"Winnow" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cyclopean, By Trevenna, Treverbyn, Lawharne and Largin, By Glynn, Lanhydrock, Restormel, Lostwithiel, Dark wood, dim water, dreaming town; Down the vale of the Fowey To the tidal water Washing the feet Of fair St Winnow— Each, in her exile Musing the message, Passed, as the starlit Shadow of Ruth from ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... winnow it wi' your loof, (Blaw, blaw, blaw winds, blaw,) And ye maun sack it in your glove; (And the wind has blawn my ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... the Old Philosophers, [which] were rather Vices, if winnow'd well, form'd to gratify their Proud, Lazy, Superiority, at the Expence of all the Publick Duties incumbent on mankind, whom they pretend to Purge from his Passions, to make him happy, by that means to amuse our Curiosity with Chymera's, whilst we lost ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... cannot presume to interfere; but, as a rule, the aggregate body comprised in them need not be large or very expensive, and in catholic or general literature it becomes almost surprising when we have taken the pains to winnow from literary remains of real and permanent interest the preponderant mass, of which the facilities for occasional examination at a public library ought to suffice, how comparatively slender ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... to Rangoon (the amount shipped is two hundred thousand tons annually). Later we visited a field where rice was being harvested. It is not unlike wheat in the sheaf, but smaller. The country process after cutting is first to pound the rice, and then winnow it so as to remove the hull; this is done by throwing it in the air, by means of a round flat plate with a handle. Machinery is used ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... to-day as when they first passed through their authors' minds ages ago. What was then said and thought still speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed page. The only effect of time has been to sift and winnow out the bad products; for nothing in literature can long survive but what ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... [Freedom from mixture.] Simpleness. — N. simpleness &c. adj.; purity, homogeneity. elimination; sifting &c. v.; purification &c. (cleanness) 652. V. render simple &c. adj.; simplify. sift, winnow, bolt, eliminate; exclude, get rid of; clear; purify &c. (clean) 652; disentangle &c. (disjoin) 44. Adj. simple, uniform, of a piece[Fr], homogeneous, single, pure, sheer, neat. unmixed, unmingled[obs3], unblended, uncombined, uncompounded; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... shepherd of the sheep and of the goats alike. Whereupon I fell upon my sermons afresh with a clearer conscience, which means a stronger mind, and swiftly prayed, even while I worked, that the Lord of the harvest would winnow my tumultuous thoughts, garnering the wheat unto Himself and burning the tares ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... a silent stream, Watching water-lilies dream: While breezes winnow The floating seeds, And the aery minnow Weaves his wavy web among ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... round poles or trees, like ivy or hops. The pepper-corns grow in bunches close to each other. They are first green, but afterwards turn black. When dried they are separated from the dust and partly from the outward membranous coat by means of a kind of winnow, and are then laid up in warehouses. The white pepper is the same production as the black. It undergoes a process to change its colour, being laid in lime, which takes off the outer black coat and leaves ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... butterflies, Broke, to-day, from their winter shroud; These light airs, that winnow the skies, Blow, just born, from ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... spirit is not ignoble. To him it may not be given "to fan and winnow from the coming step of Time the chaff of custom;" but if he persevere he may confidently hope that his thought and love shall at length rise to fairer and more enduring worlds. He weds himself to things of light, seeks aids to true life within, learns to live with the noble dead, ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... shall judge too, whether, in such sudden wreckage of all old Authorities, such a pair of cardinal movements, half-frantic in themselves, could be of soft nature? As in dry Sahara, when the winds waken, and lift and winnow the immensity of sand! The air itself (Travellers say) is a dim sand-air; and dim looming through it, the wonderfullest uncertain colonnades of Sand-Pillars rush whirling from this side and from that, like so many mad Spinning-Dervishes, of a hundred feet in stature; and dance ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... and the rainbow drawn On Lammermuir. Hearkening I heard again In my precipitous city beaten bells Winnow the keen sea wind. And here afar, Intent on my own race and place, I wrote. Take thou the writing: thine it is. For who Burnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal, Held still the target higher, chary of praise And prodigal of counsel—who but thou? So now, in the end, if this the least ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... will be gloriously comforted, but certainly such also as are bowed down with any grief. The Lord would have us know that sorrow is not a part of life; that it is but a wind blowing throughout it, to winnow and cleanse. Where shall the woman go whose child is at the point of death, or whom the husband of her youth has forsaken, but to her Father in heaven? Must she keep away until she knows herself sorry for her sins? How should that woman care to be delivered from her sins, how could ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... of it, a tankard of ale, with pipes and tobacco; and the two oldest servants have chairs behind it, to sit as judges if they please. The steward brings the servants, both men and women, by one at a time, covered with a winnow-sheet, and lays their right hand on the loaf, exposing no other part of the body. The oldest of the two judges guesses at the person, by naming a name, then the younger judge, and lastly the oldest again. If they ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... treading out the wild rice. A skin is put in these holes which are filled with ears. A man then treads out the grain. This appears to be the only part of rice making that is performed by the men. The women gather, dry, and winnow it. