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Zigzag   Listen
noun
Zigzag  n.  
1.
Something that has short turns or angles. "The fanatics going straight forward and openly, the politicians by the surer mode of zigzag."
2.
(Arch.) A molding running in a zigzag line; a chevron, or series of chevrons.
3.
(Fort.) See Boyau.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Zigzag" Quotes from Famous Books



... serious assault or to take part in a counter attack. Passages consisting of deep communicating trenches facilitate passage from the cover trenches to the firing trenches when under fire. These communicating trenches are usually zigzag or traversed to prevent their being ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... It was a zigzag journey. He reeled and plunged, dragging her in all directions; and so yielding were his knees that she doubted if they could bear him to the house. Once, when seemingly on the point of a collapse, he muttered, in a confidential tone: "This hauling guns under a frying sun ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell

... crewel on the surface, and only a single thread of the ground is taken up; but in place of lying in long lines, from end to end of the material, they are of even length, and are taken in a pattern, such as a waved line or zigzag; so that when finished the ground presents the ...
— Handbook of Embroidery • L. Higgin

... the Matterhorn route. It leads through the village, past the Gorner Gorges (which one may visit by a slight detour) and then enters some very pretty woods, from which one issues on to the bare green meadows which clothe the upper part of the steep slope of the mountain. As one mounts this zigzag path, it sometimes seems as if it would never end, and for all the magnificent views which it affords, one is always glad that it is over, as it exactly fulfils the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various

... the ground under cultivation, we surrounded the garden and fields with snake fences, which are made in a rough fashion, the rails being placed one upon another in a zigzag form, and secured at the angles by stakes driven into the ground. They were formed by splitting trees into four or five portions, according to their girth, an operation carried on by means of wedges driven in ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston

... unsteadily keeping his watch, and fancying himself once more at his duty on board ship. "This is an uncommonly lively vessel in a sea-way," he used to mutter under his breath, when his legs took him down the passage in zigzag directions, or left him for the moment studying the "Pints of the Compass" on his own system, with his back against the wall. "A nasty night, mind you," he would maunder on, taking another turn. "As dark as your pocket, and the wind heading us again ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... the seismograph. The pen had started to trace its line, no longer even and straight, but zigzag, at ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve

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

... Gone was the zigzag line that the boys knew by heart from having faced and fought against it for weeks. The mine had done its ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall

... Mansion" was near the eastern edge of this declivity, where it rose steepest, with baldest cliffs and densest patches of overhanging wood. It seemed almost too steep to climb, but a practised eye could see from a distance the zigzag lines of the sheep-paths which scaled it like miniature Alpine roads. A few hundred feet up The Mountain's side was a dark deep dell, unwooded, save for a few spindling, crazy-looking hackmatacks or native larches, with pallid green tufts sticking out fantastically ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... hour. For of one will, the actions will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost sight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks.[195] See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... of the old theory, "too cold to snow." Even by daylight it would have been no light task to steer a true course through the whirling and blinding storm. In the darkness, the man found himself stumbling along with drunkenly zigzag steps; his buffeted ears strained, through the noise of the wind for sound of ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... started as a citizens' cemetery and incorporated two years ago, and is now the finest burying place in this section of Pennsylvania. It is situated on the summit of Kernville hill, between six hundred and seven hundred feet above the town. It is approached by a zigzag roadway about one mile and a half in length, and a magnificent view of the valley is obtained from the grounds, making it well worth a visit under any circumstances. Here those whose relatives did not hold lots are to be buried in trenches four feet deep, sixty bodies to a trench. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... economies of the Hindu. The Ghats are so called from their terraced ledges, rising one above another from the shores of the ocean like the stairs leading up from a pool. In achieving the ascent of these gigantic stairs all the expedients of road-makers have been resorted to: the zigzag, the trestle, the tunnel, the curve, have been pushed to their utmost applications; for five continuous miles on the Thull Ghat Incline there is a grade of one in thirty-seven, involving many trying curves, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... good-natured, and at almost all times very easily humbugged) and a man (who is what Trim never is, both insolent and indecent)—is at least partially the same. But the most constant and the most unfortunate imitation is of Sterne's literally eccentric, or rather zigzag and pillar-to-post, fashion of narration. In the Englishman's own hands, by some prestidigitation of genius, this never becomes boring, though it probably would have become so if either book had been finished; for which reason we may be quite certain that it was not only his death which ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... good-humoredly allowed himself to be conducted in a zigzag course to the imposing doorway of a large apartment-house across ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... a very long time before Hero's bark greeted her once more, and, turning toward the window, a lingering zigzag flash of lightning showed her Douglass Lindsay's face, as he climbed in, followed ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... wayside station, and the Rodenhurst party got out in a hurry. They were to descend to the beach, and walk along the shore to Linkthwaite Bay, a distance of about three miles, geologizing as they went. A steep zigzag path led down the side of the cliff to the sands, and when once her flock was all collected at the bottom, Miss Roberts improved the occasion by giving a short lecture on the formation of the rocks which formed the headland, then, leading the way, she showed ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... the forefinger and thumb of the right hand, with the hatchet toward the left hand, as shown in Fig. 1. Then by moving the tracing point round and round an imaginary figure and allowing the hatchet to go where it pleases, it will be seen that the hatchet moves to and fro along zigzag lines, and travels sideways—the side travel being nearly proportional to the area of the figure described by the tracing point. If the tracing point be too tightly grasped, the hatchet will not move freely, and, will have a side slip. When this occurs the side travel of the hatchet ceases ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various

... invitation, I made my way, on a sunny day in November, past the little shops of the coral-vendors that surround, like a necklace, the Rione de la Bellezza, and wound zigzag along the over-crowded Toledo. I knew that Signor Croce lived in the old part of the town, but had hardly anticipated so remarkable a change as I experienced on passing beneath the great archway and finding myself in old Naples. This has already been described elsewhere, and I will not ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... retreating westward towards the positions near the right bank of the Tugela, but no attempt was made to pursue him. The motto of Buller's Army was festina lente and its track towards Ladysmith was in zigzag. ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... poor showing in tents, Brock has his soldiers here take quarters in the farmhouses. For the rest it is such a rural scene as one may witness any midsummer,—rolling yellow wheat fields surrounded by the zigzag rail fences, with square farmhouses of stone and the fields invariably backed by the uncleared bush land. Six miles farther down the river, where the waters join Lake Ontario, is the English post, Fort George, near the old capital, Newark, and just opposite the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... finished one trifling flaw was discovered: the place was not supplied with water. A spring-seeker, who was summoned to the premises, could only discover a small subterranean watercourse, a sort of zigzag pipe, formed by nature, between two beds of clay, in which the rain of the neighborhood collected as in a sort of reservoir. The water was neither very clear nor very plentiful, as you may imagine; and the professor appointed to examine it, having begun by tasting it, ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... that all the women working on the Giardino land were going home. Aristodemo and his companion ran after some of the girls, and their discordant shouts and laughs could be heard in the distance, mingled with the 'Ave Maria' sung by groups of woman and girls who were mounting the zigzag path towards Nemi, their arms ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... steep promontory, the old part at the bottom, very dingy and mouldy, the new part at the top, very showy and elegant. Nothing can be more exquisite in its way than the grande place in the very heart of the city, surrounded with those toppling, zigzag, ten-storied buildings bedizened all over with ornaments and emblems so peculiar to the Netherlands, with the brocaded Hotel de Ville on one side, with its impossible spire rising some three hundred ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... and which was no longer an impassable barrier to the people of the State. Now the train toiled over a stile-like way connecting east and west, and Noonoon and Kangaroo, divided by a mile and the river, nestled immediately at the foot of the zigzag climb. ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... to be no chance of getting her hands up to her head, she tried to get her head down to them, and was delighted to find that her neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent. She had just succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag, and was going to dive in among the leaves, which she found to be nothing but the tops of the trees under which she had been wandering, when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a hurry: a large pigeon had flown into her face, and was beating ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... a terrific zigzag of fire crossed the windows, and the house shook in the almost immediate crash. Like a child Joyselle threw his arms round Brigit and hid his face against the embroidery on her corsage, holding her tight. It seemed to her an ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... situated, was on the eastern side as abrupt as on that fronting the sea to the southward; but on the western side, its height was decreased to about fifteen feet, which was surmounted by a ladder removed at pleasure. To this means of access to the cave there was a zigzag path, used only by the smugglers, leading from the small cove, and another much more tedious, by which they could transport their goods to the summit of this apparently inaccessible mass of rocks. ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... some sail patching in the shade of the charthouse, no one was visible. The vessel rocked gently, and far forward there was a sound of hammering. The mate would be there, overseeing the job whatever it might be. There was a dark cloud overshadowing the eastern horizon, with zigzag flashes of lightning showing along its edge, but the sea was barely rippled. There was no sign of any boat along the beach of the cove, and the fishermen had disappeared, not a glimmer of white sail showing above the waters. Surely no ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish

... where is a fine Norman triple sedile, divided into graduating seats by double cylindrical piers with sculptured capitals, and the recessed arches they support are enriched on the face with a profusion of the zigzag moulding. In the south wall of the choir of Broadwater Church, Sussex, is a stone bench beneath a large semicircular Norman arch, the face of which is enriched with the chevron or zigzag moulding. In Avington Church, ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam

... makes a particularly neat border stitch taken in zigzag fashion. To work this (fig. 30)—Trace two parallel lines on the material and work the chain across from side to side at an angle of 45 deg. to the traced lines. For further security it is well ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie

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

... him by the gate of Viracocha into the fortress, across its upper part, where the three crosses stood, and down on to the zigzag road which leads into the eastern part of the city, and there we unbound his eyes, and I bade him go to the house and make ready to receive me early in the morning, telling our friends that I should ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith

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

... which seemed to hush the tumult of its swift current far underneath the rippling surface. The old stone light-house—the town's traditionary godfather—stood sturdily for its rights out in mid-stream, and helped support the quaint zigzag of that most charming relic of the past, the longest wooden foot-bridge of Lucerne. A never-ending crowd of all ages and sexes and conditions of natives and strangers were mounting and descending its steps, hurrying along ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner

... started, and she could hear the rumble of the diligence which was going down to catch the night train to Empoli. The next moment it was upon her, for the highroad came towards her a little before it began its long zigzag down the hill. ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster

... frisked in the pastures or came whinnying to the fence as she passed. Lazy cows cropped the grass at the sides of the road, pushing their heads into the zigzag corners of the rail fence in pursuit of the tender clover that had crept through ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson

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

... of "Five Dots" is "Outlines." Instead of dots a line, straight, zigzag, or curved, is made at random on the paper. Papers are then exchanged and this line must be fitted naturally into a picture, as in the examples ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... the long hours dragged away; farther and farther through the silent, sleeping country flew the red-eyed train, swerving round zigzag curves, slackening up steeper places, flashing across the endless ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner

... The width of the shaft was about six feet by nine. It was nearly perpendicular, and the slope of the ladders corresponded with its width—the head of each resting against one side of it, and the foot against the other, thus forming a zigzag of ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... seemed to have had a very roundabout idea of a road, for the lumps of sugar were scattered zigzag in every direction, and, at one place, led directly through a knot-hole in a fence as if nobody could possibly have any trouble in getting through that; but, as the little mile-stones appeared again on the other side of the fence, Dorothy scrambled over and ran on. Then she found herself ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl

... starts a rabbit, a second Indian runs as fast as he can along a line parallel with the course taken by the animal. Presently the rabbit sees the second Indian, and dashes off at a tangent. By this time the third hunter has come up and gives the quarry another turn. After the third or fourth zigzag, the rabbit is surrounded, and the hunters quickly close in upon ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

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

... asked a deaf and dumb boy, "What is truth?" He replied by thrusting his finger forward in a straight line. I then asked him "What is falsehood?" when he made a zigzag with his finger. Try to remember this; let whoever will, take a zigzag path,—go you on in your course as straight as an arrow to its mark, and shrink from falsehood, as ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... and a mad gallop. All the batteries were in their possession; they looked to see an army in rout. Suddenly they beheld the double line of British squares—or, rather, "oblongs"—with their fringe of steady steel points; and from end to end of the line ran the zigzag of fire—a fire that never slackened, still less intermitted. The torrent and tumult of the horsemen never checked; but as they rode at the squares, the leading squadron—men and horses—smitten by the spray of lead, tumbled ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett

... shape of Littorina zigzag, the Trochus zigzag of Montague, but is all of one colour externally and has a ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... at the sides," Wulf said, "for they are as near perpendicular as possible. It must be at the other end of the rock, which we can't see. It may slope a little more gradually there, and they may have cut a zigzag road up. Suppose we climb the hill behind us, till we get high enough to see over the trees and get a complete view of the valley. There is no fear of our being noticed. We are a good five hundred feet above it now, and even if anyone did see us up there they would take us for two ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... spring. Hardly had the little timber dipped before he had jumped to the next and the next after. Behind him the logs, bobbing up and down, churned the water white. Jimmy moved rapidly across the enclosure on an irregular zigzag. The smaller logs he passed over as quickly as possible; on the larger he paused appreciably. Bobby was interested to see how he left behind him a wake of motion on what had possessed the appearance of rigid ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... accuracy we hereby pay decent tribute. Over all this varied scene lifts the shining javelin-head of the Woolworth Building, seen now and then in an almost disbelieved glimpse of sublimity; and the golden Lightning of the Telephone and Telegraph pinnacle, waving his zigzag ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... reach an object, his hand described a sort of zigzag before it succeeded in reaching what it was in search of, and after a little while this movement annoyed me so that I turned aside my head in order not to ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... certainly did take—about that there was no mistake—but never two of equal length, and the cart was rolling in a zigzag all the time. What a funny horse it was. It looked as if it was made of odd parts, so bony and misshapen was it. No two parts matched, and its limbs groaned and creaked with ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... whatever she said—even when she was most rude to her grandmother—she was never offensive. No one could have helped feeling all the time that she was a little lady.—I thought I would venture a question with her. I stood still at a turn of the zigzag, and looked down into the hollow, still a good way below us, where I could now distinguish the form, on the opposite side of the pond, of a woman seated at the foot of a tree, and stooping forward ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... to it. It took three-quarters of an hour to climb the series of precipitous zigzags by which this remarkable pass is surmounted; darkness came on, accompanied by thunder and lightning, and just as we arrived a tremendous zigzag of blue flame lit up the house and its interior, showing a large group sitting round a wood fire, and then all was thick darkness again. It had a most startling effect. This house is magnificently situated, almost hanging over the edge of the knife-like ridge of the pass of Kuruma, on which it is ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... floors and strips of Indian matting, cool chintz coverings, and furniture of the simplest maple and pine wood —a charming summer retreat, fitted up with unostentatious taste. There was a tiny garden at the back, shut in by a low chalk cliff, a rough zigzag path that goats might have climbed led to the downs, and there was a breach where we could enjoy the ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... preceding paragraphs. The consequence of using this kind of riffle-bar is, that though much of the water and light dirt runs straight over the bars, the heavier material runs down from side to side in a zigzag course. Near the head of the sluice is a vessel, from which quicksilver falls by drops into the box; and it follows the course of riffle-bars, overtaking the gold which takes the same route. These zigzag riffle-bars ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell

... bowsprit. As soon as she reaches the limit of her course, the yachtsman turns her bow at a small angle so as to bring the wind on the opposite side of the vessel, and in this way a second course is started. These courses are repeated in a zigzag fashion until the yacht arrives at her destination. This zigzagging, or "tacking," as it is called, is illustrated in Fig. 141. It will be seen that the yacht starts at B, and makes 3 tacks before she arrives at her destination, A. Each time she ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates

... River-bank is followed where possible; but where windfall or precipice drives back from the bed of the river over the mountain spurs, the pathfinder takes his bearings from countless signs. Moss is on the north side of tree-trunks. A steep slope compels a zigzag, corkscrew ascent, but the slope of the ground guides the climber as to the way to go; for slope means valley; and in valleys are streams; and in the stream is the 'float,' which is to the prospector the one shining signal to be followed. Timber-line is passed ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut

... Every part of the cradle was symbolical. That the child's life might be preserved, the heart of a tree was used for the cradle board. Along the wooden bow above the child's head, which symbolized the sky, zigzag furrows were cut to represent lightning, the power of which was designated by suspended arrows. Through holes in the upper part of the board was threaded a leather thong, or burden-strap, which Tecumapease ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond

... broadside view is disappointing by reason of the high deforming roof, giving an impression as of a hunched back. (One sees the same effect at Udimore, in the east of Sussex.) Within are two rows of superb circular arches, with zigzag mouldings, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

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

... extravagant with rails, as you are with everything else. A few loads can be spared from the fences here and there, as well as not. Harness up the team, boys, and git together enough to make about ten rods o' zigzag, ...
— The Man Who Stole A Meeting-House - 1878, From "Coupon Bonds" • J. T. Trowbridge

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

... the bridge and refreshed ourselves, for above us was an ascent whose steepness my stuttering coolie indicated to me by fixing my walking stick in the ground, almost perpendicularly, and running his finger up the side. He did not exaggerate. A zigzag path set with stone steps has been cut in the vertical ascent, and up this we toiled for hours. At the base of the escalade my men sublet their loads to spare coolies who were waiting there in numbers for the purpose, and climbed up with me empty-handed. At every few turns there were rest-houses ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... or table on which the specimens rested. It was virtually a long-drawn-out series of desks winding back and forth throughout the entire room, but all united into one, so that a specimen passed along the table from end to end will make a zigzag tour of the room, passing finally before each person in the entire audience. To facilitate such transit, there was a little iron railway all along the centre of the table, with miniature turn-tables at the corners, along which microscopes, with adjusted specimens ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams

... village of Dresden, Yates County, New York, seven miles from Penn Yan, where Robert Ingersoll was born, to his niche in the Temple of Fame, was a zigzag journey. But that is Nature's plan—we make head by tacking. And as the years go by, more and more we see the line of Ingersoll's life stretching itself straight. Every change to him meant progress. Success is a question of temperament—it is all a matter of the red corpuscle. Ingersoll was a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... it prudent to spend the night upon the sides of the cone. We continued our zigzag climb. The fifteen hundred remaining feet took us five hours to clear; the circuitous route, the diagonal and the counter marches, must have measured at least three leagues. I could stand it no longer. I was ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... Bega soon led the pack-train toward the left wall of the canyon, and evidently intended to scale it. Shefford could not see any trail, and the wall appeared steep and insurmountable. But upon nearing the cliff he saw a narrow broken trail leading zigzag up over smooth rock, weathered ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... resulting gases form a mixture of hydrogen, carbon, monoxide, and nitrogen, with a small percentage of carbon dioxide which usually escapes without reduction. The steam should have a pressure of 1 to 2 atmospheres, and is produced and superheated in a zigzag coil fed with water from a neighboring boiler. The quantity of water required is very small, being only about 7 pints for each 1,000 cubic feet of gas, and, except on the first occasion when the apparatus is started, the coil ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... find the scrawny young birds, with wide-open mouths and skinny bodies, that looked like birds visited by famine. He knew where the red columbines blossomed on the face of some tall cliffs, where the stream flowed through a rocky gorge; and how to crawl painfully down a zigzag course from the top to gather these, at the risk of falling seventy feet ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith

... in the history of the war. "Our lines are just beyond the cottages, and the German lines just in front of the wood. How far are we from them? Three-quarters of a mile." It was discussed whether we should be taken zigzag through the fields to the entrance of the communication-trench. But the firing was getting hotter, and Captain —— was evidently relieved when we elected to turn back. Shall I always regret that lost opportunity? You did ask me to ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... would prove indifferent, I should think, to any but the pedestrian; and there is also the mountain-path, of three hours' ascent, which leads into Montenegro, and issues up from the gates of the town in a zigzag form, till it appears lost in the clouds. Any one wishing to quit Cattaro, has indeed, like the country waiter in England, but "three desperate alternatives." He must wait for the next steamer, a whole month if in winter, and return the way he came. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... Hill, from which the view is said to be the finest in the whole of the Blue Mountains, though some maintain that the outlook from the big zigzag near Lithgow Down is still finer. On the return journey we had to wait nearly half an hour at Blackheath, and as I was not able to walk far I utilised the time by taking photographs. But no sun-picture ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... held the article on the anvil while the other applied the point of the shank of a file—previously rounded—and struck the file with a hammer. The other figures were made with the sharpened point of a file, pushed forward with a zigzag motion of the hand. When the chasing was done the silver was blanched by the process before referred to, being occasionally taken from the boiling solution of almogen to be rubbed with ashes and sand. For about five hours both of the ...
— Navajo Silversmiths • Washington Matthews

... snow; in others they tower in lofty, needle-like peaks, which even the chamois can not scale, and where scarcely a flake of snow can find a place of rest. Around and among these peaks and summits, and through these frightful defiles and chasms, the roads twist and turn, in a zigzag and constantly ascending course, creeping along the most frightful precipices, sometimes beneath them and sometimes on the brink, penetrating the darkest and gloomiest defiles, skirting the most impetuous and foaming torrents, and at ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... maps show the lines of fighting to be rather wavy, one must go to the front really to appreciate the irregular zigzag, snakelike line that it really is. The particular bit of trenches we visited cover a front of twelve miles, but so irregular is the line, so intricate and vast the system of intrenchments, that they measure 200 miles on that particular twelve-mile ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... and on, until it gradually covered the whole scene from our view, (shipping, and harbour, and town, and camp, and sugar estates,) boiling and rolling in black eddies under our feet. Anon the thunder began to grumble, and the zigzag lightning to fork out from one dark mass into another, while all, where we sat, was bright and smiling under the unclouded noon—day sun. This continued for half an hour, when at length the sombre appearance of the clouds below us brightened into a sea of white fleecy vapour like ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... method of discovering what a young woman means, and what is in her mind, is that zigzag process of inquiry conducted by following her actions, for she can tell you nothing, and if she does not want to know a particular matter, it must be a strong beam from the central system of facts that shall penetrate her. Clearly there was a disturbance in the bosom of Rose Jocelyn, and one ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... where she had sometimes to follow on foot. It seemed miles across that wilderness of stone. Foxes and wolves trotted over open places, watching stealthily. All around dark mountain peaks stood up. The afternoon was far advanced when Kells started to descend again, and he rode a zigzag course on weathered slopes and over brushy benches, down and down into the ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... the door and dashed out, he nearly fell over the dog whining in terror. But Balthazar kept on. In a better business—with a heart in him—he would have been counted among the bravest of men. Running a swaying, zigzag course, in the very face of the fire of Harry and Pauline, he reached the hunter's hut and dropped the ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard

... floor in a wild zigzag darted a strip of white paper which disappeared under the bureau. Reginald was ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... of the fine series of plantations of Egaja on this side were most intricate, to judge from the zigzag course our guide led us through them. He explained they had to be because of the character of the towns towards the Rembwe. After listening to this young man, I really began to doubt that the Cities of the Plain had really been destroyed, and ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... until the head of the boat fairly lies in the direction of Vauxhall-bridge. 'That's right—now pull all on you!' shouts Dando again, adding, in an under-tone, to somebody by him, 'Blowed if hever I see sich a set of muffs!' and away jogs the boat in a zigzag direction, every one of the six oars dipping into the water at a different time; and the yard is once more clear, until the arrival of the ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... had visibly diminished; the torrent had once more become a river, though a very rapid one, it is true. However, by pursuing a zigzag course, and overcoming it to a certain extent, John hoped to reach the opposite shore. At half-past twelve, they embarked provisions enough for a couple of days. The remainder was left with the wagon and the ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... that had a familiar tang to it, and that was almost instantly obeyed, for, under cover of sharp, well-aimed fire from aloft, from the shelter of projecting rock or stranded bowlder, again there leaped into sight a few scattered, sinewy forms that rushed in bewildering zigzag up the steep, until safe beyond their supports, when they, too, vanished, and again the cliff stood barren of Apache foemen as the level of the garrison parade. It was science in savage warfare against which ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... of observation there were brief glimpses of the human element in this scene of impersonal powers and secret forces. Across a stretch of flat ground beyond some of those zigzag lines of trenches little black things were scurrying forward. They were not bunched together in close groups, but scattered. Some of them seemed to hesitate, and then to fall and lie where they fell, others hurrying on until they disappeared ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

