I took my seat without a reprimand. The flies were just coming; I watched their sticky legs as they feebly crawled over ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... before them, lay the everlasting stretch of ocean; there, upon detached rocks, were the white screaming gulls, seeming ever intending to settle, and yet always passing on. Right and left ranked the toothed and zigzag line of storm-torn heights, forming the series which culminated in the ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... Forecaster, "and you'll find that there are no two flashes of lightning that look alike. Some of them are several miles long. One thing you will notice at once, Ralph, and that is that lightning is never zigzag, the way you see it in pictures, but runs in an irregular line, winding a ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

... however, before we identified this mysterious wing-singer as the little brown jack snipe that we knew so well and had so often watched as he silently probed the mud around the edges of our meadow stream and spring-holes, and made short zigzag flights over the grass uttering only little short, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir

... its eggs.[153] In another ceremony of the witchetty grub totem, which followed immediately the one I have just described, the actor had two shields beside him. The smaller of the shields was ornamented with zigzag lines of white pipe-clay which were supposed to indicate the tracks of the grub; the larger shield was covered with larger and smaller series of concentric circles, the larger representing the seeds of a bush on which the insect ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... liable to tread upon it. It is the more dangerous because it is apt to vary in colour, according to the locality which it frequents, and therefore is the less easily observed. The colour is always some shade of brown, from a dull yellow to an olive tint; but it may be specially known by the zigzag, black markings along the back, and its broad head, with V-shaped mark in the centre. Its length is from a foot to a foot-and-a-half, although specimens have been killed as long as four feet. (“Naturalist,” ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... roots, and a vast branch lay across the path we had just passed. Nothing now was required to expedite our steps. The wind roared, the mighty trees rocked to and fro as if they had been reeds, the thunder rattled in deafening peals, and the lightning, in zigzag form, rushed down the stems of the trees, running like serpents along the ground, and flashed vividly in every direction. The storm I had witnessed in the Cordilleras was grander, but it was scarcely so terrific in its effects. We got under shelter ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... precipitous north shore as with a magnifying glass. At last, on the 11th of September, the hope that had so long been burning within him was gratified. But what a hope! A headlong goat-track cleft its zigzag way up the awful steep, and emerged at last upon the dizzy and breathless height above. Two men could scarce climb abreast in it; and even this was defended by fortifications, and at the summit, against the sky, tents could be seen. Yet this was the ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... courage, and, releasing my grip upon the rein, I allowed my patient horse to proceed. Shortly after this I passed the divide—that is where the water sheds both ways—then the descent began. It was zigzag, just as the climb had been, but I preferred the climb. I did not have the unfathomable spaces so constantly before me, nor was my imagination so active. It was fixed on heights to be attained rather than on valleys to roll into. However, I did ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... tore a shoulder of mutton out of Waxy's hands, and, carrying it in his arms as a woman carries a child, joined the procession with sudden, zigzag steps. When the party reached the cottage, it was met with a howl of welcome from the crowd, which now reached to the opposite footpath. Barney Ryan, seized with an inspiration, broke suddenly into "Mother Shipton". The chorus was taken up with ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... modification; and the black ring which surrounds the ball of the ocellus is unquestionably formed by the union and modification of the three black marks, b, c, d, of the elliptic ornament. The irregular zigzag black marks between the successive ocelli (Fig. 57) are plainly due to the breaking up of the somewhat more regular but similar marks between the ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin



Words linked to "Zigzag" :   angularity, travel, crooked, move, locomote, turn, go, angular shape



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com