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Flatten   Listen
verb
Flatten  v. t.  (past & past part. flattened; pres. part. flattening)  
1.
To reduce to an even surface or one approaching evenness; to make flat; to level; to make plane.
2.
To throw down; to bring to the ground; to prostrate; hence, to depress; to deject; to dispirit.
3.
To make vapid or insipid; to render stale.
4.
(Mus.) To lower the pitch of; to cause to sound less sharp; to let fall from the pitch.
To flatten a sail (Naut.), to set it more nearly fore-and-aft of the vessel.
Flattening oven, in glass making, a heated chamber in which split glass cylinders are flattened for window glass.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Flatten" Quotes from Famous Books



... plaits, folds, and scutellae, that characterise its Asiatic congener, yet it is far from being a soft one. It is so thick and difficult to pierce, that a bullet of ordinary lead will sometimes flatten upon it. To ensure its penetrating, the lead must be ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... bullets, and then, immediately after, the rush and crash of a couple of German "Fizz-Bang" shells. Probably it was the wet plop of some of the backward-flung bullets about him, possibly it was the movement of the German sergeant that wiped out the instinctive desire to flatten himself close to ground that drove him to instant action. The sergeant half lurched to his knees, thrusting forward the muzzle of his rifle. Ainsley clutched at the revolver in his holster, but before he could free it another shell crashed, the German jerked forward ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... that the hero was a clergyman, sinking the opinions, as too vague to be mentioned, even had not the company been too flighty for a subject she thought serious and painful. "And he is at this moment sketching the Spinster's Needles!" said Bessie. "Well, I am consoled. With all your resolve to flatten down an adventure, fate is too strong for you. Something will come of it. Is not the very resolve that it shall not ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... long slow rolling,—massive and formidable. Sometimes, just before breaking, a towering swell would crack all its green length with a tinkle as of shivering glass; then would fall and flatten with a peal that shook the wall beneath me.... I thought of the great dead Russian general who made his army to storm as a sea,—wave upon wave of steel,—thunder following thunder.... There was ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... when we signified to them how much this mode of flattening the forehead appeared to us to violate nature and good taste, they answered that it was only slaves who had not their heads flattened. The slaves, in fact, have the usual rounded head, and they are not permitted to flatten the foreheads of their children, destined to bear the chains of their sires. The natives of the Columbia procure these slaves from the neighboring tribes, and from the interior, in exchange for beads and furs. They treat them with ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere

... acquainted, filling a space larger than the orbit of Neptune. Gravitation gradually contracted this matter into a condensing globe of immense extent. Some parts would naturally be denser than others, and in the course of contraction a rotary motion, it is affirmed, would be engendered. Rotation would flatten the globe somewhat in the line of its axis. Contracting still more, the rarer gases, aided by centrifugal force, would be left behind as a ring that would ultimately be separated, like Saturn's ring, from the retreating body. There would naturally be some places ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... nests of shredded lettuce on individual plates. Cut a five-cent Neufchatel cheese in three pieces; roll each piece into a ball and flatten to resemble the white of a poached egg, having the cheese about one-fourth an inch in thickness. These may be shaped upon a plate and then removed carefully with a spatula to the nests of lettuce. With pastry bag and plain tube put a mound of mayonnaise on the centre of each ...
— Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties - With Fifty Illustrations of Original Dishes • Janet McKenzie Hill

... flung down across the bed, asleep. George would wake up slowly, with much yawning and grumbling, Emeline would add her gloves and belt to the unspeakable confusion of the bureau, and Julia would flatten her tired little back against the curve of an armchair and follow with heavy, brilliant eyes ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... contracting Powers renounce the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard casing, which does not entirely cover the core, or is ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland

... inner life of everybody that has ever lived would be no rational endeavour. Instead of lifting the historian above the world and making him the most consummate of creatures, it would flatten his mind out into a passive after-image of diffuse existence, with all its horrible blindness, strain, and monotony. Reason is not come to repeat the universe but to fulfil it. Besides, a complete survey of events would perforce register all changes that have taken place in matter since time began, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... in amazement, he found that by heating one he could flatten it out, then he could make small ones stick to it while hot and hammer all into one mass, then into a bar, and from that he could make an axe-head with an edge which would cut clean through a copper ring as ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True

... flute brings out this quality of song. I must not allow the pressure of too much greed to flatten out the reed, for then, as I fear, music will give place to the questions "Why?" "What is the use of so much?" "How am I to get it?"—not a word of which will rhyme with what Radhika sang! So, as I was saying, illusion alone is ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... ferment of his mind and heart." Berlioz grew up in the midst of revolutions and stories of Imperial achievement. He wrote his cantata for the Prix de Rome in July, 1830, "to the hard, dull noise of stray bullets, which whizzed above the roofs, and came to flatten themselves against the wall near his window."[93] When he had finished this cantata, he went, "pistol in hand, to play the blackguard in Paris with the sainte canaille." He sang the Marseillaise, and made "all who had a voice and heart and blood in their veins"[94] sing ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland

... at worst, it is detestable. Athanasius contra mundum is grand only in cases where the snag is right, and the mundus wrong. Then persecution becomes the second-highest form of blessedness—the highest form, of course, being the ability to turn round and flatten-out the persecutor. Now, if Alf could open the windows of his understanding——But then, one of the gravest disabilities in the leopard of thirty-five, or thereabout, is connected with the changing of his spots. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... thing again; it will throw me into a rage," answered the old fellow, beginning to flatten and swell at the joke. "But if you come to giving mocassins, they must be very many, for you know I have many legs. Suppose you give me a Lenape ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... home alone from the party, out of sorts with himself, angry with Azalia, and boiling over with wrath toward Paul. He set his teeth together, and clenched his fist. He would like to blacken Paul's eyes and flatten his nose. The words of Azalia—"I know nothing against Paul's character"—rang in his ears and vexed him. He thought upon them till his steps, falling upon the frozen ground, seemed to say, "Character!—character!—character!" as if Paul had ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin

... terrain. He saw the place of solid-spouted rock end; saw it flatten out to an undulating surface that had rolled and heaved itself into many-colored shapes. Even in the earthlight the kaleidoscopic colors were vivid in their changing reds and blues and yellow sheens. Then this surface sloped sharply ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin