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

... were covered with shell holes, a little cemetery flanked one side of the zigzag way, and the big dugouts of the reserves were everywhere in this backyard of the trench area. Out of narrow, crooked side avenues soldiers poured into the communication trench which the wire carriers were following, falling in ahead ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... sick man who might soon be dying. One day the sick man was resting. Dr. Campbell went to the window to look out a little, while he was waiting. It was very early now in the southern springtime. The trees were just beginning to get the little zigzag crinkles in them, which the young buds always give them. The air was soft and moist and pleasant to them. The earth was wet and rich and smelling for them. The birds were making sharp fresh noises all around them. The wind was very gentle and yet urgent ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein

... etes bien bonne. Je ne sais comment cela arrive. Il n'y a pas de motifs parmi ceux qu'on trouve heureux, que je n'ai pas ecrit entre deux baillements. Je pourrais," he went on, "vous montrer tel passage ou ma plume a fait un long zigzag parce que mes yeux se sont fermes et ma tete tombait sur la partition. On dirait, n'est ce pas? qu'il ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... hundred shouted that they were with him, and followed him out upon the frozen river on the direct path he took for Tra-Lee. At seven in the morning he led his stampeding cohort up the zigzag trail, across the face of the slide, that led to Dwight Sanderson's cabin. The light of a candle showed through the parchment-paper window, and smoke curled from the chimney. Shorty ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

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

... on the 21st of February, 1915, but instead of sending a torpedo into her hull, the commander of the U-12, the submarine which overhauled her, resorted to boarding. After trying to elude the submarine by steering a zigzag course, the Downshire was finally overtaken. The crew was ordered to take to the small boats, while nineteen men of the submarine, which had come above water, watched the operations from the deck. A crew from the submarine took ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... From the door through which he had just come bullets spat aimlessly. He crouched as he ran, dodging in zigzag little rushes. Voices pursued him, fierce and threatening. Men poured from the gambling-house as seeds are squirted from ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine

... turning back and rounding up a scattered flock which Ferris himself could not have bunched in twenty times the space of minutes. Chum, he noted, did not touch one of the foolish beasts. His bark and his zigzag dashes served the purpose, without the aid of teeth ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune

... men golf, in spite of a certain reaction, has still the chief place. The club house is on the west shore of the bay. One plays out northward. The players zigzag here and there among curious earth mounds formed by the eddying swirl of water when the river's current held high carnival over these level stretches. Then the course leads up to the higher slope and mounts steadily, until, at the farthest hole, a ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... they passed became every day more and more rugged, until at length it assumed the character of a wild mountainous district. Sometimes they wound their way in a zigzag manner up the mountain sides, by paths so narrow that they could scarcely find a foot-hold. At other times they descended into narrow valleys where they saw great numbers of wild animals of various kinds, some of which the Indians killed for food. After they reached the mountain ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... they are unquestionably full of instruction as to the ways of the time. Philomela returns once more to euphuism, but Greene is soon back again with A Quip for an Upstart Courtier, a piece of social satire, flying rather higher than his previous attempts. The zigzag is kept up in Orpharion, the last printed (at least in the only edition now known) of the author's works during his lifetime. Not till after his death did the best known and most personal of all his works ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... cheerfully ready to fulfil it even at the cost of his life, he hastened forward in the bright moonlight. He quitted the path at the spot where, to render the ascent possible even to the vigorous desert-travellers, it took a zigzag line, and clambered from rock to rock, up and down in a direct line; when he came to a level spot he flew on as if pursuers were at his heels. After sunrise he refreshed himself with a morsel of food, and then hurried on again, not heeding ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the mouth of the mine, from which issued a narrow railway for the transportation of the salt-ore, and above, zigzag on the mountain-side, ran the conduit carrying the salt, still in liquid form, to the boiling-house. A waterfall four hundred feet high furnished power for the great pump. About the entrance to the mine ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... nothing to do but descend as best we can; so we trust to our good driver and steady horses, obliged to follow the sharply-winding road at walking pace. And bit by bit—how we don't know—the horizontal zigzag is accomplished. We are ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... promptly told Ben he was at liberty, and he lost no time in profiting by the information. Just as he passed out of the door, he saw his master coming, and ran full speed. He had sufficient presence of mind to take a zigzag course, and running through a house occupied by colored people, he succeeded in ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... were finished the setting sun was shining clearly on the white summits above, and we commenced slowly winding up the noble zigzag road. Rude mountain children kept up with our diligences, asked for sous and wished us bon voyage in the name ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