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... assistance of the political strategist. Every one of his arguments in this opinion in support of judicial review will be found anticipated in the debate on the Repeal Act. What Marshall did was to gather these arguments together, winnow them of their trivialities, inconsistencies, and irrelevancies, and compress the residuum into a compact presentation of the case which marches to its conclusion with all the precision ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... knows how we winnow corn in Britain. How do they conduct that process at Rome? A cart-load of grain is poured out on the barn-floor; some dozen or score of women squat down around it, and with the hand separate the chaff from the wheat, pickle by ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... plain, And from the roof-top the night-owl for naught Watching the sunset plies her 'lated song. Distinct in clearest air is Nisus seen Towering, and Scylla for the purple lock Pays dear; for whereso, as she flies, her wings The light air winnow, lo! fierce, implacable, Nisus with mighty whirr through heaven pursues; Where Nisus heavenward soareth, there her wings Clutch as she flies, the light air winnowing still. Soft then the voice of rooks from indrawn throat Thrice, ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... breeze's bugle sound, Various and vague the dry leaves dance their round; Or, from the garner-door, on ether borne, The chaff flies devious from the winnow'd corn; So vague, so devious, at the breath of heaven, From their fix'd aim are mortal ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... them, by pleading what is true, or by surmising evilly of them, to the end they may be accused by him (Job 2:9). Great is his malice toward them, great is his diligence in seeking their destruction; wherefore greatly doth he desire to sift, to try, and winnow them, if perhaps he may work in their flesh to answer his design-that is, to break out in sinful acts, that he may have by law to accuse them to their God and Father. Wherefore, for their sakes this ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... she will keep back all essentials, anyway. Your uncle and aunt and Felix Page all came from the same town, and there you can find plenty of old gossips who can—they 'll be only too willing to—give you all the information you want. They 'll give you more; but we can winnow the wheat from the chaff after you get back. Do you feel equal to such ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... good-natured, but out-spoken fellow—"sooner than I'd take up a poor devil of a beggar that has enough to do to make out his bit and sup. Go on about your business, poor devil; you shan't be molested. Go to my uncle's, where you'll get a bellyfull, and a comfortable bed of straw, and a winnow-cloth in the barn. Zounds!—it would be a nice night's work to go out for Willy Reilly and to bring home a beggar man in ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the home-makers and the home-keepers. They build the house, whether it be the brush hewa of the Supai or the stone pueblo of the Hopi. They gather the pinon nuts and grind them into meal. They crush the corn into meal, and thresh and winnow the beans, and dry the pumpkin for winter use. They cut the meat into strips and cure it into jerky. They dry the grapes and peaches. They garner the acorns and store them in huge baskets of their own weaving. They shear the sheep, and wash, dye, spin, and weave the wool ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... distinction. So far from admitting the soundness of the principle, we hold that no monikin is ever wholly right, or that he will be wholly right, so long as he remains in the least under the influence of matter; and we therefore winnow the false from the true, rejecting the former as worse than useless, while we take the latter ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... I found the weevil had begun its depredations, on which, I set some of the labourers to winnow and clear it. On the 30th, some atrocious villain stabbed one of the hogs belonging to the crown, which occasioned its death: this, amongst many other actions which happened, of a similar nature, served to show that there are wretches ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... languishing with ease, I toss On pallets swoln of velvet moss, While the wind, cooling through the boughs, Flatters with air my panting brows. Thanks for your rest, ye mossy banks, And unto you, cool zephyrs, thanks, Who, as my hair, my thoughts too shed, And winnow ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... Wi's, with his. Wi't, with it. Widdifu', gallows-worthy. Widdle, wriggle. Wiel, eddy. Wight, strong, stout. Wighter, more influential. Willcat wildcat. Willyart, disordered. Wimple, to meander. Win, won. Winn, to winnow. Winna, will not. Winnin, winding. Winnock, window. Winnock-bunker, v. bunker. Win't, did wind. Wintle, a somersault. Wintle, to stagger; to swing; to wriggle. Winze, a curse. Wiss, wish. Won, to dwell. Wonner, a wonder. Woo', wool. Woodie, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... might seem, With brook and