... or anything, and let 'em have it rattlety-bang-jing. I never seen her do it, of course—all that was afore MY time—but pa used to say it never made no difference whether 'twas the man come tryin' to collect the store bill or the minister or anybody, she'd up and flatten him just the same. Course pa said 'twas a whole lot more li'ble to be the bill man than the minister 'cause there ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... gnawing away the convex side; and I suspect that the bees in such cases stand in the opposed cells and push and bend the ductile and warm wax (which as I have tried is easily done) into its proper intermediate plane, and thus flatten it. ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... expressions, with this further inconvenience added to the disgust it creates, that the words Joys, Ardours, Transports, Extasies and the rest of those pathetic terms so congenial to, so received in the Practice of Pleasure, flatten and lose much of their due spirit and energy by the frequency they indispensably recur with, in a narrative of which that Practice professedly composes the whole basis. I must therefore trust to the candour ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... cutlets be about half an inch thick; trim them, and flatten them with a cleaver; you may fry them in fresh butter, or good drippings (No. 83); when brown on one side, turn them and do the other; if the fire is very fierce, they must change sides oftener. The time they will take depends on the thickness of the cutlet and the ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... expect any sympathy from me. While I use every precaution to preserve my health, you go sloshing around in your bare feet, or sit on a cake of ice to read a dime novel, or do some other tomfool thing to flatten you out. I refuse to sympathize with you, Mrs. Bowser—absolutely and teetotally refuse to utter one word ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... you must have been a shocking bad hat yourself. Some of them prove that your kind and forgiving parent is still alive at this moment; others prove that he expired under heart-rending circumstances six months ago; and I propose to use whichever alternative seems best—that's to say, whichever will flatten you out most effectively. ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston

... his scheme to Colonel Musgrave with assumed modesty, adding that it would be a good thing to flatten out the tins before dispatching them, and that Sergeant Scott, who was a handy man, could easily ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois

... and lightnings—rain which the wind blew away before it reached the ocean, lightnings which the ravenous and mountainous waves swallowed before they could pierce the gloom. The ship lay over on her side, held there by the madly rushing wind, which seemed to flatten down the sea, cutting off the top of the waves, and breaking them into fine white spray which covered the ocean like a thick cloud, as high as the topmast heads. Each gust seemed unsurpassable in intensity, but was succeeded, after a pause, that was not a lull ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... SENSITIVE PLANT (C. Chamaecrista) likewise goes to sleep; the ten to fifteen pairs of leaflets which, with a terminal one, make up each pinnate leaf, slowly turning their outer edges uppermost after sunset, and overlapping as they flatten themselves against their common stem until the entire aspect of the plant is changed. By day the expanded foliage is feathery, fine, acacia-like; at night the bushy, branching, spreading plant, that measures only ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... extent,—hollows out of which the materials of pyramids might have been taken. The precipitous sides are fretted by jutting ridges and receding inflections, that present in abundance their diversified alternations of light and shadow. The steep descents form cycloid curves, that flatten at their bases, and over which the ferruginous stratum of mould atop projects like a cornice. Between neighboring excavations there stand up dividing walls, tall and thin as those of our city buildings, and ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... dangerous as dry rot, or moth eating holes in you. Queer, but I was getting to think of myself as laid on the shelf before Brace drifted in, and when I do that I get old-acting and stiff-jointed. But I've noticed that it's the same with folks as it is with the world, when they begin to flatten down, then the good Lord drops something into them to make 'em sorter rise. No need to flatten down until you're dead. Feeling tired is healthy and proper—not feeling at all is being finished. So now, Peter, you just go along to bed. I always ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... of you to your stations. Mr Bowen and Mr Cross, you will mount guard over the galley-doors, if you please, until we have got the ship round. Raise tacks and sheets, round with the main-yard, and flatten in forward. Well, there, with the main-braces. Now swing your fore-yard, board the fore and main-tacks, and haul over the head-sheets. Right your helm, my lad; give her a spoke or two, if you find she wants it, as she gathers way, and then keep her 'full and by.' ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... microscopical specimens, almost infinitesimally tiny as I descended into his Titanic arms, I was handed down the steps to him. He was dressed in a kind of long surplice, underneath which—as I could not, even in that moment, help observing—the air gathered in long bubbles which he strove to flatten out. The end of his noble beard he had tucked away; his shirt-sleeves were ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... rows and the rows in turn sewed to each other like a patchwork quilt, taking care to have the fur all run the same way. The robe should now be dampened again and stretched and tacked to its full extent to remove any wrinkles and flatten the seams. This sewing is all done from the back of the robe using an even over-hand stitch. Just before the final stretching it is well to apply arsenical solution to ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham

... of cod, egging and crumbing the pieces and frying them. Get about a pound and a half of the tail of a fine cod; with a sharp knife divide the flesh from the bone lengthways, cut it into neat pieces as nearly of a size as you can, and flatten with a knife. Dip in egg, then in crumbs mixed with a little flour, pepper, and salt. It is best to fry the cutlets in the wire-basket in plenty of fat, but if this is not convenient they can be done in the ...
— Nelson's Home Comforts - Thirteenth Edition • Mary Hooper

... straight as their elders and usually a good deal more gaily, as they have not begun to appreciate the dangers. The smaller boys line the sides of the jump and pour out at the word of the judge on to the steep landing-slope like a lot of little goblins, jumping on their Skis horizontally to flatten away any track or hole made by a jumper who has failed to jump perfectly. Little chaps of seven or eight run through the woods on these occasions, swanking their turns through the trees and putting most grown-up runners to shame by their nimbleness. At Pontresina one winter I was much amused by ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse

... into a dough, and knead on the molding-board till glossy and firm: at least ten minutes will be required. Roll out into a sheet ten or twelve inches square. Cut a cake of the ice-cold butter in thin slices, or flatten it very thin with the rolling-pin. Lay it on the paste, sprinkle with flour, and fold over the edges. Press it in somewhat with the rolling-pin, and roll out again. Always roll from you. Do this again and again till the butter is all used, rolling up the paste after the last cake is in, ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell

... the tulip, prune the vine, But freely let the woodbine twine, And leave untrimm'd the eglantine: Nay, my friend, nay,—since oft thy praise Hath given fresh vigour to my lays; Since oft thy judgment could refine My flatten'd thought or cumbrous line, Still kind, as is thy wont, attend, And in the minstrel spare ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton

... moment of upward flight would infallibly have caused him to lose headway, and fall backward, to flatten himself upon the ground. But he had with superb coolness entered upon a second dive of the most impressive, continuing his species of switchback descent until within a few hundred feet of the hangars. I saw his head protruding from the nacelle, incased ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... coast and the valleys towards the eastern. Hence the western Cornice road is a terrace along an always steep, sometimes sheer, mountain side, while the eastern crosses a succession of low maquis-covered spurs, which beyond Cap Sagro flatten and become monotonous. Pino is one of the most beautiful sites on the western coast. It is also important as the spot where the cross-road through the vale of Luri, under Seneca's tower, falls into the western Cornice. Half-way on this road the village of Luri groups itself in the most ...
— Itinerary through Corsica - by its Rail, Carriage & Forest Roads • Charles Bertram Black

... indeed, in my heart I knew I could never hope to equal, much less beat, such a mighty cast. I therefore decided on strategy, and, with this in mind, proceeded, in a leisurely fashion, once more to mark out the circle, which was obliterated in places, to flatten the surface underfoot, to roll up my sleeves, and tighten my belt; in fine, I observed all such precautions as a man might be expected to take before ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... "Flatten out," I whispered. "Follow me!" And I crawled straight towards the fire, where, ink-black against the ruddy conflagration, an enormous pine lay uprooted, smashed by lightning or tempest, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... is the plague—whose quick flash splits The mid-sea mast, and rifts the tower to the rock, And hurls the victor's column down with him That crowns it, hear. Who causest the safe earth to shudder and gape, And gulf and flatten in her closing chasm Domed cities, hear. Whose lava-torrents blast and blacken a province To a cinder, hear. Whose winter-cataracts find a realm and leave it A waste of rock and ruin, hear. I call thee To make my marriage prosper to ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... Ellington to her mind again, and she said to herself, "What a nice free lad the young squire is! They were saying he was a kind of close fellow with a bad temper. He doesn't look like that. I wonder what makes him flatten his hair down so funny? He asked me about next Thursday." And there Miss Mary Casely ceased her maiden meditations, and walked on with her sharp step, and with a mind vacant of all coherent thought, as only the truly rustic mind can be. Presently she passed a row of one-storied cottages which ran ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... of a Bunsen burner, touching the under surface of the glass from time to time on the back of the other hand. As soon as the slide feels distinctly warm to the skin, the paraffin section will flatten out and ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... Lebanon. I have cruised in the seven seas and seen the white marvels of ancient cities reflected in the wave of incredible blueness. But then I was young. When the years began to pile up, I longed to stake off my horizons, to flatten out my views. I wanted the simpler, the more elemental things, things cosmic in their associations, nearer to the beginning or end of creation. The parrot that flashed through "nutmeg groves" did not hold out so much allurement as the simple gray-and-slaty junco. The things that are unobtrusive ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... face to face with it. The cause of this is always the same. Imagination and reality bear the same relation to each other as poetry and prose: The former conceives objects to be huge and precipitous, the latter always thinks that they flatten themselves out. The landscape painters of the sixteenth century, compared with those of our own day, furnish the most striking example ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... Flatten them on with a broad-bladed knife, and fry the sole a golden brown in hot fat (for heat of fat see ...
— The Skilful Cook - A Practical Manual of Modern Experience • Mary Harrison

... directed in the recipe, roll the mixture lightly between the hands into a ball. Have a plentiful supply of bread crumbs spread evenly on a board; roll the ball lightly on the crumbs into the shape of a cylinder, and flatten each end by dropping it lightly on the board; put it in the egg (to each egg add one tablespoon of water, and beat together), and with a spoon moisten the croquette completely with the egg; lift it out on a knife-blade, and again roll lightly in the crumbs. Have every part entirely covered, ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum

... not follow the advice to flatten himself on the ground. Instead, he stood straighter—even rose on his toes and stared in the direction whence he judged the ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock

... quite near the surface of the aerodrome, the pupil has next to think of making a neat contact with the ground. The art here is, at a moment which must be gauged accurately, to check the descent of the machine by a movement of the elevator—to "flatten out," as the expression goes. If the movement is made neatly the craft should, when only a few feet from the ground, change from a descent into horizontal flight, and continue on this horizontal flight for a short distance, losing speed naturally each moment—seeing that there ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White

... to a woman at all, do it thoroughly. If you go halfway down she'll be tempted to push you the rest of the way. If you flatten out at her feet to begin with, ten to one but she will pick ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... swift as lightning. Don Luis saw the great blade of a scythe cleaving the air at the height of his head. Had he hesitated for a second, for the tenth of a second, the awful weapon would have beheaded him. As it was, he just had time to flatten himself against the ladder. The scythe whistled past him, grazing his jacket. He slid down to the ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... already collected and given in previous chapters. It appeared that at the birth of a child the head, while the skull was still soft, was intentionally compressed and bandaged, especially at the forehead and back, so as to flatten it and produce an abnormal shape of the skull. In many cases only the back of the head was flattened by the application of artificial pressure. The elongation was both upwards and sideways. This deformation was ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... yeast half a cupful of warm milk, mix in one-third of the flour, and let it rise an hour. When it has risen, put in 6 ozs. of cold butter, 4 eggs, and a few caraway seeds; mix all together with the rest of the flour. Put it in a warm place to rise. Flatten it with the hand on a pasteboard. Sift 6 ozs. of loaf sugar, half the size of a pea; sprinkle the particles over the dough; roll together to mix the sugar; let it rise in a warm place about 20 minutes. ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... as he turned from drawing the last curtain. We were both thinking of the force that had driven the frail old willow tree through tile and cement of the new building to flatten the metal of motor and car into uselessness. The mere weight of the tree would not have carried it through the roof. To "do something" by way of ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... she came to bed his light was always on. What an odd, self-contained, saturnine creature he was! There was something so ponderous, so logical, so crushing about him. Yes, that described him best, crushing. She always felt that he was ready to flatten her out.... ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... been more snubbed in my life. Even Miss Corrisande K. Trumpet did not flatten me out as you do," ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn

... the birch canoe stole through the water. It scarcely seemed to move, yet every moment brought them nearer to the wild creature of the woods. It made no attempt to fly, only crouched lower, and tried to flatten itself against the stump. ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards

... little Prosper Leclere! He thinks himself one of the strongest—a fine fellow! But I tell you he is a coward. If he is clever? Yes. But he is a poltroon. He knows well that I can flatten him out like a crepe in the frying-pan. But he is afraid. He has not as much courage as the musk-rat. You stamp on the bank. He dives. ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke

... little things, and if you are not careful to mind what I say you may be caught up by a hawk at any moment. So, listen: when I say 'Tuk,' you must hide yourselves immediately; don't try to run away, but just get under a rock, or even a leaf, or just flatten yourselves upon the ground, if you can't do better; you are so nearly the color of the ground that a boy will never see you, and you can even ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux

... bite, with a greedy spring; then, feeling themselves hooked, wriggled about, as if to hook themselves still firmer. And every moment, with rapid action, the fishermen hauled in their lines, hand overhand, throwing the fish to the man who was to clean them and flatten ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... there were details as unpropitious as the heat: the expiring roses expressed not beauty but pathos, and what faint odour they exhaled was no rival to the lusty emanations of the Brussels sprouts; at the head of the table, Adams, sitting low in his chair, appeared to be unable to flatten the uprising wave of his starched bosom; and Gertrude's manner and expression were of a recognizable hostility during the long period of vain waiting for the cups of soup to be emptied. Only Mrs. Adams made any ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington

... There's a river down there, but nobody ever drowns in it where I can have a hitch at him; and if there's a freshet, everybody at once gets out of reach. If there's a fire, all the inmates get away safe, and no fireman ever falls off a ladder or stands where a wall might flatten him out. No, sir; I don't have a fair show. There was that riot out at the foundry. In any other place three or four men would have been killed, and there'd a been fatness for the coroner; but of course, ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... hail at last The Sire has sent in vengeance down: His bolts, at His own temple cast, Appall'd the town, Appall'd the lands, lest Pyrrha's time Return, with all its monstrous sights, When Proteus led his flocks to climb The flatten'd heights, When fish were in the elm-tops caught, Where once the stock-dove wont to bide, And does were floating, all distraught, Adown the tide. Old Tiber, hurl'd in tumult back From mingling with the Etruscan main, Has threaten'd Numa's court with wrack And Vesta's fane. Roused by ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... acquaintances who view with alarm the immediate future of the self-styled human race; but we find ourself unable to share their apprehension. We do not worry about lead, or iron, or any other element. And human nature is elemental. You can flatten it, as in Russia; you can bend, and twist, and pound it into various forms, but you cannot decompose it. And so the "new order," while perhaps an improvement on the old, will not be so very different. Britannia will go on ruling the waves, and Columbia, not Utopia, will be ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... interested in the above important question; for up to that moment I had always been haunted by a horrid paragraph I had met with somewhere in an Icelandic book of travels, to the effect that it was the practice of Icelandic women, from early childhood, to flatten down their bosoms as much as possible. This fact, for the honour of the island, I am now in a position to deny; and I here declare that, as far as I had the indiscretion to observe, those maligned ladies appeared ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... be slightly and evenly damp. To flatten the vellum the open pairs of leaves are interleaved with the slightly damp blotting-paper, and are left for an hour under the weight of a pressing-board. After this time the vellum will have become quite soft, and ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell

... happens one must thaw it out. It is a singularly erratic compound of nitro-glycerine, which requires to be fired by a powerful detonator, and, if merely ignited, burns harmlessly. One can warm it at a stove, or even flatten it with a hammer, without stirring it to undesired activity—that is, as a rule—but now and then a chance tap with a pick-handle or a little jolt suffices to loose its tremendous potentialities. In such cases the men nearest it are usually not ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... called the equal temperament system the attempt is made to divide the octave into twelve equal parts or semi-tones, thus rendering all keys alike. To do this it is necessary to slightly flatten all the fifths and sharpen the major thirds. The difference from just intonation is about one-fiftieth of a semi-tone. Although recommended and used by J. S. Bach, equal temperament was not introduced ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller

... took but the time of the flicking of the horse's tail, and yet something had happened, a barrier had gone down somewhere, and I was leading a wider and a wiser life. I felt it all in a flush, but shy and backward as I was, I could do nothing but flatten out the sacking for her. Her eyes were after the coach which was rattling away to Berwick, and suddenly she shook her ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of sleep we had had in nearly three days. But the German gunners were most inconsiderate, and a short time afterward they dropped a small barrage down the road. The front of our forge was open, and we were obliged to flatten ourselves on the ground to prevent the flying splinters from hitting us. When this diversion was over, we stirred up our fire, and made some tea, just in time to offer some to a gunner sergeant who came riding up. He hitched his horse to one of the posts, and sat down with us by the fire. The shell-fire ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh

... takes your glittering sword and transforms it into a policeman's baton of wood! You are destined to see within your walls—if any walls remain to you—your own wives and daughters clog their dainty tread with encumbrances of English leather, flatten their heads beneath mushroom-shaped hats, surround themselves with crinoline and flounces, and wear magenta, that abominable mixture of red and blue which always filled your soul with horror. Then, to increase the resemblance of your Parisian women with the Londoners ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... I thought the whole performance was an act, to prove you're a better man than I am. You talk about dreams. Good God! You don't know what dreams are! If you say one more word about quitting, I'll show you whether I love you or not—I'll squeeze you so hard it'll flatten ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith

... aloft bleated aloud for mercy. But the hour of any mercy was gone by; the cup was brewed and must be drunken to the dregs; since so many had fallen all must fall. The light was bad, the cheap revolvers fouled and carried wild, the screaming wretches were swift to flatten themselves against the masts and yards, or find a momentary refuge in the hanging sails. The fell business took long, but it was done at last. Hardy the Londoner was shot on the fore-royal yard, and hung horribly suspended in the brails. Wallen, the other, had his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... melted over hot water, and the vanilla, also more water if necessary. Work with a silver plated knife and knead until thoroughly mixed, then break off small pieces of uniform size and roll them into balls, in the hollow of the hand, flatten the balls a little, set the half of an English walnut upon each, pressing the nut into the candy and thus flattening it still more. The caramel gives the chocolate a ...
— Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes and Home Made Candy Recipes • Miss Parloa

... spit in a circle, just at the mouth of the dug-out which most of the half-section inhabit, and flood with tobacco-stained saliva the place where they put their hands and feet when they flatten themselves to ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... anywheres except in a dirty little North St. Louis flat with us three girls in a bed? Haven't I got my name all over town for speed, just because I've always had to rustle out and try to learn how to flatten out a dime to the size of a dollar? Where do I come in on the solid-gold talk, I'd like to know. I'm the penny-splitter of the world, the girl that made the Five-and-Ten-Cent Store millinery department famous. I can look tailor-made ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... flatter the trajectory the farther it will go. Tom's object, then, was to flatten the trajectory, by lowering the muzzle of the gun, in ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton

... people live only 6 miles apart, but fiew words of each others language- the language of those above having great Similarity with those tribes of flat heads we have passed- all have the Clucking tone anexed which is predomint. above, all flatten the heads of their female children near the falls, and maney above follow the Same Custom The language of the Che-luc-it-to-quar a fiew miles below is different from both in a Small degree. The wind increased in the evening and blew verry hard from the Same point ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... "Do you hear, GET DOWN!" He dropped on his knees, crying out the warning to Armin in the other's language. "They've got enough guns to make a sieve of this kennel if their ammunition holds out—and the lower logs are heaviest. Flatten yourself out until they stop firing, with your feet toward 'em, like this," and he stretched himself out on the floor, parallel ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood

... adventures, Sir Jee's soul squirmed, and his body sympathised with his soul. Something in him that was more powerful than himself compelled him to do his utmost to reduce Denry to a moral pulp, to flatten him, to ignore him, or to exterminate him by the application of ice. This tactic was no more lost on the Countess than it was on Denry. And the Countess foiled it at every instant. In truth, there existed between the Countess and Sir Jee a rather hot rivalry in philanthropy ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... grass-snake. He lay with all his four-foot length displayed in graceful sinuous curves, and was listened to in silence. Nothing loves a snake, however harmless. "With me, as with the caterpillars, it is mostly bluff. I can swing back my head, and flatten the nape of my neck, as well as any deadly adder. I can also strike, but there is no poison behind the blow. My only weapon of offence is smell, a sickening musty smell, that makes the enemy loose his hold. Once I am halfway down a hole, I'm safe. I set ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... revenge. He went to a professional drunkard on Division street, and said that if he should happen to get drunk Monday night and Hatch should happen to arrest him, he would give the drunkard five dollars if the drunkard would mash Frank's new hat. The fellow said he would flatten it flatter than flatness itself. Just after dark Mr. Hatch was walking down Third street, "Whoop, hurrah for Tilden, (hic) 'endrix." The remark seemed so out of place that Frank went down there. The man was lying on the sidewalk, and telling the barrel ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... upon leather braces running under it and supporting it on each side; and when the roads are bad, or you ascend or rapidly descend the pitches (as they term short hills) the motion is very similar to that of being tossed in a blanket, often throwing you up to the top of the coach, so as to flatten ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... their boots, and to-night they made better headway. Twice they had to flatten and muffle their breathing, for parties of Indians rode almost upon them. The country seemed to be alarmed; Indians were riding back and forth constantly. All the landmarks were shrouded and changed; they headed south and easterly by the stars—and at daybreak were obliged ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... as if their mothers used to sit upon their faces when they was kids, to keep them warm and flatten their noses out." ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn

... over exercise—and a thousand other things also. Nor is it the application of rouge alone, which spoils the beauty. There are a thousand physical transgressions that dim the lustre of the eye, or sink it too deep in the socket, or flatten it, or paint a circle round it. So of the face in general. There are a thousand forms of transgression that take away the carnation of the lip and cheek, and leave unnatural hues, not to say pimples and furrows, in ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott

... quantities as for short crust. Divide butter into pieces on floured board and flatten with the rolling-pin—a stoneware bottle, by the way, is much better than a wooden rolling-pin. Put the butter with the flour and mix as before with egg, lemon juice and water. Turn out on floured board, make into a neat, oblong shape, beat down with rolling-pin ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill

... the olden day tended in toward the centre of our solar system, and the mass revolved, there is reason to believe that ringlike separations took place in it. Whirling in the manner indicated, the mass of vapour or dust would flatten into a disk or a body of circular shape, with much the greater diameter in the plane of its whirling. As the process of concentration went on, this disk is supposed to have divided into ringlike masses, some approach to which we can discern ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... stamped, the rug continued to flatten down; it sank under their tread with a horrible, sickening, ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... spreads in the vicinity, fifteen or twenty thousand persons, a prodigious accumulation, a pell-mell traversed by eddies, a howling sea of bodies crushing each other, and of which the simple flux and reflux would flatten against the walls obstacles ten times as strong, an uproar sufficient to shatter the window panes, "frightful yells," curses and imprecations, "Down with M. Veto!" "Let Veto go to the devil!" "Take back the patriot ministers!" "He ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... the whole world in every dull detail, regardless of the right of other men to get an occasional word in edgewise—these are the true marks of the genuine bore. He must know that you take no interest in him or his story. Even if you did, his manner of telling it would flatten you, yet he fascinates you with that glassy stare, that self-conscious and self-admiring smirk, and distils his tale into your ears at the very moment when you are burning to talk over old College-days with CHALMERS, or to discuss an article in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various

... of quiet—until at last the whole sea grew restless and shifted color and flickered green;—the swells became shorter and changed form. Then from horizon to shore ran one uninterrupted heaving—one vast green swarming of snaky shapes, rolling in to hiss and flatten upon the sand. Yet no single cirrus-speck revealed itself through all the violet heights: there was no wind!—you might have fancied the sea had been upheaved ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn

... as usual, and by-and-by the snake began to flatten his ribs, and draw himself from under the load, until at last he was clear of it; then, heaving a deep sigh of relief he lay quiet for awhile to recover his breath. He knew there was a hole somewhere if he could only find it and he ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... idea; it is a necessity of the human mind. When we think of the class A as desirable, we think of Not-A as undesirable. The two things are as inevitably connected as the tendons of our hands, so that when we flatten down our little fingers on our palms, the fourth digit, whether we want it or not, comes down halfway. All real working gods, one may remark, all gods that are worshipped emotionally, are tribal gods, and every attempt to universalise the idea ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... and like little white shells. He would take one between finger and thumb and play with it as if it were a toy, pulling at the lobe of it, or trying to flatten out the curved part. Her breasts, her shoulders, her knees, her little feet, every bit of her, he would examine and play with and kiss. She would lie and let him, seeming absorbed in some far-away thought, of which he was the ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... you take me for?" returned Cerizet. "With that worthy old fellow, from whom I have already wormed a promise of thirty thousand francs, I play the ninny; I flatten myself to nothing. But I've made Bruneau talk, that old valet of his. You can safely ally yourself to his family, my dear fellow; du Portail is powerfully rich; he'll get you made sub-prefect somewhere; and thence ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... cut it in joints, and flatten them with a bill; cut off the ends of the bones, and lard the thick part of the cutlets with four or five bits of bacon; season it with nutmeg, pepper and salt; strew over them a few bread crumbs, and sweet herbs shred ...
— English Housewifery Exemplified - In above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts Giving Directions - for most Parts of Cookery • Elizabeth Moxon

... spasmodic growling of the "heavies" told that fifteen miles away someone was being unmercifully plastered; but the nearer artillery slept. With eyes and ears straining to their utmost, with muscles held ready to relax and let him flatten out at the first sign of enemies, he continued up this new and very dangerous slope, possessing no idea where it would lead, knowing only that he must reach his own lines before dawn. And now he realized that the air ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... flatten against most parts of his body. By the by, I saw an instance of a rhinoceros having been destroyed by that ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... observed that flesh-mountains when exposed to heat do not stand up of their own consistency, but have a tendency to melt and flatten; it was necessary that this bulk should be supported, so there were three attendants, one securely braced under each armpit, and the third with a more precarious grip under the mountain's chin. Every thirty seconds or so the heaving, sliding mass would emit ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair

... flatten into a straight line—the best imitation of a smile she can work up, I expect—and she turns down a leaf in her magazine. Then she shifts sudden to another chair, where she has me under the electrolier, facin' her, and I knows that I'm let in for ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... of the earth is between 4,000 and 10,000 tons per square inch, and this must be only a very small fraction of that attained within larger celestial bodies. Jeans has computed the pressure at the centre of two colliding stars as they strike and flatten, and finds it may be of the order of 1,000,000,000 tons per square inch—sufficient, if their diameter be equal to that of the sun—to ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale

... hostile fists, Waited the close blockade— Then, dim to left and right, The curving islands with their shattered mounds That had been forts; Mounds, which in spite Of four long years of rending agony Still held against the light; Faint wraiths of color For the breeze to lift And flatten into faded ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen

... material proof he was absently tipping from hand to hand, during his broken and unsatisfactory interview with Firmstone. It was nothing more nor less than a nickel-jacketed bullet which, that very morning, had barely missed his head, only to flatten itself ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason

... series of mountain ranges, some of which run parallel with Lebanon, and flatten into the plain at "the gathering in of Hamath," while some bend off in a more easterly direction, and shoot out boldly into the desert. The westward end of this mountainous range rises into Mount Hermon. The ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... it holds the chief and highest power, as mese to hypate, in respect of the concupiscent; as mese to nete, in respect of the irascible; insomuch as it depresses and heightens,—and in fine makes a harmony,—by abating what is too much and by not suffering them to flatten and grow dull. For what is moderate and symmetrous is defined by mediocrity. Still more is it the end of the rational faculty to bring the passions to moderation, which is called sacred, as making a harmony of the extremes with reason, and through reason with each other. ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... the pull of the earth and the sun balance each other, water could not flow or flatten out. Let us try to imagine that water, here on the earth, has lost its habit of flattening out whenever possible—that, like clay, it keeps whatever shape ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... him to think he can read the characters of people just as quick as he can aim a rifle. And it's a mighty important thing to keep Peter's spirits up. If Peter's spirits was to go down, things round here would flatten out worse than a ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton

... strength and weight Can flatten the huts of the frightened men! But the glory of smashing is lost of late, We raid less eagerly now than then, For pits are staked, and the traps are blind, The guns be many, the men be more; We fidget with pickets before and behind, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... like springing bridges of crimson lacquer; they swing up over curved heels like whirling tanagers sucked in a wind-pocket; they flatten out, heelless, like July ponds, flared ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... act in such a way that the lens bulges out, and becomes thick in the middle and of the right curvature to focus the near object upon the screen. When we look at an object several hundred feet away, the muscles change their pull on the lens and flatten it until it is of the proper curvature for the new distance. The adjustment of the muscles is so quick and unconscious that we normally do not experience any difficulty in changing our range of view. The ability of the eye to adjust itself to varying distances is called accommodation. The power ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... spiders, which sped away as fast as fear or joy could hasten them." But he neglected to state, although he must have noticed the fact, that the two sides of the trap, at first concave to the contained insect, at length flatten and close down firmly upon the prey, exerting no inconsiderable pressure, and insuring the death of any soft-bodied insect, if it had not already succumbed to the confinement and salivation. This last Dr. Curtis noticed, and first discerned its ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... show, that such, at least was its effect previous to, and after Noah used it; and if they fail in this, that necessarily, this part of their argument is also a total failure. Let us look into the Bible. God cursed our first parents. Did this curse kink their hair, flatten their skulls, blacken their skin and flatten their nose? If it did, then Noah was sadly mistaken and these gentlemen too, in supposing that it was Noah's curse, that accomplished all this, for it was ...
— The Negro: what is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed. • Buckner H. 'Ariel' Payne

... vine. "Round seem to prowl the tiger, and the lynx, "And savage forms of panthers, various mark'd. "Up leap'd the men, by sudden madness mov'd; "Or terror only: Medon first appear'd "Blackening to grow, with shooting fins; his form "Flatten'd; and in a curve was bent his spine. "Him Lycabas address'd;—what wonderous shape "Art thou receiving?—speaking, wide his jaws "Expanded; flatten'd down, his nose appear'd; "A scaly covering cloth'd his harden'd skin. "Lybis to turn the firm fixt oars ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... statue of The Virgin in St. Mary's Abbey, and—a quainter piece of ceremonial still—the youthful monarch was, after the ceremony, hoisted upon the shoulders of the tallest man in Ireland, "Great Darcy of Flatten," and, in this position, promenaded through the streets of Dublin so as to be seen by the people, after which he was taken back in triumph to ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... will probably find more difficult at first. For the reason already explained it seems natural to observe objects as made up of outlines, not masses. The frame with cottons across it should be used to flatten the appearance, as in making outline drawings. And besides this a black glass should be used. This can easily be made by getting a small piece of glass—a photographic negative will do—and sticking some black paper on the ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed

... broiled chicken is one of the most delicious dishes that can be served. There is no earthly use, however, in trying to broil a chicken that is not fat and nice. If the chicken is a little too old to broil whole the breast will still be tender. Flatten the chicken by pounding it. Have a bed of clear, bright coals and a hot gridiron well greased to prevent sticking. Cover with a baking-dish and turn often, allowing the bony side to stay down longer than the other side. ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris

... love her to distraction. Let any man on earth say she's not an angel, I flatten him dead as his lie. By the way, sir, I am bound in duty to inform you I am speaking ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... amongst the rafters of the high and strange roof. The manufactory in which the men were at work was a strong contrast to this desolate place, a stunning noise, Cyclops with bared arms dragging sheets of red-hot copper, and thrusting it between the cylinders to flatten it; while it passed between these, the flame issued forth with a sort of screeching noise. When I first heard it I thought somebody was hurt: the flame was occasioned by the burning of the grease put between the rollers. There were a number of children employed drawing ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... baffling ones who remain enthusiastically ignorant of my existence; to the moral ones upon whom Beauty exercises a lascivious and corrupting influence; to the moral ones who have relentlessly chased God out of their bedrooms; to the moral ones who cringe before Nature, who flatten themselves upon prayer rugs, who shut their eyes, stuff their ears, bind, gag and truss themselves and offer their mutilations to the idiot God they have invented (the Devil take them, I grow bored with ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht

... rock, or through the long, wooden-roofed bazaars, seeming to heed the fantastically colored spectacle as little as the garbage under foot, or the trains of gigantic camels, at the sound of whose approaching bells he would mechanically flatten himself against the wall. And yet he must have been seeing, for if he chanced upon anything that suffered—a child, a lean dog, a cripple, a leper—his eyes filled with tears. At times he would stand on the brink of the green gulf and gaze seawards long and ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... helm!" cried the captain, in a cheerful tone, which gave encouragement to all. "Hoist away! Flatten aft the sheets!" ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... weighing some four pounds, "opens the door at the end ov the passage, and this one opens the street gate; now jist take that bit ov wood and bang me on one side ov my hed—not savagely, you know, but jist enough to flatten me, and make me ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... value of the bamboo to the natives. With it they make their suspension bridges, build their houses, and procure narrow planking for their floors. If they want broader planks they split a large bamboo on one side and flatten it out to a plank of about eighteen inches wide. Portions of hollow bamboo serve as receptacles for milk or water. If a precipice stops a path, the Dyaks will not hesitate to construct a bamboo path along the face of it, using branches of trees wherever convenient ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... first employed by Murdock received the name "cockspur" from the shape of the flame. This had an illuminating value equivalent to about one candle for each cubic foot of gas burned per hour. The next step was to flatten the welded end of the gas-pipe and to bore a series of holes in a line. From the shape of the flames this form of burner received the name "cockscomb." It was somewhat more efficient than the cockspur burner. The next obvious step was to slit the end ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh

... months after the outbreak of hostilities their weakness in regard to equipment and to munitions was not, however, known, or at all events was only partially known. There was much talk in the Press about the "steam-roller" which was going to flatten the Central Powers out. We at the War Office had received warnings from our very well-informed Military Attache, it is true; but those warnings did not convey to us the full gravity of the position, a gravity which was probably not recognized ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... sunk a great deal of brush, together with limbs of trees, and were now filling this wicker-work in with earth and rocks which they procured a little distance above on the opposite bank. A beaver would run up, flatten his tail on the mud near the bank, then another beaver would scrape the earth up and upon the tail of the first, and pack it down. After he had his load complete, the carrier-beaver would swim away rapidly; his tail, with the load of earth, floating ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous

... seems necessary to look forward on all the changes which cannot fail to occur. Even the structure of the human body will be modified. It is an uncontradictable fact that without exercise all organs flatten and end by disappearing altogether. It has been observed that fishes deprived of light become blind. I myself have seen in Valais that shepherds who fed on curdled milk lost their teeth very early; some of them never ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... succeeded better in his Books of Plants, who, besides the same faults with the former, is continually varying his numbers from one sort of verse to another, and alluding to remote hints of medicinal writers, which, though allowed to be useful, are yet so numerous, that they flatten the dignity of verse, and sink it from a poem, to a treatise of physic,' Dr. Sewel has informed us, that Mr. Philips intended to have written a poem on the Resurrection, and the Day of Judgment, and we may ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... long as it is necessary to enclose within the cake of butter. This is placed in the middle and the edges of the sheet of paste are drawn over it, closing well with fingers moistened in a little water so that no air remains inside. Then begin to flatten, first with the hands, then with the rolling pin, making the sheet as thin as possible, but taking care that the butter does not come out. If this happens throw at once a little flour where the butter appears and always have the marble slab (or bread board) and the rolling pin sprinkled ...
— The Italian Cook Book - The Art of Eating Well • Maria Gentile

... tailings go to the shorts bin, the middlings which are sufficiently well purified go to the middlings stone, while those from near the tail of the machine which contain a little germ and bran specks go to the second germ rolls, these being a pair of smooth rolls which flatten out the germ and crush the middlings, loosening adhering particles from the bran specks. From the second germ rolls the material goes to a reel, where it is separated into flour which goes into the baker's ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... aparente apparent. aparicion apparition, appearance. apariencia appearance. apear vr. to alight. apellido name, surname. apenas hardly. apero agricultural implements. apestar to infect, smell. apiadar vr. to pity. aplastar to flatten, crush. apoderar vr. to take possession. apodo nickname. apoplejia apoplexy. apopletico apoplectic. aposento room. apostol apostle. apoyar to support; vr. to lean. apoyo support, prop, protection. apreciar to appreciate. aprehensor ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

... Flatten the fillets by pounding them lightly with the vegetable masher. Season with pepper and salt, and dredge well with flour. Put in the frying-pan one table-spoonful of butter for each fillet, and when hot, ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa

... turbot of fabulous dimensions—one of those phenomenal fish which are only seen in the old paintings representing the miraculous draught of fish, or perhaps in the window of Chevet, before a row of astonished street-boys who flatten their noses against ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee

... ugly!' shrieked the Dowager. 'Tear her wig off! Scrub the paint off her face! Flatten her nose on the pavement! Saw off her legs and give her no crinoline! Take her out bathing, I say, and bring her home in a wheelbarrow with fern roots ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... then what Coltman meant when he said that the antelope had not begun to run. At the first shot every animal in the herd seemed to flatten itself and settle to its work. They did not run—they simply flew across the ground, their legs showing only as a blur. The one I killed was four hundred yards away, and I held four feet ahead when I pulled the trigger. They ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... show 'professor' uses up most of the superlatives in the English language when he gives his lecture, and each of 'em seemed afraid that the other would get some of his share of the dictionary. Adipose used to look at Jake's coiled body as if he would like to sit on it and flatten it out, and the snake would return the glance with a naughty little twinkle in its eye, as if he was estimating how much it would have to stretch its skin to accommodate A. A. in its interior, until it made Merritt ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe

... pleased at the sight, commanded that the like should be done to every male or female child for ever after. The Pelew Islanders believe that the perforation of the septum of the nose is necessary for winning eternal bliss; and the Nicaraguans say that their ancestors were instructed by the gods to flatten their children's heads. Again, in Fiji it is supposed that the custom of tattooing is in conformity with the appointment of the god Dengei, and that its neglect is punished after death. A similar idea ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... its cirque, as a river often begins in its lake, the glacier flows downward, river-like, along a course of least resistance. Here it pours over a precipice in broken falls to flatten out in perfect texture in the even stretch below. Here it plunges down rapids, breaking into crevasses as the river in corresponding phase breaks into ripples. Here it rises smoothly over rocks ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... later. From the accounts of the discussion preserved in Maclay's diary it appears that there was much wrangling. Maclay relates that on one occasion when Pennsylvania's demands were sharply attacked, his colleague, Robert Morris, was so incensed that Maclay "could see his nostrils widen and his nose flatten like the head of a viper." Pierce Butler of South Carolina "flamed away and threatened a dissolution of the Union, with regard to his State, as sure as God was in the firmament." Thus began a line of argument that was frequently pursued thereafter until it was ended by wager of battle. On ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... it up to the bows smartly, cat it, and then range along your cable all ready for letting go again if need be. Flatten in your larboard jib-sheets for'ard; man your larboard fore- braces and brace the headyards sharp up. Hard a-starboard with your helm, Williams—she has stern-way upon her. And you Rogers, away aloft ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... not permit it to have any influence on his cheerful mood. He drew in long breaths of the stimulating air and sniffed joyously at the fragrance of the murmuring forests which clothed the higher hills. Far below the timber would dwindle, the ridges would flatten into round knolls and lose their verdure; then would come the dust and lava ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts

... with a teaspoonful of salt, half of pepper, and a little grated nutmeg, and lemon peel; stir continually till very hot, then add two eggs, one at a time; mix well and pour on a dish to get cold. Then take a piece, shape it like a small egg, flatten it a little, egg and bread-crumb it all over, taking care to keep in good shape. Do all the same way, then put into a frying-pan a quarter of a pound of lard or dripping, let it get hot, and put in the pieces, and saute (or as we call ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen

... into nicely-shaped cutlets, flatten them, and trim off some of the fat, dip them in clarified butter, and then, into the beaten yolk of an egg. Mix well together bread crumbs, herbs, parsley, shalot, lemon-peel, and seasoning in the above ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... and spirit, of the most impersonal abstractions as well as the most personal affections. . . . Even what are called the fine doctrinal distinctions are not dull. They are like the finest operations of surgery; separating nerve from nerve but giving life. It is easy enough to flatten out everything around for miles with dynamite if our only object is to give death. But just as the physiologist is dealing with living tissues so the theologian is dealing with living ideas; and if he draws a line between them it is ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... solid part of these strata, it is necessary to make a shaft at the foot of the wall of great depth through the strata; and in this shaft, on the side from which the hill slopes, smooth and flatten a space one palm wide from the top to the bottom; and after some time this smooth portion made on the side of the shaft, will show plainly which part of ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... the mirage to the east, was an unknown country in which Turkish patrols moved unmolested. One of "A" Company's jobs as late as March 1916 was to accompany every evening along the Canal bank a camel dragging a heavy baulk of wood in such a way as to sweep and flatten a track in the sand, so broad that an agile Turk could not be expected to jump over it. In the morning this track was carefully scrutinised, and it was possible to see whether anybody besides the ants and beetles, who had a right of way, had gone across it during the night, ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... water is not readily expelled do not attempt to force it out by straining. Instead, flatten in the abdomen by forcibly ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell

... and the windows were casements glazed with plate glass and very large. Walter Clifford had built it for a curate, who proved a bird of passage, and the said Walter had a horror of low rooms, for he said, "I always feel as if the ceiling was going to flatten me to the floor." Owing to this the bedroom windows, which looked westward on the garden, were a great height from the ground, and the building ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... man slipped and stumbled on in semi-crouching posture, ready to flatten to earth as soon as any one of his many overshoulder glances detected another sky-spearing flight of sparks. But this necessity he was spared; no more lights were discharged before he groped through the wires to the parapet, with almost uncanny good luck, finding the very ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... feel it, the Cubists are not Cubist enough," replied the stranger. "I mean they're not thick enough. By making things mathematical they make them thin. Take the living lines out of that landscape, simplify it to a right angle, and you flatten it out to a mere diagram on paper. Diagrams have their own beauty; but it is of just the other sort. They stand for the unalterable things; the calm, eternal, mathematical sort of truths; what somebody calls the 'white ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... thing for the men in the aeroplane, I should say!" Josh informed him. "They must be all of half a mile high, and a fall would flatten a poor chump out ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow

... craft—are lying becalmed, with hanging sails. The men on board the felucca watch them and the sea. There is a shadow on the white, hazy horizon, then a streak, then a broad dark blue band. The schooner braces her top-sail yard and gets her main sheet aft. The martinganes flatten in their jibs along their high steeving bowsprits and jib-booms. Shift your sheets, too, now, for the wind is coming. Past L'Infresco with its lovely harbour of refuge, lonely as a bay in a desert island, ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford

... Flossie, who had, by this time, wiggled herself to a place beside Freddie, and so near the window that she could flatten her ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope

... of the visit Celestina had arrayed herself in a fresh print dress and ruffled apron and had compelled Willie to replace his jumper with a suit of homespun and flatten his locks into water-soaked rigidity. By the exchange both persons had lost a certain picturesqueness which Bob could not but deplore. Nevertheless the fact did not greatly matter, for it was not toward them that the capitalist turned his glance. Instead his swiftly moving ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... we put a drop of blood upon a glass slide, and place upon it a cover of thin glass, we can flatten it out until the color almost disappears. If we examine this thin film with a microscope, we see that the blood is not altogether fluid. We find that the liquid part, or plasma, is of a light straw color, and has floating in it a multitude of very minute bodies, called corpuscles. ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... but she'd flatten you out so that you'd go under that door and leave room for the jolly draught there is all ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope

... and draw eight pigeons, split them down the middle of the back, flatten them by pounding them with the blade of a heavy knife, broil them on a greased gridiron, the inside first; lay each one on a slice of buttered toast, and dress them with a little maitre d'hotel butter, made ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson

... bottom. This serves as a "hot house" and protects the scion from rain. As soon as leaves appear on the scion, the sack is removed and all the new sprouts are broken off below the graft. I put only one scion on each graft. I use Beck's cold wax. It is easy to thin with water and I just flatten a stick for my brush. I never wax the bud but wax scion well ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various

... Mix with it about twice the quantity of hot mashed potatoes well seasoned with butter and salt. Beat up an egg and work it into the potato and meat, then form the mixture into little cakes the size of fish balls. Flatten them a little, roll in flour or egg and cracker crumbs, fry in butter and lard mixed, browning on ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... the grimacing, not to the clear-faced, gods. She herself, naturally, through the past years, had come to be much represented in those receptacles; against the thick, locked panes of which she still liked to flatten her nose, finding in its place, each time, everything she had on successive anniversaries tried to believe he might pretend, at her suggestion, to be put off with, or at least think curious. She was now ready to try it ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... if we're live enough to worry about the sun's heat—say, that was a close one!" exclaimed Duke, frantically trying to flatten a little more. "Ah, thought so—there's that ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... philosopher and friend. Johnny approached grinning, and Jerry's demeanour immediately changed. His body stiffened under Villa Kennan's hand as he drew away from her and stalked stiff-legged to the black. Jerry's ears did not flatten, nor did he laugh fellowship with his mouth, as he inspected Johnny and smelt his calves for future reference. Cavalier he was to the extreme, and, after the briefest of inspection, he turned ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... at fault on a trail double on their steps and move uneasily to and fro, nosing the missing scent. As lions flatten behind their cagebars, the climbers laid themselves against the rock and pushed to the right and the left seeking an avenue of escape. They had every right to expect that help would already have reached them, ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman

... of veal next to the udder; separate the skin, and flatten the meat on a clean cloth; make slits in the bottom part, that it may soak up seasoning, and lard the top very thick and even. Take a stewpan that will receive the veal without confining it; put at the bottom three carrots ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury



Words linked to "Flatten" :   roll, splat, laminate, drop, change, change form, shape, form, steamroll, roll out, alter, press, deform, music, change shape, steamroller, sharpen, modify



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