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Portable   /pˈɔrtəbəl/   Listen
Portable

adjective
1.
Easily or conveniently transported.
2.
Of a motor designed to be attached to the outside of a boat's hull.



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"Portable" Quotes from Famous Books



... bed a few volumes of Goethe, because I thought it would be so pleasant to read him in his own country. And I decided to take a sponge, together with a small portable bath, because a cold bath is so refreshing the first ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome

... remarks, which I have just ventured to make, as to the proper mode of investigating the classes of our larger archaeological subjects, hold equally true also of those other classes of antiquities of a lighter and more portable type, which we have collected in our museums; such, for instance, as the ancient domestic tools, instruments, personal ornaments, weapons, etc., of stone, flint, bone, bronze, iron, silver, and gold, which our ancestors used; ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... seek a home in some foreign land, where he should be permitted to pursue his studies unmolested and live in quietness and peace. He accordingly removed from the island of Huen all his instruments and appliances that were of a portable nature, and packed them on board a vessel which he hired for the purpose of transport, and, having embarked with his family, his servants, and some of his pupils and assistants, 'this interesting barque, freighted ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... Dr. Quackleben pulled from his pocket a small portable case of medicines—"Catch me without my tools,"—he said; "here I have the real useful pharmacopoeia—the rest is all humbug and hard names—this little case, with a fortnight or month, spring and fall, at St. Ronan's Well, and no one will ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... grace, dated only ten days after the former, King Henry is permitted to have one or more portable altars, and to have mass at uncanonical times, and even in prohibited places, provided he were not himself the cause of the interdict. This grant has also some curious stipulations annexed: among others it is directed that the doors shall be shut at such ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... watching Renford brew tea. His was one of the few studies in the school in which there was an arm-chair. With the majority of his contemporaries, it would only run to the portable kind that fold up. ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse

... direction of events to the outer world. Her soul was in full song to that contriving agency, and she with the paralyzed limbs became practically active, darting here and there over the room, burning letters, packing a portable bundle of clothes, in preparation for the domestic confusion of the morrow when the body of Marko would be driven to their door, and amid the wailing and the hubbub she would escape unnoticed to Alvan, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... still higher explosives for use in war, the neglect of the mechanical application of this class of substance being largely due to the fact, that chemists are not as a rule engineers, nor engineers chemists. But an easily portable substance, the decomposition of which would evolve energy, or—what is, from the practical point of view, much the same thing—an easily portable substance, which could be decomposed electrically by wind or water power, and which would then recombine and supply force, either in ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... rich are zinc-lined, and provided with a glass in the lid. All caskets are placed in niches in the high wall which surrounds the cemetery. These mural niches are six or eight feet deep in the wall, and each one has a marble tablet for the name of the deposited one. By means of a large portable ladder and elevator combined, the coffins are raised from the ground. At anniversaries of the death the tomb is filled with flowers, and candles are lit inside, while a wreath is hung on the door. A favorite custom is to attend mass on Sunday ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... not nearly enough cows to go round. In many cases the soldiers were allowed the loan of the military tents; and everything was done to have saw-mills and grist-mills erected in the most convenient places with the greatest possible dispatch. In the meantime small portable grist-mills, worked by hand, were ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace

... reason I've always stuck it out that we ought to have only ten men on a jury, instead of twelve. It seems more modest, somehow. But suppose we found ten honest men somewheres. It might be done. I know where there's two right here in Arizona, and I've got my suspicions of a third—honest about portable property, that is. With cattle, and the like, they don't have any hard-and-fast rule; just consider each case on its individual merits. How the case of automobiles would strike them elder ethics is one dubious problem. Standing still, or bein' towed, so it might be considered as ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... standing in the centre of the room examining an unusual trinket—a gold hoop like a bracelet, with numbers and the zodiac signs engraved on the inner surface. Mr. Brimsdown had discovered it in a Kingsway curiosity shop a week before. It was a portable sun-dial of the sixteenth century. A slide, pushed back a certain distance in accordance with the zodiac signs, permitted the sun to fall through a slit on the figures of the hours within—a dainty timekeeper for mediaeval lovers. Mr. Brimsdown was no gallant, nor had he sufficient ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... hold of a number of empty flasks and tin canisters, which we connected two and two together so as to form floats sufficiently buoyant to support a person in the water, and my wife and young sons each willingly put one on. I then provided myself with matches, knives, cord and other portable articles, trusting that, should the vessel go to pieces before daylight, we might gain the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... The government of the United States abandoned the first settlers of Arizona to the merciless Apaches. It was impossible to remain in the country and continue the business without animals for transportation, so there was nothing to be done but to pack our portable property on the few animals we kept in stables, and strike out across the ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston

... widely diffused and still flourishing ought to be grateful, however much they may blame my childish credulity. I may add that I have no ground to suppose that crystal-gazing will ever be of practical service to the police or to persons who have lost articles of portable property. But I have no objection to experiments being ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... not less than twelve approved oxygen breathing devices complete, one recharging equipment for recharging oxygen cylinders, twelve extra oxygen cylinders, two resuscitating outfits complete, forty approved safety lamps, one naphtha tank, twenty portable electric lamps complete, with storage batteries, and all necessary instruments and chemical tests, together with all necessary supplies and appliances therefor. The rescue car with its equipment, shall be stationed at such point ...
— Mining Laws of Ohio, 1921 • Anonymous