bridge, and grey stone cottages, Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet, The whortle-berries are bedewed with spray, 145 Dashed upwards by the furious waterfall. How solemnly the pendent ivy-mass Swings in its winnow: All the air is calm. The smoke from cottage-chimneys, tinged with light, Rises in columns; from this house alone, 150 Close by the water-fall, the column slants, And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is this? That cottage, with its slanting chimney-smoke, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... grinned behind the bars, and banked the fires high: "Did ye read of that sin in a book?" said he; and Tomlinson said, "Ay!" The Devil he blew upon his nails, and the little devils ran, And he said: "Go husk this whimpering thief that comes in the guise of a man: Winnow him out 'twixt star and star, and sieve his proper worth: There's sore decline in Adam's line if this ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... people use are simply a sharpened stick, such as Abraham plowed with, and they still winnow their wheat as he did—they pile it on the house-top, and then toss it by shovel-fulls into the air until the wind has blown all the chaff away. They never invent any ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... public favor. The press, like everything else, is ruled by majorities, and in order to live it must cater to the weaknesses of popular majorities, it must reflect their prejudices, it must sustain their ill-formed judgments, and it must so sift and winnow the news of the day that the whims and the passions of the day shall be sustained. There are some newspapers and magazines that are honorably willing to represent only ripe thought and unbiased judgments, but they are ...
— Morals in Trade and Commerce • Frank B. Anderson
... nearly every one of the judges. Had they been dressed as longshoremen, one would still have known them for possessors of the judicial temperament—men born to hold the balances and fitted and trained to winnow out the wheat from the chaff. So many eagle-beaked noses, so many hawk-keen eyes, so many smooth-chopped, long-jowled faces, seen here together, made me think of what we are prone to regard as the highwater period of American ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... bright succession decks the varied year; Whatever sweets salute the northern sky With vernal lives, that blossom but to die; These, here disporting, own the kindred soil, Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil; 120 While sea-born gales their gelid[13] wings expand To winnow[14] ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... thinks over the matter, the stronger one's opinion becomes that the Christian will have to follow the Eastern example and winnow the wheat from the chaff—worse than chaff, sometimes the positively pernicious and even poisonous refuse. Burns, in the "Cotter's Saturday Night," pictures the good man taking down the big Bible for the ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... young man or single woman go to the barn three times to winnow corn, an apparition resembling the future spouse will appear before the chaff is separated from the third sieveful of grain. The like result may be expected if one go unperceived to the peat-stack and sow ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... R.N.W.M.P. influences, representing a concentrated distillation of the same tonic. The traditions of this fine force form a great power for the shaping and making of men. First, they have a strongly testing and selective influence. They winnow out the weeds among those who come under their influence with quite extraordinary celerity and thoroughness. Those who come through the selective process satisfactorily may be relied upon as surely as ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... or threshing the next process is to winnow the corn (mengirei), which is done precisely in the same manner as practised by us. Advantage being taken of a windy day, it is poured out from the sieve or fan; the chaff dispersing whilst the heavier grain falls to the ground. This simple mode seems ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... in the castle of Macharim beside the Dead Sea, and after he was translated of his disciples, and buried at Samaria. And there let Julianus Apostata dig him up and let burn his bones (for he was at that time emperor) and let winnow the ashes in the wind. But the finger that shewed our Lord, saying, ECCE AGNUS DEI; that is to say, 'Lo! the Lamb of God,' that would never burn, but is all whole; - that finger let Saint Thecla, the holy virgin, be born into the ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... illustrations to what particular source they are to be severally ascribed. When representative passages have been thus labelled, and the causes are seen in operation, he will be able to pierce the mystery, and all the better to winnow the evil from among ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... air was fragrant with the sweet subtle odours breathed from magnificent cactuses, orchids, and irises. Thousands of birds, surprised among the tall grasses by the passing caravan, sprang aloft, and filled the air with the whir and winnow of swift wings. ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... firebrands in their faces; they quoited blazing pitch-hoops with, unerring dexterity about their necks. The rustics too, armed with their ponderous flails, worked as cheerfully at this bloody harvesting as if thrashing their corn at home. Heartily did they winnow the ranks of the royalists who came to butcher them, and thick and fast fell the invaders, fighting bravely, but baffled by these novel weapons used by peasant and woman, coming to the aid of the sword; spear, and musket of trained soldiery. More than a thousand had fallen at the Bois-le-Duc gate, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of maize; but the fond affection of all around her, and their belief that she was something more than mortal, protected her from a call to share in their labours. She was allowed no part in the cutting-up of the bison; she was not permitted to pound the corn, or winnow the wild rice, or bring firing from the woods. It was the pride of the youthful part of the tribe to prepare ornaments for her person. The young maidens (for she was envied by none) wove wampum, and made beads for her; the young men passed half their time in hunting the red and blue heron ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... beings peopled, Worlds that fail to meet the test May like fruitless blossoms perish; God will winnow out the best. ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... armouring, but gradually as we talked and Harriet poured him a third cup of hot coffee he dropped into a more familiar tone. He told with some sprightliness of having seen threshings in Mexico, how the grain was beaten out with flails in the patios, and afterwards thrown up in the wind to winnow out. ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... winds, the clouds, the moon, the sun, apart In different stations; and you there might view The stars that gem the still-revolving heaven, And, under them, the vast expanse of air, In which, with outstretch'd wings, the long-beak'd bird Winnow'd the gale, as if instinct with life. Around the shield the waves of ocean flow'd, The realms of Tethys, which unnumber'd streams, In azure mazes rolling o'er ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... eat and drink. From hence began that Plot, the nation's curse, Bad in itself, but represented worse; Raised in extremes, and in extremes decried: 110 With oaths affirm'd, with dying vows denied; Not weigh'd nor winnow'd by the multitude; But swallow'd in the mass, unchew'd and crude. Some truth there was, but dash'd and brew'd with lies, To please the fools, and puzzle all the wise. Succeeding times did equal folly call, Believing nothing, or believing ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... and over Carrowmore 'T will be ever thus, meseems,— Like the winnow of wings o'er Carrowmore The surge ...
— Sprays of Shamrock • Clinton Scollard
... do not be loath, diligent reader, to winnow my chaff, and lay up the wheat in the storehouse of your memory: for truth regards not who is the speaker, nor in what manner it is spoken, but that the thing be true; and she does not despise the jewel which she has rescued ...
— History Of The Britons (Historia Brittonum) • Nennius
... and from the West, That's subject to no academic rule; You may find it in the jeering of a jest, Or distil it from the folly of a fool. I can teach you with a quip, if I've a mind; I can trick you into learning with a laugh; Oh, winnow all my folly, and you'll find A grain or two of ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... Tywardreath (the "house or town-place on the sands") claims mention for the memory of its old Benedictine priory, now vanished. To pursue the Fowey River inland, past the charming Golant and St. Winnow, is a delightful excursion with a fitting termination in the beauties of Lostwithiel; but on the present occasion it takes us too far from the coast. The loveliness of this river resembles and equals that of the Fal and ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... the coming King, as we have seen, as the Woodman, laying his axe at the root of the trees; as the Husbandman, fan in hand to winnow the threshing-floor; as the Baptist, prepared to plunge all faithful souls in his cleansing fires; as the Ancient of Days, who, though coming after him in order of time, must be preferred before him in order of precedence, ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... whirlwinds that winnow the West— We scatter the wicked like straw! We are the Nemeses, never at rest— We are Justice, and Right, and ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... a lamentable lack of discrimination, a deficient sense of the fitness of things, and consequently, unreliable judgment. These deficiencies are worse than handicaps to an editor. They are absolute disqualifications. An editor's first duty is to discriminate, to sift, to winnow the few grains of wheat out of the bushels of chaff that come to his mill. Editors must have a very keen sense of the fitness of things. It is true that the discriminating reader of newspapers and magazines may be tempted to feel at times that this sense of ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... beginning of the Book is a myth, like one of Ovid's Metamorphoses; and that the prophecy of the resurrection, at the end, is another; and that there are a great many legends in the middle. Now, if so, why winnow such chaff? ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... gathered a store of feathers great and small. He fastened these together with thread, moulded them in with wax, and so fashioned two great wings like those of a bird. When they were done, Daedalus fitted them to his own shoulders, and after one or two efforts, he found that by waving his arms he could winnow the air and cleave it, as a swimmer does the sea. He held himself aloft, wavered this way and that with the wind, and at last, like a great fledgling, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... showing a keen interest in the working men of whom his correspondent had written, point to the ideal of a sort of Tory Democracy. Carlyle writes: "We want more knowledge about the Lancashire operatives; their miseries and gains, virtues and vices. Winnow what you have to say, and give us wheat free from chaff. Then the rich captains of workers will he willing to listen to you. Brevity and sincerity will succeed. Be brief and select, omit much, give each subject ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol |
