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

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




Sponge   /spəndʒ/   Listen
Sponge

noun
(Formerly written also spunge)
1.
A porous mass of interlacing fibers that forms the internal skeleton of various marine animals and usable to absorb water or any porous rubber or cellulose product similarly used.
2.
Someone able to acquire new knowledge and skills rapidly and easily.  Synonym: quick study.
3.
A follower who hangs around a host (without benefit to the host) in hope of gain or advantage.  Synonyms: leech, parasite, sponger.
4.
Primitive multicellular marine animal whose porous body is supported by a fibrous skeletal framework; usually occurs in sessile colonies.  Synonyms: parazoan, poriferan.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Sponge" Quotes from Famous Books



... longer," replied Fritz. "The islanders will not stay for any period after they've filled their boat; and, of course, he will return with them to Tristan. He's too lazy to stop here and shift for himself, although he would have been glad to sponge upon us." ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... almost invisible point for the finer lines, the two sets of pencils, one of silver-point that left a faint grey line, and the other of haematite for the burnishing of the gold, the badger and minever brushes, the sponge and pumice-stone for erasures; the horns for black and red ink lay with the scissors and rulers on the little upper shelf of his desk. There were the pigments also there, which he had learnt to grind ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... that the people were forced off the causeway, one of these six-feet gentlemen, on a black horse, rode straight at the place, making his horse rear very high, and fall on the thickest spot. You would suppose men were made of sponge to ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... At 5:30 in the morning the slumberers were awakened by the sailors who started in to wash down the decks, when they would retire to their staterooms, doff their pajamas and return en natural to the vicinity to the smoker, where there were two perforated nozzles, and get their salt water baths. A sponge-off in fresh water followed and then a cup of black coffee and a soda cracker that was provided by the steward, and that stayed their stomachs until the welcome sound of the ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... Mr. Daubeny "threw up the sponge." Up to the last moment the course which he intended to pursue was not known to the country at large. He entered the House very slowly,—almost with a languid air, as though indifferent to its performances, ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... stand in a tub containing a little warm water, and a large bath sponge filled with cold water should be squeezed two or three times over the body. This should be followed by a vigorous rubbing with a towel until the skin is quite red. This may be used at three years, and often at two ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt

... stay in the warm sitting-room," said she; "and Ann shall carry in some sponge cake and currant shrub, for ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May

... still further to modern liberalism, great store of relics was sent in; among these, pieces of the true cross, of the white and purple robes, of the crown of thorns, sponge, lance, and winding-sheet of Christ,—the hair, robe, veil, and girdle of the Blessed Virgin; relics of St. John the Baptist, St. Joseph, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Paul, St. Barnabas, the four evangelists, and ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... them, but the drainage is more perfect; long after the ravines and stream-beds are quite dry, puddles and cupfuls of water will be found here and there, along their courses, in holes and chinks and under great stones, which together form a sufficiency. A sponge tied to the end of a stick will do good ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... remembred be, Which in their daies most famouslie did florish, Of whome no word we heare, nor signe now see, 360 But as things wipt out with a sponge to perishe, Because they living cared not to cherishe No gentle wits, through pride or covetize, Which might their names for ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... rounds he came off best; drew first blood; seemed likely to carry everything with him; Opposition pulled themselves together; went at it hammer and tongs; and now it is Mr. G. who has retired to corner; the sponge is in requisition on the Treasury Bench; the air around it redolent of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various

... Punch of March 31st last, because I too always smoke a pipe in a hot bath, to which I add the habit of reading, not books—they are too sacred to risk—but newspapers. I also frequently indulge in a further luxury at this time, a cup of coffee, which rests on the sponge and soap bridge between sips. Of course the soap sometimes falls into the coffee, and if this is undetected in time a slight frothing at the mouth occurs, but no really ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various

