Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Semicircular   Listen
adjective
Semicircular  adj.  Having the form of half of a circle.
Semicircular canals (Anat.), certain canals of the inner ear. See under Ear.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Semicircular" Quotes from Famous Books



... IVANOFF'S country place. On the left is a terrace and the facade of the house. One window is open. Below the terrace is a broad semicircular lawn, from which paths lead to right and left into a garden. On the right are several garden benches and tables. A lamp is burning on one of the tables. It is evening. As the curtain rises sounds of the piano and violoncello ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov

... Giving a semicircular sweep of his arm: "Here you see my little estate, sir," he said. "You've seen plenty bigger in Germany, and England too. We can't get more than this handful in our tight little island. Unless born to it, of course. Well! we must be grateful that all our nobility don't ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... ear, or labyrinth, a cavity in the bone, back of the middle ear, consists of three parts: the Cochlea, the Semicircular Canals, and a middle portion, the Vestibule. The middle ear is connected with the throat by ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... the Danube also manufactures a dwelling of dried earth. It gives it the form of an elliptic cupola, and prepares a semicircular opening for ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... by a wide corridor, to be built on the right in which to house his library and collections. This lateral extension of the house, constructed according to his own plans, was, like its designer, somewhat eccentric in character. The three rooms were semicircular, all window on the southern garden front, veritable sun-traps, with a low sloped roofing of grey-green ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... came into her face and she sprang backward, giving the sword a semicircular turn with her wrist. The blade sent forth a keen hiss as it cut the air close, very close to Rene's nose. He jerked his head and flung ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... vigilance and instinct, that on the approach of a passer-by to a spot which they infest, they may be seen amongst the grass and fallen leaves on the edge of a native path, poised erect, and preparing for their attack on man and horse. On descrying their prey they advance rapidly by semicircular strides, fixing one end firmly and arching the other forwards, till by successive advances they can lay hold of the traveller's foot, when they disengage themselves from the ground and ascend his dress in search of an aperture to enter. In these encounters the individuals in the ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... over his memories of the morning, Durtal saw again, as he closed his eyes, at the end of the semicircular apse, the procession of red and black robes, white surplices, joining in front of the altar, descending the steps together, making their way together to the catafalque, dividing again on each aide, joining to mix afresh in the ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... burning hospitably, and diffused a genial warmth far and wide, together with the fragrance of some old English roast-beef, which, I think, must at that moment have been done nearly to a turn. The kitchen is a lofty, spacious, and noble room, partitioned off round the fireplace, by a sort of semicircular oaken screen, or rather, an arrangement of heavy and high-backed settles, with an ever-open entrance between them, on either side of which is the omnipresent image of the Bear and Ragged Staff, three feet high, and excellently carved in oak, now ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... noble setting for the drama now to be enacted. Quebec stands on a bold semicircular rock on the north shore of the St. Lawrence. At the foot of the rock sweeps the mighty river, here at the least breadth in its whole course, but still a flood nearly a mile wide, deep and strong. Its currents ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong

... in charge of Mr. Flint, Christy and Amblen walked towards the battery, crouching behind such objects as they could find that would conceal them in whole or in part. The earthwork was semicircular in form, and was hardly more than a rifle pit. No sentinel could be discovered, and getting down upon the sand, the two officers crept cautiously towards the heaps of sand ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic

... undulations of the ground. Gerfaut understood this pantomime. He glanced, in his turn, over the place, and soon discovered at some distance a more propitious place for such a conversation as theirs. It was a semicircular recess in one of the thickets in the park. A rustic seat under a large oak seemed to have been placed there expressly for those who came to seek solitude and speak of love. From there, one could ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... the citizens sat in the Public Assembly in the Pnyx to hear the orators. In the centre of the semicircular space the tribune stood, a square block of stone, [Greek: Bema], and from this the people ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... the left side of the chair of state were placed five ordinary chairs of crimson velvet, without arms, for the five Ricks-officers; and on the same side below them, and on the other side from the foot-pace down to the forms, in a semicircular form, were stools of ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... are more broken. Yet they have a certain majestic sweep, and for the most part are forest-mantled from base to summit. Between them the river winds with noble grace, continually giving us fresh vistas, often of surpassing loveliness. The bottoms are broader now, and frequently semicircular, with fine farms upon them, and prosperous villages nestled in generous groves. Many of the houses betoken age, or what passes for it in this relatively new country, being of the colonial pattern, with fan-shaped windows above the doors, Grecian pillars ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... that the gaunt west front is the only view one really has of the building except from a distance. Inside, services seem to go on at most times of the day, and when you are quietly looking at the mighty nave with its plain, semicircular arches and massive piers, you are suddenly startled by the entry from somewhere of a procession of priests loudly singing some awe-inspiring chant, the guttural tones of the singers echoing through the aisles. Following the clerical party will come ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home

... sobs from escaping. Mr. Carey sat down in his arm-chair and began to turn over the pages of a book. Philip stood at the window. The vicarage was set back from the highroad to Tercanbury, and from the dining-room one saw a semicircular strip of lawn and then as far as the horizon green fields. Sheep were grazing in them. The sky was forlorn and ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... close up. On the 28th, through the treachery of a guide, we were led into an ambush, out of which we extricated ourselves with small loss. Upon the 29th, Company A, Breckinridge's battalion, and Company F, Duke's regiment, under Major Breckinridge, ambushed the enemy from the side of a semicircular bluff, around which the road runs. The column came to within twenty yards of the line of ambush, and its head was nearly beyond the extreme flank of the two companies; in advance were seventeen cavalrymen, some sitting with, their legs ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... beasts were in the basement of the kitchen tower, with a little semicircular yard of their own before them. They were solid stone vaults, with open fronts grated with huge iron bars—our ancestors, whatever were their faults, did not err in the direction of flimsiness. Between two of these bars, then, Tom, having procured ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... feeling of freshness and vigour in the very streets; and when I got free of the town, when my foot was on the sands and my face towards the broad, bright bay, no language can describe the effect of the deep, clear azure of the sky and ocean, the bright morning sunshine on the semicircular barrier of craggy cliffs surmounted by green swelling hills, and on the smooth, wide sands, and the low rocks out at sea—looking, with their clothing of weeds and moss, like little grass-grown islands—and ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... of switch made by the Oerlikon Works is illustrated in Fig. 7. Two thick semicircular bands of copper are screwed at one end to opposite sides of a square block which is turned round by the switch handle. The block has a projection at each corner, and two strong, flat, stationary springs are attached to the framework of the switch and press on opposite sides ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various