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

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

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

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

... zigzag course, and the way was strewn with the flotsam and jetsam of wrecked parties and blighted hopes, but out of the wreckage John Quincy Adams always appeared, calm, poised and serene. When he opposed the purchase of Louisiana it looks as if he allowed his ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... Where thou art is clime for me. Let them sail for Porto Rique, Far-off heats through seas to seek; I will follow thee alone, Thou animated torrid-zone! Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, Let me chase thy waving lines; Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, Singing ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... the moonlight, slackened speed, half-turned as if in hesitation, then ran on more slowly, with zigzag steps, as if desperately looking for a way out. But he said to me ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson

... zigzag mountain-pass, that turns short off from the right bank of the valley of the Serchio, toward Corellia. The peasants sing choruses as they trudge upward, taking short cuts among the trees at the angles of the zigzag. The evening lights come and go among the chestnut-trees ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... undergo, Dr. Peters says that when they struggled to the other shore, they found themselves confronted by a mass of solid and almost perpendicular rocks, fully six hundred feet high. This was ascended, after the most exhausting labor, by means of a zigzag trail, and the journey was pushed over a rough and diversified country. Grass and water could not be found until they reached a small Mexican town where they were enabled to buy what was so sadly needed. Men and animals were so worn out that they ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis

... America. You cannot find them abroad, and every little boy and girl will want to know how to build one of these old-fashioned "snake" or Virginia rail-fences. The fence may be of any length, its zigzag lines can run in any direction, all the way across the ...
— Little Folks' Handy Book • Lina Beard

... her little rear room with the zigzag of fire escape across it was already full of dusk. She took off her hat, a black straw with a little pink-cotton rose on it, and, rubbing her brow where it had left a red rut, sat down beside the window. There were smells there from a city bouquet of frying foods; from a pool of old water near a ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst

... rubbing elbows with the heroes, who stalked majestically in their voluminous bulk, with the coveted 'Varsity caps riding on the backs of their cropped heads, or being jostled by the freckled imps who ran zigzag, shrieking ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... or witchcraft in it. Nothing was ever more natural than the conduct of the dog. When he saw Westgate frightened out of his wits at nothing, trying to run as for dear life when there was no pursuer, staggering and pitching along in a zigzag direction with very eccentric motions, falling heels over head, and then crawling along, holding himself up by the fence, and all the time looking back with terror, and perhaps attempting to express his consternation, the dog could not tell what to make of it; and ran off, as a dog would ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... just as desperate as he does, now—except for his old jug. Daddy didn't have any jug, and I'm glad—that's where the difference is—it's the jug. But, I wish he had had one of those black horn effects for his scarf." She knotted the brilliant red scarf with its zigzag border of yellow, about her neck, and snatching a small pair of scissors from the dressing table, removed the heavy belt, and proceeded to bore a tongue hole at the point she had marked with her finger nail. So engrossed she became in the work, that she failed to hear ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx

... twenty-five miles from Epi, I was five days on the way, so zigzag a route did the steamer pursue. But if one is not in a hurry, life on board is quite entertaining. The first day we anchored near the volcano of Lopevi, a lofty peak that rises from a base six kilometres in diameter to ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser



Words linked to "Zigzag" :   crank, move, zig-zag, locomote, go, zigzag goldenrod, crooked, travel



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