... know what the law is, you'd better find out," answered the fellow, roughly. "What right have you to own a dog, anyway? It strikes me that it is about enough for you to sponge your own living out of the community, without sponging another for a miserable whelp of a ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... immortelles. No wonder they felt badly. The poor fellow's work was done. He had broken the last nose. He had knocked out the last tooth. He had bunged up the last eye. He had at last himself thrown up the sponge. The dead hero belonged to the aristocracy of hard-hitters. If I remember rightly, he drew the first blood in the conflict with one who afterward became one of the rulers of the nation—the Honorable John ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... "the mean admiration of mean things," the devotion to the slimmest appearances of rank. All this is credible enough, but, if there existed a society as dull and base as that which we meet in the pages of "Mr. Soapy Sponge," and Surtees's other novels, assuredly it was no theme for the great and generous spirit of Sir Walter. The worst kind of manners always prevail among people whom moderns call "the second-rate smart," and these are drawn in "St. Ronan's Well." But we may believe ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... Fairthorn catch glimpse of Darrell's countenance within ten yards of the porch, than, his conscience taking alarm, he rushed incontinent from the window, the apartment, and, ere Darrell could fling open the door, was lost in some lair—"nullis penetrabilis astris"—in that sponge-like and cavernous abode wherewith benignant Providence had suited ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... crack and plunge, We saw nor waves nor ships. Earth sucked the vapors like a sponge, The salt spray ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... vigorously until it thickens and is smooth to the taste. Remove from the fire, pour at once into a bowl, add a little salt, and set aside to cool. Then put on the ice and at serving time turn into a glass bowl, arrange the whites of eggs on top and serve with sponge cake. ...
— The Golden Age Cook Book • Henrietta Latham Dwight

... picnic-plates!" said Uncle Jack. "Now then, Brighteyes, hand out that chicken pie! So! now for the strawberries and the sponge cake! ha! this certainly does make one hungry." Indeed it did, as I felt the pangs of hunger merely from seeing all the good things in my mirror. "Go, good dog," I said to my faithful companion, "and bring me some ice-cream from Mt. Vanilla. And dip the ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards

... refreshment stations, because it is the last repast known to this state of existence of which any human creature would partake, but in the direst extremity—sickens your contemplation, and your words are these: 'I cannot dine on stale sponge-cakes that turn to sand in the mouth. I cannot dine on shining brown patties, composed of unknown animals within, and offering to my view the device of an indigestible star-fish in leaden pie-crust without. ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... sufficient sympathy she had for all persons indifferently,—for lovers, for artists, and beautiful maids, and ambitious young statesmen, and for old aunts, and coach-travellers. Ah! she applied herself to the mood of her companion, as the sponge applies itself to water." The description tallies well enough with my observation. I remember she found, one day, at my house, her old friend Mr. ——, sitting with me. She looked at him attentively, and hardly seemed to know him. ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... should be opened, and its contents exposed to the air and sunlight, once every year. Beds long saturated with the night exhalations of their occupants are not wholesome. A number of ancient writers have alleged—and it has been reasserted by modern authorities—that sleeping on sponge is of service to those who desire to increase their families. The mattresses of compressed sponge recently introduced, therefore, commend themselves to married people thus situated. Hemlock boughs make a bed which has a well-established reputation ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... hills, and seas: From east to west the world we roam, And in all climates are at home; With care provide you as we go With sunshine, rain, and hail, or snow. You, when it rains, like fools, believe Jove pisses on you through a sieve: An idle tale, 'tis no such matter; We only dip a sponge in water, Then squeeze it close between our thumbs, And shake it well, and down it comes; As you shall to your sorrow know; We'll watch your steps where'er you go; And, since we find you walk a-foot, We'll soundly souse your frieze surtout. 'Tis but by our peculiar grace, That Phoebus ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... about mine, says FATHER. It is soft and squashy, so of course it's a sponge. Now why do you suppose Santa Claus brought me a sponge? for my old one ...
— Up the Chimney • Shepherd Knapp

... when he was alone is not our business. Susan, who had watched the shaking and the hitting without daring to interfere, crept up later with milk and sponge-cakes. She found him asleep, and she says ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit

... diaphragm cause the air to escape instantly.... If, while the lungs are filled with air, the ribs are allowed to fall, and the diaphragm to rise, the lungs instantly give up the inspired air, like a pressed sponge. It is necessary therefore to allow the ribs to fall and the diaphragm to relax only so much as is required to sustain the tones." It may be questioned whether Garcia had in mind the doctrine of breath-control as this is understood to-day. Very little attention was paid, ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor

... and in those halcyon moments of our first housekeeping! To be the confidential friend in a hundred families in the town—cutting the social trifle, as my friend Haliburton says, "from the top of the whipped-syllabub to the bottom of the sponge-cake, which is the foundation"—to keep abreast of the thought of the age in one's study, and to do one's best on Sunday to interweave that thought with the active life of an active town, and to inspirit both and ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... in night. Cooler breeze, Bud some better & slept. Sway has badly swollen neck. May be rattler bite or perhaps bee. Bud wanted cigarettes but smoked last the day before he took sick. Gave him more liver pills & sponge off with water every hour. Best can do under circumstances. Have ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... sponge, dipped it in water, moistened the corpse-like face, and applied my smelling-bottle to ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... separately, as we always do, I alone above, you below. At the ball you looked as though you were burying the devil. At the supper table your friends were as melancholy as a pair of owls. I obeyed your orders by affecting hardly to know you. You imbibed like a sponge, without my being able to tell whether you ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... Tommy disposes of a vast quantity of oranges and sponge-cakes—vanishing between each act to obtain a fresh supply;—making butterflies of the bill, and causing the double-barrelled lorgnette (which was hired for the occasion from an adjacent oyster-shop) to slip off the cushion, falling ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner

... some time he had been vaguely aware of kindling and stove sounds. The bare little room had become bitterly cold. A gray-blackness represented the world outside. He lighted his glass lamp and took a hasty, shivering sponge bath in the crockery basin. Then he felt better in the answering glow of his healthy, straight young body; and a few moments later was prepared to enjoy a fragrant, new-lit, somewhat smoky fire in the big stove outside his door. The bell rang. Men knocked ashes from their pipes and arose; other ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... fingers. It's a common thing for our 'sweet girl graduates' to lay off their white commencement-day dress, their high-heeled shoes and their pretty hats, for the shawl and the moccasin. We teach them to make sponge-cake and to eat with a fork, but they prefer dog-soup and a horn spoon. Of course there are exceptions, but most of them forget much faster ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... his weapon went too far and wounded my right arm about three inches below the shoulder. The blood rushed out and dyed my sleeve red, and the fight came to an end. He was greatly distressed, and' running off to the house, quickly returned with a jug of water, sponge, towel, and linen to bind the wounded arm. It was a deep long cut, and the scar has remained to this day, so that I can never wash in the morning without seeing it and remembering that old fight with knives. Eventually he succeeded in stopping the flow of blood, and ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... Shafton knelt down, and most gracefully presented to the nostrils of Mary Avenel a silver pouncet-box, exquisitely chased, containing a sponge dipt in the essence which he recommmended so highly. Yes, gentle reader, it was Sir Piercie Shafton himself who thus unexpectedly proffered his good offices! his cheeks, indeed, very pale, and some part of his dress stained with blood, but not otherwise ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... traveling-bag a small apparatus for showering eau-de-cologne in spray, and with this sprinkled her forehead; afterward removing the drops with a soft sponge, and smoothing her rebellious black hair. Then she took out a tiny ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... consisted of hillocks of red sand, so soft and loose that the cattle could scarcely draw the carts through. The clay adjacent to the sand was firmer than any clay seen elsewhere on the plains because the sand there acted like a sponge, taking up the water from the adjacent clay which consequently preserved its tenacity at all seasons. This edge of clay along the skirts of plains at the base of the red sand ridges I found the most favourable ground for travelling upon. Still further ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... exist in misery upon that rotten mattress, which in three days soaked up water like a sponge. I could hardly stir because of my broken leg; and when I had to get out of bed to obey a call of nature, I crawled on all fours with extreme distress, in order not to foul the place I slept in. For one ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... called Neptune's Cups (Spongia patera, Hardw.), which grow in the seas of Sumatra; and if we could suppose a series of such gigantic sponges to be separated from each other, like trees in a forest, and the individuals of each successive generation to grow on the exact spot where the parent sponge died and was enveloped in calcareous mud, so that they should become piled one above the other in a vertical column, their growth keeping pace with the accumulation of the enveloping calcareous mud, a counterpart of the phenomena of the ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... of it and smiled at her own mistake as she drew back the hand she had put out to take the sponge from him. He was her youngest, and she had seen him but twice since, at the age of eight, he had left home for Westminster School. In spite of the evidence of her eyes he was a small child still—until ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... firm of hare-raisers in Carmelite Street informs us that young rabbits fed on sponge-cake soaked in port wine have a flavour which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various