... weary soul, and such a vacant hour there was on this same Friday evening. The "opera-house" was spacious and admirably ventilated. As I was listening to the merriment of the sooty buffoons, I happened to cast my eyes up to the ceiling, and through an open semicircular window a bright solitary star looked me calmly in the eyes. It was a strange intrusion of the vast eternities beckoning from the infinite spaces. I called the attention of one of my neighbors to it, but "Bones" was irresistibly droll, and Arcturus, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... clothed to the summit with trees of the largest size. The solid mass of masonry in this vast mound is prodigious. Its diameter is 360 feet, and its present height (including the pedestal and spire) 249 feet, so that the contents of the semicircular dome of brickwork and the platform of stone, 720 feet square, and 14 feet high, exceed 20,000,000 of cubical feet. Even with the facilities which modern invention supplies for economising labour, the building of such a mass would at present occupy ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... a spot from which the rising or setting sun could be seen to the greatest possible advantage, it would be that wild path winding around the foot of the high belt of semicircular rocks, called Salisbury Crags, and marking the verge of the steep descent which slopes down into the glen on the south-eastern side of the city of Edinburgh. The prospect, in its general outline, commands a ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... of the external fire box is usually formed into a steam chest, which is sometimes dome shaped, sometimes semicircular, and sometimes of a pyramidical form, and from this steam chest the steam is conducted away by an internal pipe to the cylinders; but in other cases an independent steam chest is set upon the barrel of the boiler, consisting ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... is then heaved downwards and a little horizontal motion given to it which throws the refuse out; the partially cleared grain is now returned to the mortar, again pounded and cleared of husks, and a semicircular toss of the vessel sends all the remaining unhusked grain to one side, which is lifted out with the hand, leaving the chief part quite clean: they certainly work hard and well. The maize requires more labour by far: it is first pounded to remove the outer scales from ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... red doors, on the outside of which were painted the representations of cannon, not unlike at a distance the sham ports in a ship of war. The gates of a Chinese city are generally double, and placed in the flanks of a square or semicircular bastion. The first opens into a large space, surrounded with buildings, which are appropriated entirely for military uses, being the dept of provisions and ammunition, place d'armes, and barracks. Out of this place, in one of the flanks, the second gate, having a similar high building erected ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... time I had visited the place—I was startled to find the dent of a heel in the earth, half-way up the slope. There had been rain during the night and the earth was still moist and soft. It was the mark of a woman's boot, only to be distinguished from that of a walking-stick by its semicircular form. A little higher, I found the outline of a foot, not so small as to awake an ecstasy, but with a suggestion of lightness, elasticity, and grace. If hands were thrust through holes in a board-fence, and nothing of ...
— Who Was She? - From "The Atlantic Monthly" for September, 1874 • Bayard Taylor

... had interlaced and undermined them till they were completely forced out of place. Beyond this chaos, that lay nearly buried in greenery, rose up one above the other what seemed to Lawrence at the first glance to be the ruins of a huge flight of steps built in a semicircular form, but which he recognised at once, from pictures which he had seen, as ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn

... itself up, rough with inaccessible crags, bristling with old, ragged pines, and dark with glooms of close cedars and hemlocks, above a jutting table of rock that reaches out and makes a huge semicircular base for the mountain, and is in itself a precipice-pedestal eighty feet sheer up from the river-bank; close in against the hill front, on this platform of stone, that holds its foot or two of soil, a little, poor unshingled house, with ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... out through the narrow semicircular window of six-inch crystal glass running across the front of the conning-tower, which was almost as strong as steel, and saw three little dark, moving spots on the half-moonlit water, about two miles ahead, ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... contains a grand staircase of stone, consisting of central and lateral nights, with pedestals for sculptures, leading to a gallery on three sides of the hall, supported on Doric pillars; and to the theatre, which is of a semicircular form. On the gallery are entrances on each side leading through corridors flanked with columns, into the exhibition-rooms in each wing of the building; the ceiling of the Hall is richly-paneled in deeply-recessed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various

... the room a low wall was raised three or four feet from the floor. It was capped with rude carvings. The whole mass gleamed dully golden in the bright light. Beyond the wall in semicircular formation, resembling a grouping of bronze statues, were men like the one with whom Rawson had fought. Priests, tenders of the fires. He knew in an instant that here were more of the red one's holy men. They stood erect, unmoving. At their center was another seated ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin

... taken from the broad end from 5 to 6, and the fat on this ridge is very much liked by many. The cramp-bone is a delicacy, and is obtained by cutting down to the bone at 4, and running the knife under it in a semicircular direction to 3. The nearer the knuckle the drier the meat, but the under side contains the most finely grained meat, from which slices may be cut lengthwise. When sent to the table a frill of paper around the knuckle will improve ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... a halt—none too soon for the camels—in a semicircular space protected by a low cliff that might have been a quarry-face two thousand years ago; what might have been a pit was all filled in by drifted sand. But he had his own mat spread on the top of the cliff, whence he could ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy

... plenty of room for developing the Volta, as it is a waterway which a vessel drawing six feet can ascend fifty miles from July till November, and thirty miles during the rest of the year. The worst point about the Volta is the badness of its bar—a great semicircular sweep with heavy breakers—too bad a bar for boats to cross; but a steamer on the Lagos bar boat plan might manage it, as the Bull Frog reported in 1884 nineteen to twenty-one feet on it, one hour before high water. The absence of this bar boat, and the impossibility ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... look at, and as the owners kept a cow, we need hardly add that the delightful fragrance of milk which characterizes every well-kept dairy, was perfectly ambrosial here. The chairs were of oak, so were the tables; and a large arm-chair, with a semicircular back, stood at one side of the clean hearth, whilst over the chimney-piece hung a portrait of General Wolfe, with an engraving of the siege of Quebec. A series of four silver medals, enclosed in red morocco cases, having the surface of each protected ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... time has made in the levels of the ground and entering a small octagonal hall, one of the most interesting interiors of Provence meets the eye. "Each of its four sides," writes Jules de Lauriere, "which correspond to the angles of the outer square, has a semicircular apse built in the walls themselves. The eight columns, placed in a circle about the centre of the edifice, divide it into a circular nave and a central rotunda, and support eight arches which, in turn, support an octagonal drum, and ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose

... April they reached an island in the river, called San Bartolomeo, which the Spaniards had fortified, as an outpost, with a small semicircular battery, mounting nine or ten swivels, and manned with sixteen or eighteen men. It commanded the river in a rapid and difficult part of the navigation. Nelson, at the head of a few of his seamen, leaped upon the ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... that it was imagined irrespective of time, cost, or demand. Like all of Maybeck's buildings, it is thoroughly original. Of course the setting contributes much to the picturesque effect, but aside from that, the colonnades and the octagonal dome in the center of the semicircular embracing form of the main building present many interesting features There is a very fine development of vistas, which are so provided as to present different parts of the building in many ever-changing aspects. ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus

... to go to New York and look at yachts. She had then under consideration the plan of a semicircular marble terrace which was to overlook one end of a shaded lakelet, which Mr. Humphreys, her professional adviser, assured her she could have just as well as not, by means of a dam, and she did not wish to interrupt ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... from the place where I was I could see on the shore a charming little house of two stories, with a semicircular railing; through the railing, in front of the house, a green lawn, smooth as velvet, and behind the house a little wood full of mysterious retreats, where the moss must efface each morning the pathway that had been made the day before. Climbing flowers clung about the doorway ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils

... at a point where the banks were of considerable height on both sides of the river. It was opened for traffic in 1779, and continues a most serviceable structure to this day, giving the name to the town of Ironbridge, which has sprung up in its immediate vicinity. The bridge consists of one semicircular arch, of 100 feet span, each of the great ribs consisting of two pieces only. Mr. Robert Stephenson has said of the structure—"If we consider that the manipulation of cast iron was then completely in its infancy, a bridge of ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... the Arch of Drusus is the Gate of St. Sebastian, the Porta Appia of the Aurelian wall, protected on either side by two semicircular towers, which from their great height and massiveness have a most imposing appearance. They are composed of the beautiful glowing brick of the ancient Roman structures, and rest upon a foundation of white marble blocks, evidently ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... have only been at Scarfedale Manor a week, and already I seem to have been living here for months. It is a dear old house, very like the houses one used to draw when one was four years old—a doorway in the middle, with a nice semicircular top, and three windows on either side; two stories above with seven windows each, and a pretty dormered roof, with twisted brick chimneys, and a rookery behind it; also a walled garden, and a green oval grass-plot between it and the road. It seems to me that everywhere you go in England you ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... developed network of railroads, running practically parallel to this entire line. The Russians, on the other hand, had nothing but roads running from east to west or from north to south, which could be used as feeders only from a central point to a number of points along their semicircular line. Troops having once been concentrated could be thrown to another point if it was at any distance at all only by sending them back to the central point and then sending them out again on another feeder, or else by long and difficult marches which practically almost ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... following one or more years after the contraction of the disease) are usually of tubercular, gummatous or ulcerative type; are limited in extent, and have a marked tendency to appear in circular, semicircular or crescentic forms or groups. Pain in the bones, bone lesions and other symptoms may or ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon

... itself about half the public square of Yonville. The town-hall, constructed "from the designs of a Paris architect," is a sort of Greek temple that forms the corner next to the chemist's shop. On the ground floor are three Ionic columns, and on the first floor is a semicircular gallery, while the dome that crowns it is occupied by a Gallic cock, resting one foot upon the "Charte" and holding in the other the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... Marathon lies on the eastern coast of Attica, at the distance of twenty-two miles from Athens by the shortest road. It is in the form of a crescent, the horns of which consist of two promontories running into the sea, and forming a semicircular bay. This plain is about six miles in length, and in its widest or central part about two in breadth. On the day of battle the Persian army was drawn up along the plain about a mile from the sea, and their fleet was ranged behind ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... consist of little more than a few bushes laid one upon the other, in the form of a semicircle, as a protection from the wind, for the head, which is laid usually close up to this slight fence. In the winter, or in cold or wet weather, the semicircular form is still preserved, but the back and sides are sheltered by branches raised upon one end, meeting at the top in an arch, and supported by props in front, the convex part being always exposed to the wind. The sizes of these huts depends upon the facilities that may be afforded for ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... interior, but at the same time with the intention of returning to camp if unsuccessful in finding a good camp for the animals. On a bearing of 18 degrees, at twenty-two miles, arrived at Lake Perigundi, a semicircular lake from three to four miles in length by one and three-quarter miles broad. The water not very good; the natives even dig round in the clay a short distance from the lake for water for their use. Appear friendly, and we saw about 200 of ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay

... at Ottawa are a splendid pile of buildings, and though they may owe a great deal to the wonderful site they occupy on a semicircular wooded bluff projecting into the river, I should consider them one of the most successful group of buildings erected anywhere during the nineteenth century. All the details might not bear close examination, but the general effect was admirable, especially ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... cut since the night before, and the axes remained where they had been hung. The demon had not wanted them, it seemed, and there was no fear of intruding upon him now. So the two young men set to work to raise a semicircular range of turf seats in the pleasantest part of the shady grove. The central seat, which was raised above the rest, and had a footstool, was well cushioned with dry and soft moss, and the rough bark was cut from the trunk of the tree against which it was built; so that the stem served as a comfortable ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau

... conducted through a complex chain of small bones to the fenestra ovalis and so to the inner ear or labyrinth. But beyond this all is uncertainty. The labyrinth consists mainly of two parts (1) the cochlea, and (2) the semicircular canals, which are three in number, standing at right angles to one another. It has been supposed that they enable us to maintain the equilibrium of the body, but no satisfactory explanation of their function has yet been given. In the ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... and every other fifth Sunday. The Uptons and the Duvals had been vestrymen from the time they had brought the bricks over from England, generations ago. They had sat, one family in one of the front semicircular pews on one side the chancel, the other family in the other. Mrs. Upton, after the war, had her choice of the pews; for all had gone but herself, Jim, and Kitty. She had changed, the Sunday after her marriage, to the Upton side, and she clung loyally to it ever after. Mrs. ...
— "Run To Seed" - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page

... But elephants go very quick, even when they seem to be travelling slowly, for shrub and creepers that almost stop a man's progress are no hindrance to them. The three had now turned to the left, and were travelling back again in a semicircular line toward the mountains, probably with the idea of working round to their old feeding grounds on the further side of ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard

... which bore the device of the Iron Cross. Right and left of it were soldiers bearing the standards of their regiments. Attending on the king were the crown-prince, and a brilliant array of the princes, dukes, and other rulers of the German states arranged in semicircular form. Just above his head was a great allegorical painting of the Grand Monarch, with the proud subscription, "Le Roi gouverne par lui meme," the motto of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... at him, and Smith looked at his cigar. Others were playing around the semicircular table—it might mean nothing. Du Sang waited. Smith lifted his right hand from the table and felt in his waistcoat for a match. Du Sang, however, made no effort to take up the dice. He watched Whispering Smith scratch a match on the table, and, either because it failed to light or through design, ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman

... of the sea, of which the entrance is the widest part, as contradistinguished from the strait-gulf. The Bay of Biscay is a well-known example of the semicircular gulf. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... readily conceive of as having been built in what has been termed the Stone Age of astronomy. The principal of these buildings, the Samrat Yantra, is a long staircase in the meridian leading up to nothing, the shadow falling on to a great semicircular arc which it crosses. The slope of the staircase is, of course, parallel to ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder

... line! Don't you know any better than to ring in?" And the other person comes right back with: "Well, you big hog, I've waited ten minutes, and I'll ring all I want!" And then I say something more, and something is said to me that eats a little semicircular spot out of the edge of my ear. It's mighty lucky neither of us knows who is talking. Suppose Carrie should tell. As I say, Carrie holds us in the hollow of ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch

... the middle, great dishes of flowers sending their perfumed breath through the room, and bearing their delicate exotic witness to the luxury that reigned in the house. And not they alone. Before each guest's plate a semicircular wreath of flowers stood, seemingly upon the tablecloth; but Lois made the discovery that the stems were safe in water in crescent-shaped glass dishes, like little troughs, which the flowers completely covered up and hid. Her own ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... the drawbacks, if any, of the system may here be seen and judged of by all who are interested in the matter. On the ground floor there are three residences, each having a living room, which may be used as a kitchen and two bed rooms adjoining. A semicircular open staircase gives access to the flats, and on the first floor there are four residences, one being formed over the firemen's waiting room and office. On this floor additional bed rooms are provided for men with ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... regions and in lofty mountain-ranges. Every terminal moraine, such as I described in the last article, is the retreating footprint of some glacier, as it slowly yielded its possession of the plain, and betook itself to the mountains; wherever we find one of these ancient semicircular walls of unusual size, there we may be sure the glacier resolutely set its icy foot, disputing the ground inch by inch, while heat and cold strove for the mastery. There may have been a succession of cold summers, or, if now and then a warmer summer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... affected in the evening died over-night. The intensity of the frost wind often cut them off when in that state quite instantaneously. About the ninth and tenth days, the shepherds began to build up huge semicircular walls of their dead, in order to afford some shelter for the remainder of the living; but they availed but little, for about the same time they were frequently seen tearing at one another's wool with their teeth. When ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... near by, the hinds are reaping a crop of wheat which was late in ripening.[*] The workers are bending with semicircular sickles over their hot task; yet they form a merry, noisy crowd, full of homely "harvest songs," nominally in honor of Demeter, the Earth Mother, but ranging upon every conceivable rustic topic. Some laborers are cutting the grain, others, walking behind, are binding into sheaves and ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... continued their advance, fighting over a wide semicircular area before Adrianople, upon which city they gradually closed, taking some of the outer forts and making their bombardment felt within the ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... is Goodwood House." Geoffrey looked across the park (they had gone down the hill, through the wood, and were now in the open again) and saw a great, rambling house, the central part of white stone, with two semicircular bays. This part was evidently old, but long brick wings were added of more modern construction. "The county has bought it for a lunatic asylum, I hear from ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... semicircular, whence probably they took their names; afterwards they were built four square, with a spacious arched gate in the middle, and small ones on each side. Upon the vaulted part of the middle gate, hung little winged images ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway

... (a space left by the semicircular benches, with wings stretching to the right and left before the scene), a small square platform served as the altar, to which moved the choral dances, still retaining the attributes of their ancient sanctity. The coryphaeus, or leader of the chorus, took part in the dialogue as the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... emperor glided into his arm-chair, which stood behind a semicircular table, immediately under the portrait of Charles V., and his five counsellors occupied ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... inside the drive?" I asked. The drive was a small semicircular sort of affair, between gate ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... in front semicircular, shrouding the head; posterior angle sharp, rounded behind, the frontal edge bent slightly back, and yellowish; the upper surface brown, rather obscure, the surface irregularly raised, below deep shining pitchy brown. Abdomen yellowish brown, above sprinkled with dark brown, the ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... toward the voice, and saw a glass "coop," as he called it, all glass panes up to above his head, excepting one wide, semicircular opening in the middle. The clerk to whom Jack was talking at that moment suddenly became ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard

... deeply embattled with intermediate loopholes, but there are no regular embrasures for artillery. The Chinese till lately have seldom used cannon, but have usually stuck to the bow and arrow. At each gate there is a semicircular enclosure, forming a double wall. Over the two gateways are towers of several stories, in which the soldiers who guard them are lodged. Also, at about sixty yards apart along the whole length of the wall, are flanking towers projecting about ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... has been left somewhat high and dry by the tide of years. Concerned as we are for its honour, we must reluctantly admit that the time when this pretty little semicircular sweep of houses, tapering off at the end of the wooden pier into a point in the sea, was a gay place, and when the lighthouse overlooking it shone at daybreak on company dispersing from public balls, is but dimly traditional now. There is a bleak chamber ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... entirely disappeared and the South Gate is in ruins. Entering and turning to the left, we ascend a little hill and find the Temple (perhaps dedicated to Artemis), and close beside it the great South Theatre. There is hardly a break in the semicircular stone benches, thirty-two rows of seats rising tier above tier, divided into an upper and a lower section by a broader row of "boxes" or stalls, richly carved, and reserved, no doubt, for magnates of the city and persons of importance. The stage, over ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... within the old crater of Somma: Monte Nuovo, a mountain west of Naples; Somma, a mountain north of Vesuvius which with its lofty, semicircular cliff encircles the active ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... end of the twelfth century, and that the above portion formed a chapel, and was part of that restoration. The strongest argument is its nearness to the tomb of the patron saint. If we assume that the old choir terminated in a semicircular apse, projecting eastward beyond the aisles, we shall find that the tomb would be enclosed in such a position as to admit of the high altar being placed immediately over it. Assuming that the choir was not apsidal but square, ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story

... A semicircular implement of iron, made to be suspended over the fire, on which various things may be prepared; it is much used for ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings

... often in Tacitus, the cognomen is placed before the nomen when the praenomen is not mentioned. Cf. Att. 11, 12, 1 Balbo Cornelio. The usage is more common in Cicero's writings than in those of his contemporaries. — PRIMA CAVEA: 'the lower tier'. The later Roman theatres consisted of semicircular or elliptic galleries, with rising tiers of seats; the level space partially enclosed by the curve was the orchestra, which was bounded by the stage in front. There can be little doubt that Cicero is guilty of an anachronism here; ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... stout stakes were cut—each about six feet in length, and pointed at one end. These were driven into the earth around the outer edge of the icy mass, in a sort of semicircular row; and so as to enclose a small space in front of the aperture. To hold the stakes all the more firmly, large stones were piled up against them, and the uprights themselves were closely wattled together by the broad flat branches of the spruce pines that grew ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... the hilly country near Rochepot, the road to Chalons passes along a dead flat, cheerful from its richness, but rather monotonous. To the right, we looked back upon a semicircular range of well wooded hills, in front of which, on an eminence, stands a stately old chateau belonging to the Count de Rouilly. It answers very much to the beau ideal of what a French chateau ought to be, but seldom is. ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes

... grain, and drink liquor, and thereafter indulge in promiscuous debauchery. The followers of the sect are mainly Brahmans, though other castes may be admitted. The Vam-Margis usually keep their membership of the sect a secret, but their special mark is said to be a semicircular line or lines of red powder or vermilion on the forehead, with a red streak half-way up the centre, and a circular spot of red at the root of the nose. They use a rosary of rudraksha or of coral beads, but of no greater length than can be ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... Justice, so as to be unseen by him or his clerk, who sat upon the same side; while he bent on me a frown so portentous, that no one who has witnessed the look can forget it during the whole of his life. The furrows of the brow above the eyes became livid and almost black, and were bent into a semicircular, or rather elliptical form, above the junction of the eyebrows. I had heard such a look described in an old tale of DIABLERIE, which it was my chance to be entertained with not long since; when this deep and gloomy contortion of the frontal muscles was not unaptly described as forming ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... contents may be estimated at 57.64 inches, or 1033.24 cubic centimetres. In making this estimation, the water is supposed to stand on a level with the orbital plate of the frontal, with the deepest notch in the squamous margin of the parietal, and with the superior semicircular ridges of the occipital. Estimated in dried millet-seed, the contents equalled 31 ounces, Prussian Apothecaries' weight. The semicircular line indicating the upper boundary of the attachment of the temporal muscle, though not very strongly marked, ascends ...
— On Some Fossil Remains of Man • Thomas H. Huxley

... little male. Now he approaches nearer and nearer, and when almost within reach whirls madly around and around her, she joining and whirling with him in a giddy maze. Again he falls back and resumes his semicircular motions, with his body tilted over; she, all excitement, lowers her head and raises her body so that it is almost vertical; both draw nearer; she moves slowly under him, he crawling over her head, and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... rotundity &c 249; convexity &c 250. Adj. curved &c v.; curviform^, curvilineal^, curvilinear; devex^, devious; recurved, recurvous^; crump^; bowed &c v.; vaulted, hooked; falciform^, falcated^; semicircular, crescentic; sinusoid [Geom.], parabolic, paraboloid; luniform^, lunular^; semilunar, conchoidal^; helical, double helical, spiral; kinky; cordiform^, cordated^; cardioid; heart shaped, bell shaped, boat shaped, crescent shaped, lens shaped, moon shaped, oar shaped, shield ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... the spot on which I was riding extended a beautiful semicircular bay, of about nine or ten miles in circumference, bounded by high cliffs of white, red, and brown-coloured earths. Beyond this lay a range of hills, whose tops are often buried in cloudy mists, but which then appeared clear and distinct. This chain of hills, meeting with another from ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond

... noticed them floating on the surface of the water, bent into a sort of semicircular shape, and without moving ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... our little history was enacted is a maritime plain of irregular semicircular shape, with a sea-front of five miles, and a depth inland of from two to three miles. This plain, a dead level stretch of peat, of which part is coming under cultivation, while part is still marsh, is surrounded by a ring ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine

... crossed—a pair of still more ancient slippers, also too large. With head aside, and eyes looking upward, he seemed to listen in a mild ecstasy to the notes of his instrument. He had a round face of much simplicity and good-nature, semicircular eyebrows, pursed little mouth with abortive moustache, and short thin beard fringing the chinless lower jaw. Having observed this unimposing person for a minute or two, himself unseen, Goldthorpe surveyed the rear of the building, anxious to discover ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... the fruit of bold design. Such, for instance, is the great west window—not mullioned, but divided by long massive stone shafts into seven arched compartments; such, too, is the low-browed doorway beneath, with its heavy semicircular arch. The upper tier of windows—here called storm windows, perhaps as a corruption of dormer—are the plain, unmoulded arch, such as one sometimes sees it in unadorned buildings of the earlier Norman period. Indeed, though the building ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various

... there is often a bay of quiet water, in which a landing can be made with ease. Sometimes the water descends with a smooth, unruffled surface from the broad, quiet spread above into the narrow, angry channel below by a semicircular sag. Great care must be taken not to pass over the brink into this deceptive pit, but above it we can row with safety. I walk along the bank to examine the ground, leaving one of my men with a flag to guide the other ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell

... the characters of this bacterium. It is smaller than the tubercle bacillus, being only about half or at most two-thirds the size of the latter, but much more plump, thicker, and slightly curved. As a rule, the curve is no more than that of a comma (,) but sometimes it assumes a semicircular shape, and he has seen it forming a double curve like an S, these two variations from the normal being suggestive of the junction of two individual bacilli. In cultures there always appears a remarkably free development of comma shaped bacilli. These bacilli often ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various

... time, there being a competition among the architects of London to be employed in the building of Blackfriars-bridge, a question was very warmly agitated whether semicircular or elliptical arches were preferable. In the design offered by Mr. Mylne the elliptical form was adopted, and therefore it was the great object of his rivals to attack it. Johnson's regard for his friend Mr. Gwyn induced him to engage in this controversy against Mr. Mylne[1050]; and after being ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... nothing, but she compressed her lips and gave her head a hard jerk. A girl who ran a machine next to Abby's came up, munching a large piece of pie, taking clean semicircular bites with her ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... entrance of the bony nares, the trunk itself being only a pipe or duct leading to them, composed of powerful muscular and membranous tissue and consisting of two tubes, separated by a septum. The muscles in front (levatores proboscidis), starting from the frontal bone, run along a semicircular line, arching upwards above the nasal bones and between the orbits. They are met at the sides by the lateral longitudinal muscles, which blend, and their fibres run the whole length of the proboscis down to the extremity. The depressing ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... beautiful I had ever seen, and there was evidently a hoe and a rake for each of us. They were made of polished steel, with slender handles, all rubbed so smooth as to make it a pleasure to take hold of them. The blades had been sharpened beyond anything that Fred had been able to achieve. Being semicircular in shape, they had points at the corners, adapted to reaching into out-of-the-way places,—as after a weed that had grown up in the middle of a strawberry-row, thinking, perhaps, that a shelter of that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... from its very striking resemblance to that instrument, and a single rock worn by the waves into the shape of a rude seat is his chair. A mile or two farther along the coast two cliffs project from the range, leaving a vast semicircular space between, which from its resemblance to the old Roman theaters was appropriated for that purpose by the giant. Halfway down the crags are two or three pinnacles of rock called the Chimneys, and the stumps of several others can be seen, which, it is said, were shot off by a vessel belonging ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... the centre wagon was drawn a little on one side to leave a kind of gate. Through this opening I saw that a long wall, also semicircular, had been built outside of them, enclosing a space large enough to contain at night all the cattle and horses that were left to the Heer Marais, together with those of his friends, who evidently did ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... little away from the shade of the laurel bush, which grew on the side it first appeared on, and suddenly the back became transparent amber, the legs and belly continuing green. From its breast under the chin, it every now and then shot out a semicircular film of a bright scarlet colour, like a leaf of a tulip stretched vertically, or the pectoral fin of ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... This semicircular harbour is crowded with shipping, while all around are large warehouses, and stretching along the edge is a superb promenade of white marble on raised arches. The Gulf of Genoa is very stormy, and there are but few fish to ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... one side of a horseshoe shaped precipice which had evidently, from the huge boulders in the channel below, been eaten back into the side of the precipice, and partly shoot out through various hidden channels which the waters have deeply cut through a huge semicircular platform of rock which overhangs the valley below. As they thus shoot out the effect is extremely striking and picturesque, and their resemblance to the spokes of light from a star no doubt caused the natives to give the very appropriate name of Chuckee ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... Tie him to a tree and put this blinder over his eyes." He kicked toward Rob a heavy piece of leather semicircular in form and with a thong tied at the corners. Rob picked it up, and after studying it for a moment dropped the blinder over the claybank's face. To his surprise the horse ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough

... was the highest of several semicircular ridges whose forms may perhaps be better understood by the accompanying plan.* There was a remarkable analogy in the form and position of all these hills; the form being usually that of a curve, concentric with the lake, and the position invariably on the eastern or north-eastern ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... feathers about an inch and a half long, of an ashy colour, but tipped with a broad band of emerald green, bordered within by a narrow line of buff: These plumes are concealed beneath the wing, but when the bird pleases, can be raised and spread out so as to form an elegant semicircular fan on each shoulder. But another ornament still more extraordinary, and if possible more beautiful, adorns this little bird. The two middle tail feathers are modified into very slender wirelike shafts, nearly six inches long, each of which bears at the extremity, on the inner side only, a web of ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... could retreat in case they were defeated. Finding that the militia approached in a very careless manner, Butler determined to attack them by surprise. He selected a place well fitted for such an attack. A few miles from the fort there was a deep ravine sweeping toward the east in a semicircular form, and having a northern and southern direction. The bottom of this ravine was marshy, and the road along which the militia were marching crossed it by means of a log causeway. The ground thus partly enclosed by the ravine was elevated and level. ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson

... the remainder of the day as I had the commencement. As I saw evening approaching I collected a large supply of broken branches to serve as firewood, and then made up a semicircular heap, which I intended to keep blazing all the night. I was sorry that I had not slept during the day, that I might the more easily keep awake while on my watch. I took some supper, though, in consequence of the thirst from which I was suffering, I felt little disposed to eat; but still ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... of bones, but without any inscription, has also been found, longer than those of the founder's, having a semicircular top, and six large rings of 3-1/4 inches diameter attached to the outsides. At a little distance from the two small chests, there was also found the remains of an ecclesiastic, buried without any coffin, but lying upon a bed of coarse gravel within a hollow space formed by large flat ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes

... of face, are seated round the bar-a semicircular railing dividing their dignity from the common spectator-waiting the reading of the docket. The clerk takes his time about that, and seems a great favourite with the spectators, who applaud his rising. He reads, the ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... civilisation. Erected at a distance of about half a mile from the banks of the river, which at that particular point are high and precipitous, it stood then just far enough from the woods that swept round it in a semicircular form to be secure from the rifle of the Indian; while from its batteries it commanded a range of country on every hand, which no enemy unsupported by cannon could traverse with impunity. Immediately in the rear, and on the skirt of the wood, the French ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... inside the semicircular and now open storm-porch of Company House, but it was still daylight outside. The sky above the mountain to the west was fading from crimson to burnt-orange, and a couple of the brighter stars were winking ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr

... of the boat, and held to its place by a horizontal bar, through a hole in which it turned easily: a half wheel eight or ten inches in diameter, cut from a large chip, was placed at the top, around which was bent a new section of birch bark, thus forming a rude semicircular reflector. Three candles placed within the circle completed the jack. With moss and boughs seats were arranged,—one in the bow for the marksman, and one in the stern for the oarsman. A meal of frogs and squirrels was a good preparation, and, when darkness came, all were keenly alive to ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... Shepherd (which was, no doubt, suggested by the lamb in the arms of Rouen), copied from the seal of the Drapers' Company. "Pastor bonus," says the legend, "animam suam ponit pro ovibus suis." Within the semicircular panel on each side are more sheep pasturing in a landscape, and on all the strapwork, or "bandeaux," are carved delicate arabesques. The "pavilion," with its high roof above it, holds the famous ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... the arms and ancles, from conch-shells imported from the Malayan Archipelago, is still almost confined to Dacca: the shells are sawn across for this purpose by semicircular saws, the hands and toes being both actively employed in the operation. The introduction of circular saws has been attempted by some European gentlemen, but steadily resisted by the natives, despite their obvious advantages. The Dacca muslin manufacture, which once employed thousands ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... on the side facing the window there is a dais, which is approached by a large raised semicircular step, higher than the rest of the floor, but lower than the dais itself. The dais is, of course, reserved for the venerable Lady Principal and the under-mistresses, one of whom, by the way, is a little more mondaine than might have been ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler

... few domestic utensils we saw in the tent was the woman's knife of the Greenlanders described by Crantz, and resembling, in its semicircular shape, that used by shoemakers in England. The most interesting article, however, was a kind of bowl, exactly similar to that obtained by Captain Lyon from the natives of Hudson's Strait, being hollowed out of the root of the musk-ox's horn. As soon as I took the cup in my hand, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... internal ear.* The illustration represents the structures of the internal ear surrounded by a thin layer of bone. 1. Vestibule. 2. Cochlea. 3. Semicircular canals. 4. Fenestra ovalis. 5. ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... Paul Grundner, of Berlin. It is particularly adapted for finely dividing large quantities of emulsion. It consists essentially of a wooden lid, a b, fitting upon a large stone pot, to the under side of which two strong trapezoid pieces of wood, e d and e f, are fixed, in the under part of which semicircular incisions are cut and held together by two leather straps, supporting a strong, easily-removable iron transverse bar, g h. Through the center of the lid, and turned by the crank, m, passes the axle i, which ends under the lid ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various

... acropolis. It was erected by Antonio di San Gallo in 1518, and is one of the most perfect specimens existing of the sober classical style. The Church consists of a Greek square, continued at the east end into a semicircular tribune, surmounted by a central cupola, and flanked by a detached bell-tower, ending in a pyramidal spire. The whole is built of solid yellow travertine, a material which, by its warmth of colour, is pleasing to the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... half-mile broad on each side the river, narrowing as the mountains draw in closer upon the stream. It is terminated by a steep terrace. Twenty or thirty feet above this terrace is another flat, we will say semicircular, for I am generalising, which again is surrounded by a steeply sloping terrace like an amphitheatre; above this another flat, receding still farther back, perhaps half a mile in places, perhaps almost ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... one were for the men and the other for the women who should be present at the services. Entering the chapel through a narrow door whose threshold is on a level with the path, we see at the opposite side a recess sunk in the rock, often semicircular, like the apsis of a church, and in this recess an arcosolium,—which served at the same time as the grave of a martyr and as the altar of the little chapel. It seems, indeed, as if in many cases the chapel had been formed not so much for the general purpose ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... casemates. Some of them had been withdrawn, the casemates fitted with massive shutters, and converted into prisons for the use of officers. Two captains were lodged in the same casemate with Fergus. No light came from without, but there was a low semicircular window over the door. This was very strongly barred, but admitted ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty

... struggled to form up on the left of the rifle regiments. But the enemy's automatic quick-firing gun vomited forth its death-dealing steel with such persistence that the cavalry was forced to retire at a gallop. The gunners again came to the rescue, and six field-batteries, spread over in a semicircular front of three-quarters of a mile, sent their shrapnel over the heads of the infantry to crash on the ridges occupied by ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... western Front is very Noble and Majestick of Columel Work, and supported by three such tall Arches, as England can scarcely shew the like, which are adorned with a great Variety of curious Imagery. The Form of Arches is by the modern Architects called, The Bull's Eye, not Semicircular. The whole is one of the noblest pieces of Gothick ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting

... they have a public garden; even more immature than that of Lucera, but testifying to greater taste. Its situation, covering a forlorn semicircular tract of ground about the old Anjou castle, is a priori a good one. But when the trees are fully grown, it will be impossible to see this fine ruin save at quite ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... range that threw their rugged gorges into early shade. Above and below the still and placid pool and but a few miles distant, the pine-fringed, rocky hillsides came shouldering close to the stream, but fell away, forming a deep, semicircular basin toward the west, at the hub of which stood bolt-upright a tall, snowy flagstaff, its shred of bunting hanging limp and lifeless from the peak, and in the dull, dirt-colored buildings of adobe, ranged in rigid ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... front of M. de Tregars, along a staircase with marble railing, the elegant proportions of which were absolutely ruined by a ridiculous profusion of "objects of art" of all nature, and from all sources. This staircase led to a vast semicircular landing, upon which, between columns of precious marble, opened three wide doors. The footman opened the middle one, which led to M. de Thaller's picture-gallery, a celebrated one in the financial world, and which had acquired for him the ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... edifice is not a typical one. It has not, like the abbey at Tournus, the sober massive breadth, the round expansive arch, the icy bareness, the majestic simplicity of those buildings based on the semicircular arch. It is not, like the cathedral at Bourges, the magnificent, airy, multiform, bushy, sturdy, efflorescent product ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... teeth, lay on a rug of woven rags a huge yellow cat stretched out at full and comfortable length. Everything was scrupulously neat about the place, and kept in ship-shape condition. The old man seated himself in a hacked wooden chair with semicircular arms and a green cushion. Jim took his place on a sea-chest, once green but now much faded, and with heavy rope handles, while the engineer occupied the other chair. After the sailor's wrinkled old wife had brought ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt

... its magneto telephones with air-gap arresters of the type shown in Fig. 211. The two line plates are semicircular and of metal. The ground plate is of carbon, circular in form, covering both line plates with a mica separator. This is mounted on the back board of the telephone and permanently wired to the line ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller

... clear a dark shape gripped his arm. "This way," said this shape, urging him along, and pointed Graham across the flat roof in the direction of a dim semicircular haze of ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... intensely quiet; built on a cliff, whereon—in the centre of a tiny semicircular bay—our house stands; the sea rolling and dashing under the windows. Seven miles out are the Goodwin Sands (you've heard of the Goodwin Sands?) whence floating lights perpetually wink after dark, as if they were carrying on intrigues with the servants. Also there is ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens

... give battle, representing, that, if this opportunity were permitted to pass, Price, after ascertaining our force, would retire, and it would be impossible to catch him again. This evening one hundred and ten officers called upon him in a body. They ranged themselves in semicircular array in front of the house, and one of their number presented an address to the General full of sympathy and respect, and earnestly requesting him to lead them against the enemy. At the close of the interview, the General said, that, under all the circumstances, he felt it to be his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... opposite the high altar. The Emperor and Empress were to occupy them during the first part of the ceremony. The grand throne was at the other end of the church, with its back against the great door, which was thus closed. This great throne stood on a large semicircular platform, and was reached by twenty-four steps. It stood under a canopy in the shape of a triumphal arch, upheld by eight columns, and it overlooked the whole church. The Emperor and the Empress were not to ascend this throne till ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... was a fat and sensual-looking young man, with bloated face and bloodshot that eyes spoke eloquently of his excesses. On his forehead was painted a small semicircular line above the eyebrows with a round patch in the middle, which was the sect-mark of the Saktas. His white linen garments were creased and dirty, but round his neck he wore a rope of enormous pearls. His feet were bare. On a gold tray beside him were two liqueur bottles, ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... some relations in Italy. One afternoon I had started for an aimless and rambling climb among the olive-terraces on the lower slopes of the Tete du Chien. Finding an exquisite coign of vantage amid the roots of a gnarled old trunk springing from a built-up semicircular patch of level ground, I sat me down to rest, and read, and dream. Below me, a little to the right, Monaco jutted out into the purple sea. I could distinguish carriages and pedestrians coming and going on the chaussee between the promontory and Monte Carlo, but I was far too high for any sound to ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... unable to cross the river, and cannot therefore from my own observation enter into any accurate details. The position is, however, exactly described by Sir Gardner Wilkinson as follows: 'It stands in a semicircular recess, like an immense shell, in the side of the hill, and at the two projecting extremities the walls run down from the summit to the river, the upper part being enclosed by a semicircular wall, terminated at each end ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... architect, and gave orders to his workmen to mark out a site for a city suitable to such a situation. There was no chalk or white earth, with which it is usual to mark the course of the walls, but they took barley-groats, and marked out a semicircular line with them upon the black earth, dividing it into equal segments by lines radiating from the centre, so that it looked like a Macedonian cloak, of which the walls formed the outer fringe. While the king was looking with satisfaction ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... more than a quarter of a mile west of the Acropolis is another rocky hill—the Pnyx—celebrated as the place where the assembly of all the citizens met to transact the business of the state. A large semicircular area was formed, partly by excavation, partly by building up from beneath, the bounds of which can be distinctly traced. Considerable remains of the terrace-wall at the foot of the slope exist—huge stones twelve or fourteen feet in length by eight ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... semicircular terrace in front of the cavern, and we were seated upon a stone platform beside the chief portal. A vast crowd was gathered in front. Before us arose the half-pyramid of which I have already spoken. The light was faint. It came from ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille



Words linked to "Semicircular" :   semicircle, semicircular canal, curved



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com