... beg to call the Attention of Gentlemen requiring Outfits to their large stock of Portable Bedsteads, Bedding, and Furniture, including Drawers, Washstands, Chairs, Glasses, and every requisite for Home ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various

... with what appeared to be a portable rear-screen presentation projector, with dials and an extra lead; which he attached to ...
— Telempathy • Vance Simonds

... subjects. There requires but one other invention to render the whole perfect, and that, if we may believe the newspapers, is very near completion—a coach to go without horses: to this I beg leave to propose, the steam apparatus might be made applicable to all the purposes of a portable kitchen. The coachman, instead of being a good judge of horse-flesh, to be selected from a first rate London tavern for his proficiency in cooking, a known prime hand at decomposing a turtle; instead of a book of roads, in the inside pocket ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... general. The vigorous and skilful narrative, and a certain grandeur and weightiness of language, make us overlook it. It is only when we try to attain clear and succinct views, which condense into portable propositions the enormous mass of facts collected before us, that we feel that the writer has not often surveyed his subject from a height and distance sufficient to allow the great features of the epoch to be seen in bold outline. By the side of the history ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... species of loyalty always has been and is now very much the fashion. In ten minutes, the gates were forced open—old Koops knocked down, and trod under foot till he was dead—every article of value that was portable was secured; chairs, tables, glasses, not portable, were thrown out of the window; Wilhelmina's harp and pianoforte battered to fragments; beds, bedding, everything flew about in the air, and then the fragments of the furniture were set fire to, and in ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... annotated editions of separate plays are the Clarke and Wright, Rolfe, Hudson, Arden, Temple, and Tudor editions. Furness's Variorum Shakespeare is the best for exhaustive study. The best portable single volume edition is Craig's Oxford Shakespeare, India ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... reigned everywhere in Nashville for a week before it was taken. The mob, in which all classes participated, had possession of it. The proper officers abandoned their stores of ordnance, quartermaster and commissary supplies, and such as were portable were, as far as possible, carried off by anybody who might desire them. No kind of property was safe, private houses and property were seized and appropriated. No other such disgraceful scene has been enacted ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... be counted by thousands. It is about March when the emperor begins his principal hunting in the direction of the sea, and he is accompanied by no less than 10,000 falconers, 500 gerfalcons, and many goshawks, peregrine, and sacred falcons. During the hunting excursion, a portable palace, covered outside with lions' skins and inside with cloth of gold, and carried on four elephants harnessed together, accompanies the emperor everywhere, who seems to enjoy all this oriental pomp and display. He goes as far as the camp of Chachiri-Mongou, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... the oar; the trading vessels alone were in the epoch of developed ancient civilization "sailers" properly so called.(14) On the other hand the Gauls doubtless employed in the Channel in Caesar's time, as for long afterwards, a species of portable leathern skiffs, which seem to have been in the main common oared boats, but on the west coast of Gaul the Santones, the Pictones, and above all the Veneti sailed in large though clumsily built ships, which were not ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... that sort of thing when she was in a way at his mercy. "Where shall we spread the table?" said he. "I'm hungry as the horseleech's daughter. And you—why, you must be starved. I'm afraid I didn't bring what you like. But I did the best I could. I raided the pantry, took everything that was portable." ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... low, broad grates; as well as reproductions of Colonial grates, which are small and swung high between brass uprights, framing the fireplace, with an ash drawer, the front of which is brass. If you prefer the old, one can find this variety of grate in antique shops as well as "Franklin stoves" (portable open fireplaces). ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood

... were being equipped, small portable silicol plants were supplied capable of a small output of hydrogen. These were replaced at a later date by larger plants of a fixed type, and a permanent gas plant, complete with gasholders and high pressure storage tanks was erected at ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale

... Portable Baths, at a temperature not exceeding 106 deg., Fahrt., can be supplied at private residences, by arrangement. ...
— The Excavations of Roman Baths at Bath • Charles E. Davis

... the trench towards them. Behind him came his signaller, a coil of wire and a portable telephone in a leather case slung over his shoulder. No. 2 Platoon watched their approach with eager anticipation, and strained ears and attention to catch the conversation that passed between their officer and the artilleryman. And a thrill of disappointment pulsed down ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable

... by a curious financial revelation which I found in an opposition paper, where it appears that "Ministers pretend to make their load of taxes more portable, by shifting the burden, or altering the pressure, without, however, diminishing the weight; according to the Italian proverb, Accommodare le bisaccie nella strada, 'To fit the load on the journey:'" it is taken from a custom of the mule-drivers, who, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... shall be locked in the death-struggle, and the fate of the world will rest in our hands. The will of the Master now is that all the members of the Brotherhood shall at once wind up their businesses, and turn all of their possessions that are not portable and useful into money. ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... wall of stone or dried brick, with towers at intervals; the wall measuring from nine to twelve feet thick at the base, and from thirty to thirty-six feet high, thus rendering an assault by means of portable ladders, nearly impracticable.* ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... packing them away in a box in the motor, and planting them out in the new position, the vegetables failed to survive the breaking of their home ties, and languished and died in spite of Mary's tender care. After the first failure he tried to lay out a portable garden, enlisting the aid of "Chips" the carpenter in the manufacture of a number of boxes, in which he placed earth and his new seedlings. This attempt, however, failed even more disastrously than the first, the O.C. having ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... infuriated the audience. Even Justice Deveil thought it prudent to order the withdrawal of the military. The actors attempted to speak, but their voices were overborne by hisses, groans, and "not only catcalls, but all the various portable instruments that could make a disagreeable noise." A dance was next essayed; but even this had been provided against: showers of peas descended upon the stage, and "made capering very unsafe." The French and Spanish Ambassadors, with their ladies, who had occupied the stage-box, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... the local scene. On my way to the studio this morning, I stopped at City Hall, and found our genial Chief of Police Delaney, 'Irish' Delaney to most of us, hard at work with a portable disintegrator, getting rid of record disks and recording tapes of old and long-settled cases. He had a couple of amusing stories. For instance, a lone Independent-Conservative partisan broke up a Radical-Socialist mass meeting preparatory to a march to demonstrate in Double ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire

... off all the portable articles from the bungalow; the furniture, as useless to the Sepoys, was left, but everything else was soon cleared away, and then the house was lit in half a dozen places. The fire ran quickly up the muslin curtains, caught the dry reeds ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... the Moselle, first as a volunteer, and afterwards as an aide-de-camp. In a speech at the Jacobin Club at Quesnoy, on the 20th of November, 1792, he made a motion—"That, throughout the whole republican army, all hats should be prohibited, and red caps substituted in their place; and that, not only portable guillotines, but portable Jacobin clubs, should accompany the soldiers of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... Next winter, if you wish to remain in England, and my coughing continues, I will tell you how I might do, and be most happy and comfortable. I might remain in my chamber all winter, and keep it at an even temperature, and exercise by means of the portable gymnasium. I am sure the joy of your presence would be better than any tropic or equator without you. And I hate to be the means of ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... a good face. He had obviously been expecting the visitors, because he and his lesser nobles were lined up before the pavilion, the Greatest Noble ensconced on a sort of portable throne. He managed to look perfectly calm and somewhat bored by the whole affair, and didn't seem to be particularly effected at all when Lieutenant commander Hernan bowed low before him and requested his ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... clever sensational story, spun out into two volumes, which can be devoured by the accomplished novel-swallower in any two hours' train journey, and can be highly recommended for this particular purpose. It would have been better, because less expensive and more portable, had it been in one volume; but the Baron strongly recommends it for the above space of time in a train, or whenever you've nothing better to do, which will happen occasionally even to the wisest and best of us. The secret is very well kept to the end; and an expert in novel-reading can do ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various

... of the gas generator is that of the hydrogen briquet already applied by Mr. Trouv in his portable lamp. It consists of two vessels, one entering the other. The internal vessel is provided at the bottom with a discharge pipe communicating, through a cock, with the gasometer. It carries a suspended open ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various

... passionate desire to be left to finish his work. He was far from unsociable, but he had the finest conception of being let alone that I've ever met. For the time, none the less, he took his profit where it seemed most to crowd on him, having in his pocket the portable sophistries about the nature of the artist's task. Observation too was a kind of work and experience a kind of success; London dinners were all material and London ladies were fruitful toil. "No one has the faintest conception of what I'm trying for," he said to me, "and not many have ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James

... early paintings upon panels of wood, before oils were used, they were meant to be portable imitations of fresco. The wood was accordingly prepared by covering it with a thin coating of fine white cement, or stucco, which was allowed to dry and become perfectly hard, because it was of course impossible to lay it on fresh every day in such small quantities. ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... be glad to have me establish my real rights," said Crawford. "You would like to have it brought up in court, perhaps, how your sister was found going through my possessions, and how she happened, quite by chance, of course, to select the most portable and valuable article in my house and carry it away with her. She would like, I am sure, to have public opportunity to make all ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs

... not only the vessels, but the persons of those on board. If there is any such thing as a watch or money, it is sure to disappear; and it has often happened that one of these vessels has been robbed of every portable article on board, including every article ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... the portable property in the rooms of the Morrises disappeared into the pawnshop. Misfortune, as usual, did not come singly. The small boy was ill, and Morris himself seemed to be unable to resist the temptation of the Red ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... navigation or passage of rivers, two portable boats of canvas, had been prepared by Mr. Eager, of the King's dockyard at Sydney. We carried the canvas only, with models of the ribs—and tools, having carpenters who could complete ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... by the side of which stood a builder's handcart. The little two-wheeled vehicle had evidently been used to convey the appliances which were deposited on the ground near it, and which consisted of a large tub—now filled with water—a shovel, a rake, a sieve, and a portable pump, the latter being fitted with a long delivery hose. There were three men besides the constable, one of whom was working the handle of the pump, while another was glancing at a paper that the constable had just delivered to him. He looked up sharply as I appeared, ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... hastily caught, and reduced to a kind of order by rough breaking in. The women of the castle and others requisitioned from the village toiled under the superintendence of the lady and Grisell at preparing such provision and equipments as were portable, such as dried fish, salted meat, and barley cakes, as well as linen, and there was a good deal of tailoring of a rough sort at jerkins, buff coats, and sword belts, not by any means the gentle work of embroidering pennons or ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the best, including a portable observatory constructed for sixteen guineas. But most important of all was the careful assortment of provisions, to allay, if possible, that scourge of all navigators, the scurvy. A quantity of malt was shipped ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... I made another voyage, and now, having plundered the ship of what was portable and fit to hand out, I began with the cables. Cutting the great cable into pieces, such as I could move, I got two cables and a hawser on shore, with all the ironwork I could get; and having cut down ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... returned, bringing a portable viewscreen with him on a contragravity-lifter. By this time, the Bench of Counselors and the three off-planet guests had become anxious and left the luncheon pavilion in a body. The Counselors were looking about uneasily, noticing the black uniformed Security ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper

... 'This latter lady's is the joy of a freed spirit, escaping from care, as a bird that had been limed; her smiles, if I may use the expression, seemed saved out of the fire, relics which a good and innocent heart had snatched up as most portable; her contents are visitors, not inmates: she can lay them by altogether; and when she does so, I am not sure that she is not greatest.' Is not this, with all its precise good sense, the rarest poetry ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... rolled up, and her curtains rolled down; her thin, worn, solid silver was packed in a neighboring attic. Nothing portable of any value was left for a marauding hand, and, moreover, the neighbors on both sides always willingly kept an eye on Miss Martha's interests. They rejoiced generously in that summer work of hers, ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... Red Hoss produced from a hip pocket a sliver of plank painted on both sides in the cerulean hue universally favored by circus folk for covering seat boards, tent poles and such paraphernalia of a portable caravansary as is subject to rough treatment and frequent handling. At this the shock of surprise was such as almost to lift Mr. Rosen up on top of the cluttered desk which separated him from his visitor. It did lift him halfway out of ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... on the table before you, elaborately carved in open work, and an upright one of severe Gothic, like a lectern, where you were to stand and read without contracting your chest. Then there were all kinds of stands to hold books: sliding ones, expanding ones, portable ones, heavy fixture ones, plain mahogany ones, and oak ones made glorious by Margetts with the arms of Oxford and St. John's, carved and emblazoned ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... history. The temple, the focus to which the worship was concentrated, and which in reality was not built until Solomon's time, is by this document regarded as so indispensable, even for the troubled days of the wanderings before the settlement, that it is made portable, and in the form of a tabernacle set up in the very beginning of things. For the truth is, that the tabernacle is the copy, not the prototype, of the temple at Jerusalem. The resemblance of the ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... microscopic; microzoal; inconsiderable &c (unimportant) 643; exiguous, puny, tiny, wee, petty, minikin^, miniature, pygmy, pigmy^, elfin; undersized; dwarf, dwarfed, dwarfish; spare, stunted, limited; cramp, cramped; pollard, Liliputian, dapper, pocket; portative^, portable; duodecimo^; dumpy, squat; short &c 201. impalpable, intangible, evanescent, imperceptible, invisible, inappreciable, insignificant, inconsiderable, trivial; infinitesimal, homoeopathic^; atomic, subatomic, corpuscular, molecular; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... This portable quality of good-humor seasons all the parts and occurrences we meet with, in such a manner that there are no moments lost, but they all pass with so much satisfaction that the heaviest of loads (when it is a load), that of time, is never felt ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... first called upon him, I found him at his type-writer, hard at work. He was making a fair copy of one of his two early one-act plays, then just finished. His type-writer was a small portable machine, of the Blick variety. He was the only writer I have ever known who composed direct upon a type-writing machine. I have often seen him at work upon it. Sometimes, when I called to ask him to come ...
— John M. Synge: A Few Personal Recollections, with Biographical Notes • John Masefield

... thing in the way of a mounting is a portable tripod stand. This may be furnished either with an equatorial bearing for the telescope, or an altazimuth arrangement which permits both up-and-down and horizontal motions. The latter is cheaper than ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... presently arrived from Heathfield in a small runabout motor-car which he drove himself, with a tall man sitting beside him, and a short pursy young man in the back seat nursing a portable typewriter and an attache case on his knees. Toiling in the rear, some distance behind the car, was a figure on a bicycle, which subsequently turned out to be the reporter of the Heathfield local paper, who had come over with instructions from ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

... the ladder to the next level and out on the port ramp. What he saw below brought him up short. Evening had come to Sargol but the scene immediately below was not in darkness. Blazing torches advanced in lines from the grass forest and the portable flood light of the spacer added to the general glare, turning ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... catch these villains. But we have made progress. We know where they are. We have limited our field of observation to one place. Now we shall have to do as we did at Elk City. We shall have to get two portable sets with compact detectors and begin a watch in Hoboken. We'll have to find this hidden wireless by triangulation, just as we caught the dynamiters. But we haven't enough of a force to maintain two watches. We shall likely have to send ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... house-raising without disturbance to the foundations, the second would prove to be an article half umbrella, half revolver, while in the third I would perhaps find an extremely quaint notion for a portable pocket corkscrew. I myself picked up many ideas for future use, and hope some day, if I do nothing else, at least to perfect a clever little contrivance of my own for arousing the inmates of a house invaded by burglars by casement ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various

... In point of fact, Blaire is there in front, looking at it. For some long time, no doubt, he has been going round it and gazing. Field-hospital orderly Sambremeuse, of the Division, returning from errands, is climbing the portable stair of painted wood which leads to the van door. In his arms he carries a bulky box of biscuits, a loaf of fancy bread, and a bottle of champagne. Blaire questions him—"Tell me, Sir Rump, this horse-box—is ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... the universal benefit of mankind. Such essence of wisdom will surely cure all ills; such maxims must be worth a guinea a box. When the wise and the worldly have condensed their knowledge and observation into portable shape, why go further and pay more for a medicine of the soul, or, indeed, for the soul's sustenance? Pills, did we say? Are there not tabloids that supply the body with oxygen, hydrogen, calorics, or whatever else is essential to life in the common hundredweights ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... Avenue house on her way down-town to get her little portable typewriter and carry it out to Ravinia with her. In the odd hours of the next few days she copied March's libretto in English, triple spaced, out of his score and this, with a lead pencil, she took to carrying around with her to Paula's rehearsals, ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... hearth. For this precaution proved tragically self-defeating, and put its object into the very hands of Thady Quinlan and Joe Smith, when, under cover of the wild, wet night, they forced the feeble lock, and made a clean sweep of all portable property that lay within easy reach. The shawl formed the most valuable prize. It was very admirable, indeed, being of a dappled fawn colour, with an arabesque border of shaded chocolate and amber; but in the eyes of its new owners its greatest charm was its weight and thickness. Judy ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... dirty, peevish, wretched, after a forty hours' coach-journey, a bagman appears as gay and spruce as when he started; having within himself a thousand little conveniences for the voyage, which common travellers neglect. Pogson had a little portable toilet, of which he had not failed to take advantage, and with his long, curling, flaxen hair, flowing under a seal-skin cap, with a gold tassel, with a blue and gold satin handkerchief, a crimson ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... a portable folding camera, with screw focusing arrangement, swing back, and an adapter frame placed in the position of the focus screen, allowing the dark slide to be inserted so as to give the horizontal ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various

... depart. The former, with his staff in his hand and Bible under his arm, looked like another Hooker setting out on his painful pilgrimage; but the care of Dame Humphreys had secured for him his own calash, and stored it with the most portable and valuable of his goods. The farmer himself fastened to it the sure-footed old horse, which had been for years the faithful companion of their journeys. "They gave him to me yesterday," said Humphreys, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... issuing of the provisions. Oatmeal was boiled for breakfast four days in the week instead of three; and when rice was issued after the expenditure of the cheese, it was boiled on the other three days. Pease soup was prepared for dinner four days a week as usual; and at other times two ounces of portable broth, in cakes, to each man, with such additions of onions, pepper, etc., as the different messes possessed, made a comfortable addition to their salt meat. And neither in this passage, nor, I may add, in any subsequent part of the voyage, were the officers ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... wall occurs above the chair-rail, or dado, and, according to modern habits and usage, portable property in the shape of framed pictures, etc., is usually placed here along the eye-line, so that any decoration on this—the main field of the wall—is regarded as subsidiary to what is placed upon it; but, of course, pictures can be used as the central points of a decorative ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane

... same things are of importance in an easel for out-of-door work that are needed in a studio easel, except that it must also be portable. So if you must have a folding easel, get a good sketching easel; or if you can't have one for in-doors and one for out-doors, then pay a good price for a sketching easel, and use it in doors and out also. There are two things which are absolutely essential in a sketching easel. It must have ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... everything was brought that was portable. There was nothing, from the small boy to the brass kettle, that could not be more satisfactorily polished off, in full view of one's world, than by one's self, in seclusion and solitude. Justice, at least, appeared to gain by this passion for open-air ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... attributed to a monk, named Gerbert, who died in 1013. He had been instructor to King Robert, and was made Bishop of Rheims, later becoming Pope Sylvester II. Clocks at first were large affairs in public places. Portable clocks were said to have been first made by ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... of the series, the fourth, were especially amazing. This was also a jewelry safe. Canzoni's is a popular firm that rents a quarter of a floor in a big department store, and does a large volume of moderate-priced business. The receipts are stored in a heavy portable safe in a corner of the silverware section until evening, when they are carried to the large vault of the big store. One Saturday afternoon after a particularly busy day, Mr. Shipley, Canzoni's manager, was watching the hands of ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer

... exalted and fanatical aspect. The light of the candles from the improvised altar fell on the bishop's small, bald head, emerging with a patient droop from the wide spread of his cope, as though he had been inclosed in a portable gold shrine. He was ready ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... second and third rinsing in the crystal running waters—rubbing with the fragrant towel—slow negligent promenades on the turf up and down in the sun, varied with occasional rests, and further frictions of the bristle-brush—sometimes carrying my portable chair with me from place to place, as my range is quite extensive here, nearly a hundred rods, feeling quite secure from intrusion, (and that indeed I am not at all nervous about, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... he would say with imperturbable good-nature,—"really, I am too forgetful. I must have a self-regulating machine attached to my movements,—a portable duster and hat-catcher. But, the blessed freedom of home. It constitutes half its joy. Dear me! I would not exchange the privilege of doing as I please for the ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... occurred almost as soon as the lights were out, interrupting a train of thought in which I saw myself in the first stages of mental decay, and carrying about the streets not only fire-tongs and walking-sticks, but other portable ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... expedition, the means of conveyance by land and water required the earliest consideration. These were strong bullock-drays and portable boats. Horses and light carts had been preferred by me: but the longer column of march, and necessity for a greater number of men, were considered objections; while many experienced persons suggested that the ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... for style in literature has been found in such a collection of language ready for use as may be likened to a portable vocabulary. It is suited to the manners of a day that has produced salad- dressing in bottles, and many other devices for the saving of processes. Fill me such a wallet full of 'graphic' things, of 'quaint' things ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell

... one has yet seen the happy couple. Miss Bluett is in one of the toilet cabinets in the first van, where she is probably preparing herself. Fulk Ephrinell is perhaps struggling with his cravat and giving a last polish to his portable jewelry. I am not anxious. We shall see them as soon ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne

... might be a very perfect bit of mosaic, but would want the glow and movement of a living mind. Monotony would settle on it like a paralysing frost. A series of sentences in which every phrase was a distinct thought, would no more serve as pabulum for the mind, than portable soup freed from all the fibrous tissues of meat and vegetable would serve as food for the body. Animals perish from hunger in the presence of pure albumen; and minds would lapse into idiocy in the presence of unadulterated thought. But without ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes

... experiments on the mixture of blue and yellow light—by rapid rotation, by combined reflexion and transmission, by viewing them out of focus, in stripes, at a great distance, by throwing the colours of the spectrum on a screen, and by receiving them into the eye directly; and I have arranged a portable apparatus by which any one may see the result of this or any other mixture of the colours of the spectrum. In all these cases blue and yellow do not make green. I have also made experiments on the mixture ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell

... been a primary object of the author throughout this work, to furnish the outline of facts necessary for this class. He is aware also that much in detail will be desired and eagerly sought after, which the portable and limited size of this little work could not contain; but such information may be found in the larger works, by Hall, Flint, Darby, Schoolcraft, Long, and other authors and travellers. Those who desire more specific and detailed descriptions of Illinois, ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... like a maid," continues the lady. "She has hard hands, and she called me mum always. I was quite disappointed in her." And she subsides into a novel, with many of which kind of works, and with other volumes, and with workboxes, and with wonderful inkstands, portfolios, portable days of the month, scent-bottles, scissor-cases, gilt miniature easels displaying portraits, and countless gimcracks of travel, the rapid Kuhn has covered the tables in the twinkling of ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... started, and if it gets too low, more easily replenished and put in working order; and the ovens can be more quickly heated or cooled. But, although you can have a water-back and boiler with most modern stoves or, as they are now called, portable ranges, the supply of hot water will not be large. And you cannot roast before the ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa

... of her head a flat oblong quart flask, neatly corked and tied with string, which lay on the counter. It was of a conveniently portable shape, and Helmsley slipped it into one of his coat ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... one meal, though I ain't sure, but it's meant to serve me all day. You see I find a good, solid, well-made plum-pudding, with not too much suet, and a moderate allowance of currants and raisins, an admirable squencher of appetite. It's portable too, and keeps well. Besides, if I can't get through with it at supper, it fries up next mornin' splendidly.—Come, I'll let you taste a bit, an' that's a favour w'ich I wouldn't grant to ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... meeting broke up, Rick and Scotty walked to the front porch where the girls were listening to the music of a Newark disk jockey on Barby's portable radio. ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine

... a queer-shaped, handled thing in one hand, and a portable furnace, such as are seen in branding-camps, in the other. To the corral where the Sussex cattle were penned she sped with these things swiftly ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... determined in latitude and longitude by means of 115 sets of astronomical observations, aided by three good chronometers, and seventeen other points have been determined by triangulation with a portable theodolite. Two hundred and five points have been determined in altitude by means of 1,319 barometric observations, and seventeen by means of the theodolite and spirit level. One hundred and ninety-two observations have been made for determining the variation of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... she asked. "Do you think our electric lights or gasoline flares are going to fail?" she went on jokingly. The Sampson Brothers' Show was a modern one, and carried a portable ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum

... the eye, it is worth while to procure at Montelimart a wedge or two of the nogaux, or almond-cakes, which Miss Plumptre so particularly recommends. The genuine sort is as glutinous as pitch, and made in moulds, from whence it is cut like portable soup; and the makers at Montelimart, like the rusk-bakers of Kidderminster, have, I understand, refused a large sum for the receipt. Another of the good things of Provence, to which Miss Plumptre's Tour introduced us, was the confiture de menage, ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes

... contain the spirit, the aroma, if I may use the phrase, of the age in which he lives. They are caskets which inclose within a small compass the wealth of the language—its family jewels, which are thus transmitted in a portable form to posterity. The setting may occasionally be antiquated, and require now and then to be renewed, as in the case of Chaucer; but the brilliancy and intrinsic value of the gems continue unaltered. Cast a look ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... rivers. Unfortunately, many of the streams abound with rapids, and navigation on them, as generally understood, is an impossibility. Hence, the only way of travelling on them in summer, is in the light birch canoe or in some other craft, so portable, that it can be carried or dragged across the many portages that are so numerous in that land of cataracts ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... breach; the others began dragging equipment out of the trucks—shovels and picks and crowbars and sledges, portable floodlights, cameras, sketching materials, an extension ladder, even Alpinists' ropes and crampons and pickaxes. Hubert Penrose was shouldering something that looked like a surrealist machine gun but which was really a nuclear-electric jack-hammer. Martha selected one of the spike-shod ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper

... Srinagar everything must be transported by wheeled conveyance, and, in Kashmir itself, all luggage must be selected with a view to its adaptability to the backs of coolies or ponies. In Srinagar one can buy native trunks—or yakdans—which are cheap, strong, and portable; and the covered creels or "kiltas" serve admirably for the stowage of kitchen utensils, ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... step has been made in the diver's art by the introduction of the chemical system of respiration, the invention of Mr. Fleuss. He has succeeded in devising a perfectly portable apparatus, containing a chemical filter, by means of which the exhaled breath of the diver is deprived of its carbonic acid; the diver also carries a supply of compressed oxygen from which to add to the remaining nitrogen oxygen, in substitution for that which has been burnt ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... illuminating the inner room. The light-well had been covered with a brilliant white plaster, on which were the remains of a bird fresco—a long, curving wing, with feathers of red, blue, yellow, white, and black. Adjacent to the Queen's Megaron was a small bathroom, constructed for a portable bath—a fragment of which, in painted terra-cotta, was found in the portico of ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie

... of candles set in bottles and some electric hand lamps. The centre of the cellar was occupied by two portable operating tables, rarely untenanted during the three hours I spent ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon

... along a small portable camera, with a large supply of film-rolls, requested permission to photograph the next shot fired by Grimes' Battery. It was granted. He climbed to the top of the hill, stepped off to the left of the battery, and calmly focused his camera. ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker

... the stand without a word to Tom, Roger, or Astro. The three cadets looked at each other, feeling the tension in the air suddenly relax. Strong was busy talking to someone on the portable intercom and had missed the byplay between the ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman

... the British Embassador should be fixed for that day, and should take place at Gehol, a small town 136 miles from Pekin, where he had a large palace, park, gardens, and a magnificent Poo-ta-la or temple of Budha. Accordingly a selection was made of such presents as were the most portable, to be sent forwards into Tartary; and the Embassador, with part of his suite, several officers of the court, and their retinue, set out from Pekin on the second of September. Some of the gentlemen, with part of the guard and of the servants, remained in Pekin, and ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... a portable refection by jurymen and others who may be kept from their customary food Dates will prevent exhaustion, and will serve to keep active the energies of mind and body. The fruit should be selected ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... procession moves through the city. The banner of Ferdinand and Isabella, that precious relic of the conquest, is brought forth from its depository, and borne by the Alferez Mayor, or grand standard-bearer, through the principal streets. The portable camp-altar, which was carried about with them in all their campaigns, is transported into the chapel royal, and placed before their sepulcher, where their effigies lie in monumental marble. The procession fills the chapel. High mass ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... and about fifteen feet in diameter, are arranged in a crescent. The one nearest to the road is for the kitchen and service; there Shukari, our Maronite chef, in his white cap and apron, turns out an admirable six-course dinner on a portable charcoal range not three feet square. Around the door of this tent there is much coming and going: edibles of all kinds are brought for sale; visitors squat in sociable conversation; curious children hang about, watching the proceedings, or waiting ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... how many officers of high rank have been broken by the French during the war. The figure was a very high one. There is no more forgiveness for the beaten General than there was in the days of the Republic when the delegate of the National Convention, with a patent portable guillotine, used to drop in at headquarters to ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle

... and Spanish mariners to risk their frail barks on perilous waters of the Cape of Good Hope or the Horn? The chief prizes were perfumes, spices, drugs and gems. And why these rather than what now constitutes the bulk of oversea and overland commerce? Because they were precious, portable and imperishable. If the merchant got back safe after a year or two with a little flask of otto of roses, a package of camphor and a few pearls concealed in his garments his fortune was made. If a single ship of the argosy sent out from Lisbon came back ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... Condensed milk. Cups. Currycomb. Dates. Dippers. Dishes. Dish-towels. Drawers. Dried fruits. Dutch oven. Envelopes. Figs. Firkin (see p. 48). Fishing-tackle. Flour (prepared). Frying-pan. Guide-book. Half-barrel. Halter. Hammer. Hard-bread. Harness (examine!). Hatchet. Haversack. Ink (portable bottle). Knives (sheath, table, pocket and butcher.) Lemons. Liniment. Lunch for day or two. Maps. Matches and safe. Marline. Meal (in bag). Meal-bag (see p. 32). Medicines. Milk-can. Molasses. Money ("change"). Monkey-wrench. Mosquito-bar. Mustard ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould

... had been severely repulsed, in other parts of the kingdom they continued to make great progress, and the feeling of despair among the Saxons increased. Great numbers left their homes, and taking with them all their portable possessions, made their way to the sea-coast, and there embarked for France, where they hoped to be able to live ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... themselves famous by introducing theatrical representations[468] for the amusement and instruction of the people. These shows were usually denominated miracles, moralities, or mysteries, and were performed by the friars in their convents or on portable stages, which were wheeled into the market places and streets for the convenience of ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather

... The next thing I do is to convert the liquid tallow into a gas. This done, I set fire to the gas. I don't suppose you ever thought so much was involved in lighting a candle. My candle is nothing more than a portable gas-works, similar in principle to the gas-works from which the gas that I am burning here is supplied. Whether it is a lamp, or a gas-burner, or a candle, they are all in a true sense gas-works, and they all pre-suppose the application of heat to some material or another for the purpose ...
— The Story of a Tinder-box • Charles Meymott Tidy

... gentleman farmer, and his remarks were much like those of the Rom. I inferred from what he said that the coming of a party of gypsy horse-dealers into his neighborhood was welcomed much as the passengers on a Southern steamboat were wont of old to welcome the proprietor of a portable faro bank. "I think," said he, "that the last time the gypsies were here they left more than they took away." An old Rom told me once that in some parts of New Jersey they were obliged to watch their tents and wagons very carefully for fear of the country people. I do not answer ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... my tip and spend some of that $250 on a portable machine and learn to handle it, on the way down to Barbados. You'll have to send all your stuff typewritten, you know. Imagine Fergus getting a screed from ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... love for animals was inherited from his mother and fostered by her. He used to keep, says Mrs. Orr in her account of his life, "owls and monkeys, magpies and hedge-hogs, an eagle, and even a couple of large snakes, constantly bringing home the more portable animals in his pockets and transferring them to his mother for immediate care." Browning says that his faculty of observation at this time would not have disgraced a Seminole Indian. In the matter of reading he was not entirely without advice and guidance, but was, on the whole, allowed ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... with these shells and scattered them by handsful among the crowd, and the shrieking beggars scrambled for them on the ground. There were long lines of food peddlers, with portable stoves, and tables upon which were spread morsels which the natives of India considered delicacies, but they were not very tempting to us. The food peddlers drove a profitable trade because almost every person present had been fasting for a lunar month and had a sharp appetite to satisfy. ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... through the country. The purity and fineness of the material thus employed is very remarkable, as well as its strength, of which advantage was taken to make the cylinders hollow, and thus at once to render them cheaper and more portable. The terra cotta of the cylinders and tablets is sometimes unglazed; sometimes the natural surface has been covered with a "vitreous silicious glaze or white coating." The color varies, being sometimes a bright polished brown, sometimes a pale yellow, sometimes pink, and sometimes a ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... workman in England is not liable, or in which the commercial pre-eminence of his country gives him a marked advantage. With respect to the former, as the employer in many cases furnishes only the ruder and less portable machinery of the workshop, the workman has, to a certain extent, to provide his own tools; and in regard to the latter, clothing in general, and more especially cotton, woollen, and worsted articles of apparel, are nearly as costly as ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... table to the pantry, heading an imaginary procession, and whistling a fife-tune that would stir your blood. Then she would trippingly return, rippling her rosy fingers up and down the keys of an imaginary portable piano, or stammering flat-soled across the floor, chuffing and tooting like a locomotive. And she would gravely propound to herself the most intricate riddles—ponder thoughtfully and in silence over them—hazard the most ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley

... trough they found jars of pure sweet milk, with the rich, yellow cream swimming on top. This, of course, they could not carry, so they drank their fill. While searching around for anything else that was portable, they found a lot of butter in a churn, and to their astonishment, a ten-gallon keg of peach brandy. Now they were in the plight of the man who "when it rained mush had no spoon." They had only their canteens, but there was no funnel to pour through. But the mother ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... been built at Whitby for the coal trade. He was, like Nansen, a believer in a varied diet as one of the preventives of scurvy, and mentions that he had among his provisions "besides Saur Krout, Portable Broth, Marmalade of Carrots and Suspissated juice of Wort and Beer." Medals were struck "to be given to the natives of new discovered countries, and left there as testimonies of our being the first discoverers."[1] It would be interesting ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... variety of golden spangles of fragrant flowers, and bordered with silver swans), makes a deep show, as if she would carry boats and barges home to the city; but we are opposed by Exwick wear, and indeed wears have much impaired his lustre and portable ability, which else might have brought his denominated city rich merchandise home to ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... only occasionally felt the hard reality of life that runs beneath, when man shows himself less kindly than nature. A man offered to sell me for a song a tract bordering the river, with a "house" ready for occupancy, and had the place and all that goes with it been portable we should quickly have come to terms. For Uruapan is especially a beauty spot along the little Cupatitzio, where water clearer than that of Lake Geneva foams down through the dense vegetation and under little bridges quaint and graceful as those ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck



Words linked to "Portable" :   unportable, typewriter, movable, portability, portable saw, outboard, takeout, portable circular saw, take-away



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