... of this law at first surprises the senses; but in the end the unity of cause astonishes the cultivated mind. Looked at in reference to this globe, an earthquake is no more than a chink that opens in a garden-walk of a dry day in Summer. A sponge is porous, having small spaces between the solid parts: the solar system is only more porous, having larger room between the several orbs: the Universe yet more so, with spaces between the systems, as small, compared with infinite space, as those between the atoms ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... knapsack yesterday afternoon. I put in it—precision is the essence of diarising—a spare shirt, which will have to serve if necessary as a nightgown, a pair of socks, a pair of slippers, a toothbrush, a small comb, and a sponge; that is sufficient for a philosopher. A pocket volume of poetry—Matthew Arnold this time—and a map completed my outfit. And I sent a bag containing a more liberal wardrobe to a distant station, which I calculated it would take ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... a paper beside him make a few marks to illustrate what he had said. If the artist had genius enough then to imitate him, well and good; if not, Turner simply went away and left him. His own ways of working were remarkable. He often painted with a sponge and used his thumbnail to "tear up a sea." It mattered little to him how he produced his effects so long as he did it. His impressionistic style confused many of his critics, and it is told how a fine lord ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon

... in the sand, was a deep furrow, reaching to within a foot of the waves, where it stopped as if it had been wiped out from a slate with a damp sponge. Gimblet had no doubt what it was. A boat had been beached here, and that lately. A glance at the stones surrounding the bay showed him that the water was falling, for in quiet little pools, within the outer breakwater ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce

... nacre. Thus, a slight protuberance arises which becomes the base of a blister or button or the starting-point of a pear-shaped gem. Many a lovely gem is, therefore, nothing more than the imperishable record of aggression on the part of a flabby sponge on a resourceful oyster. Occasionally valuable pearls are found within huge blisters. Such pearls originate, no doubt, in the ordinary way, but, becoming an intolerable nuisance on account of increasing size, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... man mumbled; "nobody can deny that they're gentlemanly. They may make a cabal against me in Trafalgar Square, and decline to hang 'em: but they can't say my pictures are ungentlemanly. No, no. Take a basin of water and a sponge, Fred, and wash the dust off. It pleases me to see 'em again—yes, by gad, sir, it pleases ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... their lips seemed to be moving as if they were saying, Breath! Breath! Breath! I thought they wanted to breathe the air of this world again in my shape, which I seemed to see as it were empty of myself and of these other selves, like a sponge that has ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... known that the soil of Central Asia is like a sponge impregnated with liquid hydrogen. At the port of Bakou, on the Persian frontier, on the Caspian Sea, in Asia Minor, in China, on the Yuen-Kiang, in the Burman Empire, springs of mineral oil rise in thousands to the surface of the ground. It is an "oil country," similar ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... cast me headlong from the throne into his abyss of misery. Justinian is a man; he is a prince; does he not dread for himself a similar reverse of fortune? I can write no more: my grief oppresses me. Send me, I beseech you, my dear Pharas, send me, a lyre, [30] a sponge, and a loaf of bread." From the Vandal messenger, Pharas was informed of the motives of this singular request. It was long since the king of Africa had tasted bread; a defluxion had fallen on his eyes, the effect of fatigue or incessant weeping; and he wished to solace the melancholy hours, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... said to the other: "James Cunningham ought to give a medal to the fellow that shot his uncle. Didn't come a day too soon for him. Between you and me, J. C. has been speculating heavy and has been hit hard. He was about due to throw up the sponge. Luck for him, ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... vague dreams beset her, when she wanted to lie late in bed and commune with visions, or to leap and sing because the sooty little trees along the street were putting out their first pale leaves in the sunshine, she would clench her hands and go to help her mother sponge the spots from her father's waistcoat or press Heinrich's trousers. Her mother never permitted the slightest question concerning anything Auguste or Heinrich saw fit to do, but from the time Caroline could reason at all she could not help thinking that ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... husband was a rather degenerate mortal. At twenty-five he had been a good fellow, and in this respect he was unchanged; but of a man of his age one expected something more. People said he was sociable, but this was as much a matter of course as for a dipped sponge to expand; and it was not a high order of sociability. He was a great gossip and tattler, and to produce a laugh would hardly have spared the reputation of his aged mother. Newman had a kindness for old ...
— The American • Henry James

