"Spanker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... KIRALFY's for gorgeousness quite takes the cake. Friend IMRE's a spanker, you bet, and quite fly to the popular fake. "Stupendious work," IMRE calls it, and I.K. is O.K. no doubt. Your old Country Fair Show takes a back seat when ikey ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... Blowing great guns, and dismasted; under double reefs, storm spanker, and foretopmast staysail at daylight; blew away the staysail; set jib; that went too and took jibboom; cut away the wreck; she came up to the wind, caught aback, and away went the mizzenmast at the deck; cut that away, paid off in the trough of the sea, and rolled the fore and ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... said Lewis, "let's have a true-blue nautical word of command—hoist yer main tops'l sky-scrapers abaft the cleat o' the spanker boom, heave the main deck overboard and let go the ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... the 14th, and the temperature fell from 31 Fahr. to -1 Fahr. At midnight the ship came free from the floe and drifted rapidly astern. Her head fell off before the wind until she lay nearly at right-angles across the narrow lead. This was a dangerous position for rudder and propeller. The spanker was set, but the weight of the wind on the ship gradually forced the floes open until the 'Endurance' swung right round and drove 100 yds. along the lead. Then the ice closed and at 3 a.m. we were fast again. The wind died down ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... soundly spanked—by the father, if the mother refuses to perform that most necessary duty. For a child's bottom is made occasionally to be spanked. The vibration of the spanking acts direct upon the spinal nerve-system, there is a direct reciprocity and reaction, the spanker transfers his wrath to the great will-centers in the child, and these will-centers react ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... monster, mammoth, Cyclops; cachalot, whale, porpoise, behemoth, leviathan, elephant, hippopotamus; colossus; tun, cord, lump, bulk, block, loaf, mass, swad, clod, nugget, bushel, thumper, whooper, spanker, strapper; "Triton among the minnows" [Coriolanus]. mountain, mound; heap &c. (assemblage) 72. largest portion &c. 50; full size, life size. V. be large &c. adj.; become large &c. (expand) 194. Adj. large, big; great &c. (in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... rate of about two knots, under close-reefed topsails, storm trysails, and spanker. We could hear Captain Gordon's voice directing the working of the ship, and once I saw him on the quarterdeck, leaning over the rail to watch us. His head was bandaged as if from some accident. On the forecastle deck the mate and some men stood watching our approach, ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... day, and beats in my recollection many others of fevered enjoyment. Little by little I stropped a tall, fine, stout, healthy, country woman, a regular spanker; with white flesh, firm, soft satiny and smelling like new milk. She was bashful without affection, ashamed to expose her charms, yet proud to do so to me. She was clad in snow-white coarse linen, neat and clean from her boots to her head. What enjoyment we had! how we spent! I fucked her ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... from the cabin, and both stared upward for a moment at the gaps in the slender, sky-scraping top-hamper, where, only minutes before, the main- and mizzen-topmasts had been. A second moment they devoted to the wreckage of the same on deck—the mizzen-topmast, thrust through the spanker and supported vertically by the stout canvas, thrashing back and forth with each thrash of the sail, the main-topmast squarely across the ruined companionway ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... the spanker was imperfectly bent; that is to say, it was bent on the upper leach. The boom was got in under cover of the hurricane-house, and of the bundle of the sail; the out-hauler was bent, the boom, replaced, the sail being hoisted with a little and a hurried lacing, to the luff. ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... decks, flooding them and threatening to smash the boats. At six bells we were ordered to turn them over and put on storm lashings. This occupied us till eight bells, when we were relieved by the mid-watch. I was the last to go below, doing so just as the watch on deck was furling the spanker. Below all were asleep except our green hand, the "bricklayer," who was dying of consumption. The wildly dancing movements of the sea lamp cast a pale, flickering light through the fo'castle and turned to golden honey the drops of water on the yellow oilskins. In all the corners dark shadows ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... the planks of the other vessel. But this was not to be: rising from the crouching posture she had taken, like a panther about to leap, the cutter dashed onward, and at the next instant she was glancing past the stern of her enemy, just clearing the end of her spanker-boom with her ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... and the steward the main. The second mate had charge of the after yards, and let go the lee fore and main braces. I was stationed at the weather cross-jack braces; three other light hands at the lee; one boy at the spanker-sheet and guy; a man and a boy at the main topsail, top-gallant, and royal braces; and all the rest of the crew— men and boys— tallied on to the main brace. Every one here knew his station, must be there when all hands ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... was an entertainment announced at the 'Rooms,' and to pass away the time I looked in. It was an elocutionist one, entitled 'Merry-Making Moments, or, Spanker's Wallet of Varieties,' with a portrait of Spanker on the bills opening the wallet with an expression of delight or surprise. This was his 'Grand Competition Night,' when a 'magnificent goblet' was competed for by all comers, which I had ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... only retired to the next room, whence they could overhear the whole conversation: my wife artfully introduced it, by observing, that one of the Miss Flamboroughs was like to have a very good match of it in Mr. Spanker. To this the 'squire assenting, she proceeded to remark, that they who had warm fortunes were always sure of getting good husbands: "But heaven help," continued she, "the girls that have none. What signifies ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... on which the spanker is set, was also got up by means of the same tackle; and, what with hoisting in some of the main deck guns and sails and other gear, the afternoon ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... handsum now; that 'ere horse goes etarnal fast, he near about set my axle on fire twice. He's a spanker you may depend. I had him when he was a two-year-old, all legs and tail, like a devil's darnin' needle, and had him broke on purpose by father's old nigger, January Snow. He knows English real well, and can do near about anything ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... discover any indication of the presence of human beings on board; but the deck appeared to be deserted; no gleam of light showed either forward or aft; and no sound broke the silence save the wash of the water along the bends, the choking gurgle of the scuppers, and the monotonous jerk-jerk of the spanker-boom at its sheet with the roll of the ship. Under these circumstances I considered that my companion might safely venture aboard, and I accordingly assisted her up the side and in on deck, afterwards ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... the tide was light enough, and our Pilot twisted her about with the skill and nonchalance of a master hand. One of our passengers, a young woman who had enthused over everything, from the shark's tail on the spanker-boom end ("Waal—I never!") to the curl of the bo'sun's whiskers ("Jest real sweet!"), seemed greatly interested at the ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... is the After-guard, stationed on the Quarterdeck; who, under the Quarter-Masters and Quarter-Gunners, attend to the main-sail and spanker, and help haul the main-brace, and other ropes in the stern ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... Harry went on deck he saw that the reefs had been shaken out of the topsails and the spanker hoisted. There was still a fresh wind, but it had backed round more to the south, and there was so sharp a nip in it that he went below and put on a pea-jacket. Then he beckoned to Bertie, who was off duty, to join ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... hundred. I've put twice that much into her, one time and another. She's built clean and solid all through, and there's everything a man would need from blankets to bouillon cubes. The whole thing's yours for $400—including dog, cook stove, and everything—jib, boom, and spanker. There's a tent in a sling underneath, and an ice box (he pulled up a little trap door under the bunk) and a tank of coal oil and Lord knows what all. She's as good as a yacht; but I'm tired of her. If you're so afraid of your brother taking a fancy to her, why don't you ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... hedges in a hunting country, with her chimney-pot hat and her own gold-mounted crop, her knowing little riding-boots and buckskins, with outfit enough for Baby Blake and Di Vernon and Lady Gay Spanker, and to see that young woman dancing in the saddle, now here and now there, pulling at the reins in a manner to make a rocking-horse rear, and squealing tearfully and jerkily: "Oh, ho-ho-oh, wh-h-hat ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... the jibs collapse And belly and tug at the groaning cleats, The spanker slats, and the mainsail flaps, And thunders ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... receiving your wireless messages all week, my dear Mary, and not one was an S. O. S. Good! The fair ship MARY MILLER is safe. Hurrah! She never has been staunch, but she was the gayest thing on the sea, and when her sails were all set from jib to spanker she made a gladsome ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... from the deck of the United States cruiser. A shot had struck the spanker-gaff on the enemy and her ensign had come ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... coins, at the rate of two kilos of coin for one kilo of nails. The same kind of coins, called dumps, cut into diamond-shaped pieces, with holes punched through them, entered into the fastenings as burrs for the nails. A number of small eyebolts from the spanker-boom of the wreck were turned to account for lashing bolts in the deck of the new vessel. The nails, when too long, were cut to the required length, taking care that the ends which were cut off should not be wasted, but remelted, ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... for a regular spanker!" he cried, rushing at the slide. A "spanker" it certainly was: six yards from the commencement his legs flew from under him, he soared into the air like a bird, and did not touch the ground again until he sat down heavily within twenty paces of the ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... if I ain't terrible mistook they're out for your blood, and they think they've got a whiff of it. But I cal'late they've got their ropes crossed. They've got the idea they're h'isting the mains'l, but it ain't nothing but the spanker. If I was going to stay aboard I'd give 'em a few lessons the next few days that they'd not forget all ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... no danger for him, however, for foreigners are in terror of the tune of 'Yankee Doodle.' If he were arrested by the Government, the American Admiral would at once send ashore a file of marines with an 'ultimatum,' a 'Columbiad,' a 'spanker boom,' a 'Webster's Unabridged,' and a 'brachycatalectic,' to demand his surrender at ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... Myrtella Flathers sat just inside the screen door of the summer kitchen, armed with a fly-spanker and a countenance of impending gloom. She was evidently rehearsing a speech, for her lips moved in scornful curves, and her bristling black locks were tossed in defiance. Mike, venturing out of a shady corner and catching a glimpse of her face, thought her inaudible remarks were ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... "Now you have him, lads. Hold on every inch of line, or he'll break away from you yet. Bear a hand here, one of you. Take the spanker-sheet and throw a running-bowline round the line, so's we can get it down over his fins. That's your sort, Ned; don't let him get it into his jaws. Cleverly done; haul taut. Now we have him safe. Lead the sheet for'ard, let all hands tail on to it, and we'll run ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... who should say, "Let us be reasonable," "one cannot, to take a parallel case, imagine the colonel commanding the garrison at a naval station going on board a battleship and ordering the crew to splice the jibboom spanker. It might be an admirable thing for the Empire that the jibboom spanker should be spliced at that particular juncture, but the crew would naturally decline to move in the matter until the order came from the commander of the ship. So in my case. If you will go to ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... the opening of the battle the spanker gaff of the Alabama and the ensign were brought down by the fire of the Kearsarge, whose crew burst into cheers, but the Confederates quickly hoisted the colors to their mizzen. When the two ships were within a third of a mile of each other the fire became ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... I am sorry to say I don't exactly know what. I find in my notes, taken shortly afterwards, from the dictation of an intelligent midshipman, "that the fore royal-yard got jammed with the spanker-boom, and carried away the larboard quarter boat." Nautical friends have since pointed out to me that this involves an impossibility. I daresay it does. I know it involved an impossibility of turning in without subjecting yourself to a hydropathic remedy of violent nature, by going to bed ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... desperate huntress—and so loud in the praises of her dogs and horses, that she intimidated even sportsmen and jockeys. She talked so much of her favourite horse Spanker, that she acquired amongst a particular set of gentlemen the appellation of my Lady Di Spanker. Lady Augusta perceived that the soft affectations remarkable in her own manners were in agreeable contrast in the company of this masculine dame; she therefore cultivated her acquaintance, and Lady S—— could make no objection to a woman who ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth |
