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Curve   /kərv/   Listen
Curve

verb
(past & past part. curved; pres. part. curving)
1.
Turn sharply; change direction abruptly.  Synonyms: cut, sheer, slew, slue, swerve, trend, veer.  "The motorbike veered to the right"
2.
Extend in curves and turns.  Synonyms: twist, wind.  "The path twisted through the forest"
3.
Form an arch or curve.  Synonyms: arc, arch.  "Her hips curve nicely"
4.
Bend or cause to bend.  Synonym: crook.  "The road curved sharply"
5.
Form a curl, curve, or kink.  Synonyms: curl, kink.



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"Curve" Quotes from Famous Books



... Breathing the letter, and not the spirit, of the commodore's orders, the captains of these ships luffed at the same time as those which preceded them. Hence it resulted that the French line formed a curve (B), whose extremities were represented in the van by the 'Artesien' and 'Vengeur,' and in the rear by the 'Bizarre,' 'Ajax,' and 'Severe.' In consequence, these ships were very far from those which corresponded to ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... could not be always. It came to an end one January afternoon, when he had returned from a second absence in Liverpool. They were walking up Richmond Hill. The sun had set frostily and red over the silver curve of the Thames, and Venus, large and bright, was shining like a great eye in the western sky. Hilary long remembered exactly how every thing looked, even to the very tree they stood under, when Robert Lyon asked ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... that was plain; his face was bronzed and weather-beaten, as if he often encountered rough weather. But his deep-set eyes had a steadfast, quiet power in them, and his mouth, although it was almost hidden by hair, had a pleasant curve about it. I could not guess how old he was; he looked a middle-aged man to me. His great, rough hands, which had never worn gloves, were stained and hard with labor; and he had evidently been taking a share ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... away all my vanity clothes. No need for them in Hiroshima and in an icy room on a winter's morning, I do not stop to think whether my dress has an in-curve or an out-sweep. I fall into the first thing I find and finish buttoning it when the family fire in the dining-room is reached. A solitary warming-spot to a big house is one of ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... still more determined curve. "When any suspicious paper is found in my possession, it will be time enough then for me to explain ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... carefully into a tall swivel chair. He learned back and rocked slowly, like an old woman on the front porch of a resort hotel. His pipe was still smoking in a rather large ashtray. He picked it up, showing it to be a curve-stemmed old-man's style, and puffed contentedly at it. On him it didn't look like ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman

... overheard, leaned across. The shade of newly awakened interest in her face, and the curve of her lips as she spoke, added to her charm. A gleam of sunlight flashed upon the yellow-gold of her ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... precipice 2,500 feet in depth, it is correct to be frightened, and a fashion of holding the breath and shutting the eyes prevails, but my fears were reserved for the crossing of a trestle bridge over a very deep chasm, which is itself approached by a sharp curve. This bridge appeared to be overlapped by the cars so as to produce the effect of looking down directly into a wild gulch, with a torrent raging along it at ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... down here. We will now proceed on board, if you please, gentlemen," said the professor; and he forthwith led the way up a ladder which leaned against the vessel's lofty side. This conducted them as far as the upper curve of her cylindrical bilge, at which point they encountered a flight of light ornamental openwork steps permanently attached to the ship's side, up which they passed to the gangway in the stout metal railing which served instead of bulwark, and so reached ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... uncertain whether he should demand or assay entrance. He looked through the grating down an avenue skirted by majestic oaks, which led onward with a gentle curve, as if into the depths of some ample and ancient forest. The wicket of the large iron gate being left unwittingly open, the soldier was tempted to enter, yet with some hesitation, as he that intrudes upon ground which he conjectures may be prohibited—indeed ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... prospect from a certain curve of the drive after you have passed the formal sunken garden, at which you pause, is the greatest beauty of the Villa Pamfili Doria. You stop to look at it by the impulse of your coachman, and then you keep on driving round, in the long ellipse which the road ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... a rock at the side of the road to rest and waited for another rig or a foot passenger to come by. Before long he heard a sprightly whistle, and a barefooted boy, carrying a tin pail, and with a fish pole over his shoulder, appeared round a curve in the road. ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton

... the Massimo, once built to follow the curve of a narrow winding street, but now facing the same great thoroughfare as the Cancelleria, has something of the same quality, with a wholly different character. It is smaller and more gloomy, and its ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... time. There was evidently a momentary uncertainty in the leader's mind as to direction. The road to the right led straight, direct, but treeless, dusty, uninviting, to the school. It held no lure for the leader and his knightly following. Further on a path led in a curve under shady trees and away from the street. It made the way to school longer, but the lure of the curving, shady path was irresistible. Still stepping bravely to the old abolitionist hymn, the procession moved ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... which to her was full of consolation. Maraton, a little ashamed of the scene in which he had been an unwilling participator, bitterly self-accusing, still found his thoughts diverted from his own humiliation as he watched the girl—a long, slim figure bent in one strangely graceful curve, her beautiful hair gleaming in the soft light, her face still half hidden by her strong, capable fingers—a figure exquisitely symbolic, full of pathos. Her elbows rested upon her knees; she was crouched a little forward. ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... more excitement did not matter. What Jorgenson did not expect, however, was the sound of a musket-shot fired from the jungle facing the bows of the Emma. It caused him to stop dead short. He had heard distinctly the bullet strike the curve of the bow forward. "Some hot-headed ass fired that," he said to himself, contemptuously. It simply disclosed to him the fact that he was already besieged on the shore side and set at rest his doubts as to the length Tengga was prepared to go. Any length! Of course ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... lovely shapes," said Daphne wistfully, for the slender necks, the winning curves, the lines of shallow bowl and basin bore testimony to the fact that the meanest thought of this people was a thought of beauty. "I wonder why the Lord gave to them the curve, ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood

... eye out for a good camping place," said Mr. Waterman. Hardly had he said this than they came around a curve of the river and saw before them a little opening in the woods that had been cleared. A little stream ran down into the larger river, forming a sand bar ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton

... woman's scolding broke in and complicated the melee. Presently Peter saw the bulky form of Dawson Bobbs come around the curve, moving methodically from cabin to cabin. He held some legal- looking papers in his hands, and Peter knew what the constable was doing. He was serving a blanket search-warrant on the whole black population of Hooker's Bend. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... strange country. It has been set in the flowery head to as little purpose for thousands of years. With all their patient and ingenious but never advancing art, and with all their rich and diligent agricultural cultivation, not a new twist or curve has been given to a ball of ivory, and not a blade of experience has been grown. There is a genuine finality in that; and when one comes from behind the wooden screen that encloses the curious sight, to look again ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... day we came to a neck of land, made, as we afterward discovered, by a great curve of the river that almost completed a circle. Right across the neck lay bunched several low and partly wooded hills. Over these we climbed, looking backward at the forest which had become a sea of flame that swept eastward before a rising wind. We continued to the west, following the river bank, ...
— Before Adam • Jack London

... where it led through a cut in the hill and then down to the bridge. On either side the banks rose eight or ten feet, and very steep, and beyond was a sharp curve. Archie made his horn speak angrily, as once more he came abreast of his rival, favored by the fact that Mayer had struck a strip of newly repaired and soft roadway some yards long. A second later ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... The foundations of two of the four columns which flanked these openings can still be traced. The walls of the chancel, which was slightly narrower than the nave, were continued straight for a little way beyond the screen-wall; and then the curve of the apse began. St Pancras also possessed a square entrance porch, much narrower than the nave, at its west end, and two chapels projecting from the nave on either side, half-way up its length. The church is thus cruciform in plan. The western porch and the ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson

... was such a place as this place," the earl would often say, when he stopped at particular points of view, and gazed his fill on every well-known outline of the hills and curve of the lochs, generally ending with a smiling look on the face beside him, equally familiar, which had watched all these things with him for more than thirty years. "Helen, I have had a happy life, or it seems so, looking back upon it. Remember, ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... (1826) have no interest. The latter leads to Victoria Street, a broad thoroughfare opened in 1851, only the western end of which falls within the district. On the south side is the Victoria Station of the Metropolitan District Railway, commenced in 1863 and opened in 1868. The line runs in a curve underground from Sloane Square, crossing Ebury Street at Eaton Terrace, and Buckingham Palace Road at Grosvenor Gardens. From the Underground Station a subterranean passage leads to the Victoria terminus, the starting-point ...
— Mayfair, Belgravia, and Bayswater - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... them in, but none could be found who would venture to steer into that port a vessel drawing more than twenty feet of water. They had, therefore, remained at anchor outside, in Aboukir Bay, drawn up in a curve along the deepest of the water, with no room to pass them at either end, so that the commissary of the fleet reported that they could bid defiance to a force more than double their number. The admiral believed ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... formation is marked by symptoms of volcanic violence, which some geologists have considered to denote the close of one system of things and the beginning of another. Coal beds generally lie in basins, as if following the curve of the bottom of seas. But there is no such basin which is not broken up into pieces, some of which have been tossed up on edge, others allowed to sink, causing the ends of strata to be in some instances many yards, and in a few several hundred feet, removed ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers

... results are in general directly opposite. The thallium papers show that the greatest effect is in the daytime, the iodide papers that it is at night. Yearly curves show that the former generally indicate a rise when the latter give a fall. The iodide curve follows closely that of relative humidity, clouds, and rain; the thallium curve stands in no relation to it. A table of results for the year 1879 is given in monthly means, of the two thallium papers, the ozonometer, the relative ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... penitently, one hand nervously clutching a branch of rhododendron, one foot twisting in the moss, Lescott was seeing an altogether new Sally. There was a renunciation in her eyes that in contrast with the child- like curve of her lips, and slim girlishness of ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... to assist her; she sprang easily to the saddle, then leaned toward him, every statue-like curve and moulding of her proud ivory face stamping themselves on ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... tight little curve as she went along. There was still work to do to-night—if this package really contained the stolen legacy of gems left by Angel Jack. She had first of all to reach a place where she could examine the package ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... or dancing with joy, or resting peacefully. How has all this history been worked out from the shapeless stone? It has been done by the sculptor's chisel. A piece chipped off here, a wrinkle cut there, a smooth surface rounded off in another place, so as to give a gentle curve; all these touches gradually shape the figure and mould it out of the rough stone, first into a rude shape and afterwards, by delicate strokes, into the form ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley

... us, the sun's motion is neither exactly parallel with that of the heavens in general, nor yet directly and diametrically opposite, but describing an oblique line, with insensible declination he steers his course in such a gentle, easy curve, as to dispense his light and influence, in his annual revolution, at several seasons, in just proportions to the whole creation. So it happens in political affairs; if the motions of rulers be constantly opposite and cross to the tempers and inclination ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... the tide had fallen still lower and until the whole surface of the great sweeping curve of reef stood out, bare and steaming, under the bright tropic sun. Westward lay the ocean, blue and smooth as a mill pond, with only a gentle, heaving swell laving the outer wall of the coral barrier. Here and there upon its surface communities of snowy white terns hovered and fluttered, feeding ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke

... unwonted fire, and his hands involuntarily became clenched until the finger nails indented the palms. Soon his look softened, the fire left his eyes, and they appeared as gentle as twin lakes in lovely Switzerland. The proud lines in his lips gave place to a curve like a Cupid's bow and a smile lighted up his face. Looking out over the wintry landscape, he said to himself: "It is worth the danger of an attack like this to receive such a note from Viola LeMonde. How kind and thoughtful of her to warn me of the plot so quickly. I will ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... half-lap joint, by which means the rails extended a certain distance over each other at the ends, like a scarf-joint. These ends, instead of resting upon the flat chair, were made to rest upon the apex of a curve forming the bottom of the chair. The supports were also extended from three feet to three feet nine inches or four feet apart. These rails were accordingly substituted for the old cast-iron plates on the Killingworth Colliery Railway, and they were found to be a very great ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... only, was I allowed to see Hortense, and what a change I saw! There was death in every feature, every curve of her once beautiful face. She revived as usual, when I was announced, and wanted to sit up and talk a great deal more than the attending physician would allow, or than she was really able to do. They took advantage of this desire ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... and graceful, when she had written her name, and the finely chiselled lips had an upward curve of young scorn, as she turned from the table, while the notary and his clerk proceeded to witness the will. Immediately, the countess smiled, very brightly, showing beautiful teeth between smooth red lips, and her strong arms went round her young niece. ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford

... perfixa, but differing slightly in the veins of the wings. Male and Female. Blue, more or less mingled with purple. Head black, slightly cinereous in front; antennae and legs black; wings grey, veins black, praebrachial vein forming an almost angular curve at its flexure, nearly straight from thence to its tip, discal transverse vein very slightly undulating, parted by little more than half its length from the border, and by about its length from the flexure of the praebrachial; alulae dark ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various

... grouping the tents together, they had chosen the most picturesque and sequestered spots to hide them away in. There was one on a little jutting point of land near the Peckham mill. Here, the river swept out in a wide U-shaped curve that was crowned with gray rocks and pines. The music of the falls reached it, and the road was only about quarter of a mile across the fields to the north, but apparently ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester

... has no corners to gather dirt, wall meets floor with a gentle curve, and the apartment could be swept out effectually by a few strokes of a mechanical sweeper [sucked out by the now-used cleaning-machine.—Author]. The door-frames and window-frames are of metal, rounded and impervious to draft. You are politely requested to turn ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards

... of morning. The watch-dog had left his one-roomed cottage and was promenading before it in stately fashion with all the pomp of a satisfied land-holder, his great undershot jaw and the extraordinary outward curve of his legs proclaiming an untarnished pedigree. The hens were happily engaged in scratching the earth for their breakfast; the rooster, no longer crestfallen, was strutting in the sunshine, while next to the barn several grunting, squealing pigs struggled for supremacy ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... it entered, the curve of its spiral evidently following the corresponding windings of the hole. Inward it twisted like a snake, until only some two inches still projected. As the searcher after forbidden mysteries continued ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne

... rout Of man's poor trivial turmoil, lost and drowned Under the mist, in gleaming rivers rolled, Where oozy marsh contends with frothing main. And rounding all, springs one full, ambient arch, One great good limpid world—so still, so still! For no sound echoes from its crystal curve Save four clear notes, the song of that lone bird Who, brave but trembling, tries his morning hymn, And has no heart to finish, for the awe And wonder of this pearling globe ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... was irresistible, and shone back from her face too. Will Ladislaw's smile was delightful, unless you were angry with him beforehand: it was a gush of inward light illuminating the transparent skin as well as the eyes, and playing about every curve and line as if some Ariel were touching them with a new charm, and banishing forever the traces of moodiness. The reflection of that smile could not but have a little merriment in it too, even under dark eyelashes still moist, as Dorothea ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... one of quiet loveliness. It lies in the curving shore of one of the most beautiful of the little inland lakes. The university campus lies at the northern end of the curve. The dome of the capitol rises from the trees at the southern end. Between, deep lawns stretch to the water's edge with fine old houses capping the gentle slope of the shore. Inland lies the business section of the town, with the less pretentious of the dwellings. ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow

... second place, that the natural prevalence of monogamy as the normal type of sexual relationship by no means excludes variations. Indeed it assumes them. "There is nothing precise in Nature," according to Diderot's saying. The line of Nature is a curve that oscillates from side to side of the norm. Such oscillations inevitably occur in harmony with changes in environmental conditions, and, no doubt, with peculiarities of personal disposition. So long as no arbitrary and merely external attempt is made to force ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... to her helm, slipped through the muddy waters in a graceful curve, and then steadied for the ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... poor Milly, whose head was stretched from the window, her hand waving many adieux, until the curve of the road, and the clump of old ash-trees, thick with ivy, hid Milly, carriage and all, from view. My eyes filled again with tears. I turned towards Bartram. At my ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... went to her state-room, and gave the four raps. She was glad enough to see me, and taking her valise I told her to follow me. I waited till I heard the order given to haul in the plank, and then led Kate up the rude steps on the curve of the paddle-box, heedless of the sign which interdicted ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... about, there was not a spear of grass nor a living thing except the stunted sage-brush of the alkali plain. In the midst of this desert a great upheaval of granite rock thrown squarely across the direct path of the railroad opposed its straight course and made a long reverse curve necessary. This was ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman

... crossing in East Balboa we were held up by an empty dirt-train returning from the dump. I tossed a coin at the cabman and scrambled aboard. The train raced through Corozal, down the grade and around the curve at unslacking speed. I dropped off in front of Miraflores police station, keeping my feet, thanks to practice and good luck, and dashing up through the village, dragged myself breathlessly aboard the passenger train as its head and shoulders had ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... her face, more than the full curve of her cheek. He watched her hair, which at the back was almost of the colour of the soapstone idol, take the candlelight into its vigorous freedom in front and glisten ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... came into view from the stand, and its appearance would of itself have justified the shouting. The wheels were very marvels of construction. Stout bands of burnished bronze reinforced the hubs, otherwise very light; the spokes were sections of ivory tusks, set in with the natural curve outward to perfect the dishing, considered important then as now; bronze tires held the fellies, which were of shining ebony. The axle, in keeping with the wheels, was tipped with heads of snarling tigers done in brass, and the bed was woven of ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... in her voice, in her smile, something that stirred him strangely. He felt as though he had met her before—a long while ago. He recognised little characteristics, the way that she pushed back her hair when she was excited, the beautiful curve of her neck when she raised her eyes to his, the rise and fall of her bosom—it was all strangely, individually familiar, as though he had often watched her do the same things in the same way before, ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole

... much of a hurry to explain or wait for any questions. She simply started across the fields in the direction of the Demi-Lune, where the route nationale from Meaux makes a curve to run down the ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... Niccola at Pisa, where the friars of St Augustine are. Outside it is octagonal, but the interior is round with a winding staircase rising to the top leaving the middle space void like a well, while on every fourth step there are columns with lame arches, which follow the curve of the building. The spring of the vaulting rests upon these arches, and the ascent is of such sort that anyone on the ground always sees those who are going up, those who are at the top see those who are on the ground, while those who are in the middle see both those who ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari

... inquiringly. For a moment their eyes held each other; and all at once the blood swept through him with suffocating violence. She was so beautiful, so sumptuous, so warmly and richly feminine; and surely the circumstances were not anodyne. Her softly rounded face, its very pallor, the curve and colour of her lips, her luminous dark eyes, the smooth modulations of her voice, and then her loose abundance of black hair, and the swelling lines of her breast, the fluent contour of her waist and hips, under the fine black ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... her head slightly turned, the arch of one brow blended in a perfect curve into her straight, thin nose. But the mouth and chin—they were firmer than one might have expected. If, not knowing her, he had seen her driving in the Bois or upon Rotten Row, he would have been curious ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... towards the source of knowledge, and the more perfectly we trace the little arc of the immeasurable circle which comes within the range of our hasty observations, at first like the broken fragments of a many-sided polygon, but at last as a simple curve which encloses all we know, or can know, of nature. To our own intellectual wealth, the gain is like that of the over-burdened traveller, who should exchange hundred-weights of iron for ounces of ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... the Right one Grow manly, womanly, true; God's love-light shines upon them, And falls as heavenly dew;— They grieve at your wild folly, And will gladly help you back, If at any curve or turning You seek ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller

... veil were abysses and heights of being which could not be expressed in human terms; but in all the spaces we may dare to believe that there is nothing essentially different from what was revealed in that unique Man. A bay makes a curve in the Atlantic seaboard; its shallow waters are all from the deeps of the sea. Tides that move along all the seas, and forces which reach to the stars, fill that basin among the hills. The bay is the ocean, but not all of it; for if ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford

... What chance had the poor student of fulfilling his patient task when, on his approach, he was sure to be met by this surprise of the parted lips, and sudden smile, and bright look? He was far too bewildered to examine the outline of her nose or the curve of ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... the shores of a large lake. The banks were thickly wooded. On its southern curve was a high mountain. As the boys approached, a vaquero sprang upon a mustang and rode toward them rapidly. Roldan recognised one of the men that had been ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton

... fresh draught from the original spring. In the analysis there may be no flaw; the ingredients are chemically identical in quality and proportion; but the nameless, inimitable, inscrutable life is wanting: the mixing has been done by a mechanical, not by a creative hand. Haydon says, "The curve of the circle is excess, the straight line is deficiency, the ellipsis is the degree between, and that curve, added to or united with proportion, regulates the form and features of a perfect woman." Mr. D.R. ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... inviting friends to meet them in this grotto which, through the agency of one old servant devoted to Roger to the point of folly, had been fitted up and lighted in a manner not only comfortable but luxurious. A small but sheltered haven hidden in the curve of the rocks made an approach by boat feasible at high tide; and at low the connection could be made by means of a path over the promontory in which this grotto lay concealed. The fortune which ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... so sure of that," she said. "We may yet invent a telescope which shall curve its reflected rays over the rotundity of the earth and above the highest icebergs, so that you and I may sit here and look at the waters of the pole gently splashing around ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton

... Furnes, she was greeted by cheers from the populace. And, indeed, she was a striking figure in her yellow leather jerkin, her knee-breeches and puttees, and her shining yellow "doggy" boots. She carried all the air of an officer planning a desperate coup. As she cut her famous half-moon curve from the north-east corner of the Place by the Gendarmerie over to the Hotel at the south-west, she saluted General de Wette standing on the steps of the Municipal Building. He, of course, knew her. Who of the Belgian army did not know those three unquenchable women living ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason

... countenance had something in the highest degree interesting, even noble, in its expression. Her forehead was well formed, her black eyes had an arch, almost a roguish, glance, her finely cut lips, and the whole contour of her physiognomy, betrayed a frank and joyous disposition, whilst the slight curve of her Roman nose gave her an air of decision and self-reliance, with which her bearing and costume corresponded. This costume was far superior to the usual dress of Indian girls, and as remarkable for simplicity as for good ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... sat in a ring about the hounds in the centre of which, as usual, were Jack and Lord Scamperdale, looking with their great tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles, and short grey whiskers trimmed in a curve up to their noses, like a couple of horned ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... from any living (?) and of a decidedly lower type, was made in 1857, when a part of a skull was found in a cave near Dusseldorf, Germany. The bones consisted of the upper portion of a cranium, remarkable for its flat retreating curve, the upper arm and thigh bones, a collar bone, and rib fragments." From these fragments, an ape-man has been created (by the artist), about 5 ft. 3 in. high, strong, fierce in look, and having other characteristics ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams

... was covered on its northern side by an ancient and decaying plantation of beeches, whose upper verge formed a line over the crest, fringing its arched curve against the sky, like a mane. To-night these trees sheltered the southern slope from the keenest blasts, which smote the wood and floundered through it with a sound as of grumbling, or gushed over ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... convexity of the surface is too great, and especially at curves, where fast motors frequently skid on the rounded surface. To obviate this a piece of road near the Croix d'Augas in the Orleannais has had the outer side of the curve raised eight centimetres above the centre of the road, in somewhat the same manner as on the curve of a railway. Since this innovation has proved highly successful and pleasing to the devotees of the new form of travel, it is likely to be ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

... Arnold was composed enough to look round him, the chaise had taken the curve in the road which wound behind the farmhouse. He returned—faithful to the engagement which he had undertaken—to his post before the inclosure. The chaise was then a speck in the distance. In a minute more it was a speck out ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... near to the shed, and Pelle turned cold with fear, for the black man was still standing there. He went round to the other side of his father, and tried to pull him out in a wide curve over the harbor square. "There ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... distinctness with which each human being held fast to his individuality in the multitude. Nature has drawn no object with so firm a hand, nor painted it with such tenacious clearness of color, as the face of man. The inverted crescent of sharp light had a different curve on each individual brow before me; the little illuminated dot on the end of the nose under it hinted at the form of the nostrils in shadow. As the hats had before concealed the faces, so now each face ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... went up and ran his fingers caressingly along the polished propeller blade that slanted toward him; he fingered the cables and touched the smooth curve of the wing as if he needed more evidence than his eyes could furnish that the Thunder Bird was there, where he had not dared hope he would find it. Bland came up with an eager, apologetic air ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... supersede other stops; and, as the parenthesis terminates with a pause equal to that which precedes it, the same point should be included, except when the sentences differ in form." Therefore, a colon should be inserted within the curve after weary.] ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... The curve of the net was now reduced to fifty feet, and soon it was not above forty; and at this stage of the proceedings what with the weight being collected in such narrow limits, and the water being so shallow, the captain became doubtful of its bearing so tremendous a strain as would ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... the rudder, and he soon found a large nut, close to the water's edge, from which he could suspend the deadly torpedo. He quickly unslung it from round his shoulders, and presently had it lashed firmly in position against the curve of the Manco Capac's counter, the lower edge of the bomb being just about a couple of inches clear of the water. He then fixed the fuse alongside the rudder-post, and after listening to hear whether any one was ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... be sure they ain't votin' th' prohybition ticket. Th' calico sheets over th' front iv th' booths wave an' ar-re pushed out like th' curtains iv a Pullman car whin a fat man is dhressin' inside while th' thrain is goin' r-round a curve. In time a freeman bursts through, with perspyration poorin' down his nose, hurls his suffrage at th' judge an' staggers out. I plunge in, sharpen an inch iv lead pencil be rendin' it with me teeth, mutilate me ballot at th' top iv th' dimmycratic column, ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne

... the great gray boundary-wall of the valley, and the sound of roaring water grew tumultuous as they rounded the curve in the road and came into the little triangular nook which had been anciently formed by the Colorow as it descended in power from its source in the high parks. On the left the ledges rose almost sheer for a thousand feet, and from the edge of this cliff ore-buckets, ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... the day to go far—that is, for those in life who can choose their own time. So the dog and the man took their walks late, and prolonged them to the hour when the ruddy moon rose solemnly into the sky over the woods and set out on its low, summer curve to the west. Daylight lasted long after the sun went down: a hot glow spread gradually northward, and what with the light in this direction and the moon at full, only those two other worlds, Jupiter and Venus, were visible in the cloudless vault ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry

... two squares beyond the crossing of the broken-circuited arc-light, and was still following the curve of the lakeside boulevard, when he came to the surface of the submerging wave long enough to realize that he had entered Jasper Grierson's portion of the water-front drive. The great house, dark as to its westward gables save for the lighted upper ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... which will eventually cure him. If the truss be properly made (under the direction of an experienced surgeon) by a skilful surgical-instrument maker, a beautiful, nicely-fitting truss will be supplied, which will take the proper and exact curve of the lower part of the infant's belly, and will thus keep on without using any under-strap whatever—a great desideratum, as these under-straps are so constantly wetted and soiled as to endanger the patient constantly catching ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... turn. It was a foregone conclusion that he couldn't take the scooter up, alone. Palefaced, he rode double. Ramos was careful this time. But on the downward curve before coming to rest, the change of direction made Lester grab Ramos' arm at a critical instant. The scooter wavered, and they landed hard, even at reduced speed. Agile Ramos skipped clear, landing on his feet. Lester flopped heavily, and skidded across ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... is dwarfed to a scale that limits alike its comfort, power, and speed. Before every engine, as it were, trots the ghost of a superseded horse, refuses most resolutely to trot faster than fifty miles an hour, and shies and threatens catastrophe at every point and curve. That fifty miles an hour, most authorities are agreed, is the limit of our speed for land travel, so far as existing conditions go.[5] Only a revolutionary reconstruction of the railways or the development of some new competing method of land travel can carry ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... bold and evermore be bold;" and then again he paused well at the third gate,—"Be not too bold." His strength is like the momentum of a falling planet; and his discretion, the return of its due and perfect curve,—so excellent is his Greek love of boundary, and his skill in definition. In reading logarithms, one is not more secure, than in following Plato in his flights. Nothing can be colder than his head, when the lightnings ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... left he led them in a long curve through the woods, hurrying swiftly and yet silently under the darkest shadows of the trees. Then he turned again, ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... word of honour! But we undertake to impart to any eyes the gaze soulful, or the twinkle coquettish, as the customer desires—as an artist, I assure you that these expressions are due, less to the eyes themselves than to the shade, and especially the curve, of the lashes. Many a woman has entered our saloon entirely insignificant, and turned the heads of all the men in the street when ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... the extremity of Regent's Channel was passed; the angle on the west coast was followed by a deep curve in the land. By consulting his map the doctor recognised the point of Somerset House, or ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... has ever been made with regard to the properties of curved wing surfaces. So far as could be done, Lilienthal tabulated the amount of air resistance offered to a bird's wing, ascertaining that the curve is necessary to flight, as offering far more resistance than a flat surface. Cayley, and others, had already stated this, but to Lilienthal belongs the honour of being first to put the statement to effective proof—he made over 2,000 gliding ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... gentleman watched them out of sight round the curve of the drive, then sent his horse on with an oath and, dismounting heavily at Alison's toes, roared out: "What the devil's this folly, miss?" He made angry puffing noises. "I vow I heard you laughing at Finchley. Might have heard him ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... eye spread the whole western rampart of the Peak—to the right, the highest point, of Kinder Low, to the left, 'edge' behind 'edge,' till the central rocky mass sank and faded towards the north into milder forms of green and undulating hills. In the very centre of the great curve a white and surging mass of water cleft the mountain from top to bottom, falling straight over the edge, here some two thousand feet above the sea, and roaring downward along an almost precipitous bed into the stream—the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Professor Murray to exclaim in despair—Let it be granted that A. B. (for such was our hero's name) is a straight line. The other magnitude, which drew near with a step at once elusive and fascinating, revealed as she walked a figure so exquisite in its every curve as to call from her geometrical acquaintances the ecstatic exclamation, "Let it be granted that M is ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock

... paddle became more and more mechanical, his attention disengaged itself from the moment—from the voice of Mr. Jessup astern, the girl's intent gaze, the swirl about the blade, the scent and pageant of the green banks on either hand—and pressed forward to follow each far curve of the stream, each bend as it slowly unfolded. Bend upon bend—they might fold it a hundred deep; but somewhere ahead and beyond ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Gordon said that the sudd is formed by an "aquatic plant with roots extending five feet in the water. The natives burn the top parts, when dry; the ashes form mould, and fresh grasses grow till it becomes like terra firma. The Nile rises, and floats out the masses; they come down to a curve and then stop. More of these islands float down, and at last the river is blocked. Though under them the water flows, no communication can take place, for they bridge the river for ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... the wing, but the heat was so great that he involuntarily passed round in a curve and came upon the large house that was as yet burning only at one end, just below the roof, and around which swarmed a crowd of Frenchmen. At first Pierre did not realize what these men, who were dragging something out, were about; but seeing before him a Frenchman hitting a peasant ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... we have just been dealing. "Here are the lambs of Christ's flock," he writes: "Is a stout old ram to upset and confuse them when he needn't ... even though he is right? The flock must be led gently and turned in a great curve. We can't all whip round in an instant. We are tired and discouraged and some of us are exceedingly stupid and obstinate. Very well; then the rams can't be allowed to make brilliant excursions in all directions and upset us all. We shall get there ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

... Angelique had noted every change of muscle, every curve of lip and eyelash as he spake, and she felt ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... destined to bring us around again to the nomadic state. You are aware, my dear sir,—you must have observed it in your own experience,—that all human progress is in a circle; or, to use a more accurate and beautiful figure, in an ascending spiral curve. While we fancy ourselves going straight forward, and attaining, at every step, an entirely new position of affairs, we do actually return to something long ago tried and abandoned, but which we ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... understanding of art, as indeed of life itself. That meaning, which things symbolize and express, it cannot be said too often, is not necessarily to be phrased in words. It is a meaning for the spirit. A straight line affects one differently from a curve; that is, each kind of line means something. Every line in the face utters the character behind it; every movement of the body is eloquent of the man's whole being. "The expression of the face balks account," ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes

... Petkoff said, shifting slightly in his seat. The car took a wide curve and swayed slightly, and Malone found himself nearly in Lou's lap. The sensation was so pleasant that all conversation was delayed for a couple of seconds, until the ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett

... wild grape vines that Helen and Ethel Brown found in the West Woods and used for Hallowe'en decorations? If we could get a thick one and wind it with green paper and let it curve from the rose toward the ground it ought to ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith

... before him!" He pictured her confident bearing as she climbed down, her capable hands clinging to the rocks, her fearless eyes as she looked down at the blue glint of the lake a thousand feet below, the red curve of her lips as she smiled her contempt of the danger. Be she what she might, Ygerne Bellaire was not the coward he had once ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory



Words linked to "Curve" :   sinuosity, change surface, undulation, road, crenel, meander, sinuousness, helix, catenary, contour, crenation, roulette, camber, peel off, straight line, pitch, snake, deform, Gaussian shape, graph, crook, configuration, extrados, waviness, curl, spiral, blind bend, campana, intrados, section, hairpin bend, be, scallop, S-shape, curvy, hook, line, shape, perversion, flex, crescent, regression line, normal curve, route, wave, elbow, crotchet, bow, segment, envelope, delivery, graphical record, quadric surface, gooseneck, straightness, quadric, yaw, bell, crenelle, turn, bell shape, conformation, line roulette, circumvolute, Cupid's bow, river, crenature, form, trend, curliness



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