... the soft duff under the pines. This covering of the roots was very thick and deep. I made it out to be composed of pine-needles, leaves, and earth. It was like a sponge. No wonder such covering held the water! I pried bark off dead trees and dug into decayed logs to find the insect enemies of the trees. The open places, where little colonies of pine sprouts grew, seemed generally to be down-slope from the parent trees. It ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey

... except the use of gunpowder and fire-arms, the culture of tobacco and the habit of smoking, the naturalization of a few foreign words and of several strange diseases, and, as an odd addition, the introduction of sponge-cake, still everywhere used as a favorite viand. As for Christianity, the very name of Christ became execrated, and was employed as the most abhorrent word that could be spoken in Japan. The Christian faith was believed to be absolutely extirpated, and yet it seems ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... which keeps the exterior of the candle cool. No fuel would serve for a candle which has not the property of giving this cup, except such fuel as the Irish bogwood, where the material itself is like a sponge, and holds its own fuel. You see now why you would have had such a bad result if you were to burn these beautiful candles that I have shewn you, which are irregular, intermittent in their shape, and cannot ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday

... even for sybarites like you guardsmen. A quarter of that would be amply sufficient for me. A couple of blankets, a waterproof sheet, half a dozen flannel shirts, ditto socks, pair of slippers, and a spare karkee suit; sponge, tooth-brush, and a comb. What ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... she heard the last of Nurse's steps on the stairs below, and then she put both her cat-children into the tub, and washed them with rose-scented soap and a Turkey sponge. At first they thought it very good fun, but presently the soap got in their eyes and they were frightened of the sponge, and they cried, mewing piteously, to be taken out. I don't know how she could have done it, I couldn't have treated a kitten of ...
— Pussy and Doggy Tales • Edith Nesbit

... house so far removed from cities that it seemed not a part of the world . . . there should step this man! Why had there been no hint of his presence? Why had not the clairvoyance of despair warned her? One of her hands rose and pressed over her eyes, as if to sponge out this phantom. It was useless; it was no dream; he was still there, this man she had neither seen nor heard of for five years because her will was stronger than her desire, this man who had broken her heart as children break toys! And deep below all this present terror was the abiding truth that ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... gone last autumn," confided Peachy, "but the fact is I got into a little fix with Miss Rodgers, and she started on the rampage and canceled my exeat. I cried till I was simply a sopping sponge, but she was a perfect crab that day. Lorna, weren't you to have gone ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... counter. It is long enough and broad enough for the business of twenty customers at once; so broad that the clerks on the other side are beyond arm's reach. But they have shovels with which to push the gold towards you, and in a small glass stand is a sponge kept constantly damp, across which the cashier draws his finger as he counts the silver, the slight moisture enabling him to sort ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... copy digits until one's chubby fingers, tightly gripping the pencil, ached, and then to be expected to take a sponge and wash those ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... said kindly; "you must be more careful. Now run and get a sponge, and do the best ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand

... watched her he saw what, he thought, was an illusion—the blueness of the room, of the walls, seemed to settle on her countenance. It increased, her face was in tone with the color that had so disturbed her, a vitreous blue too intense for realization. He was startled: like a sponge, sopping up the atmosphere, she darkened. It was so brutal, so hideous, ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... for me at the Blahs this morning. A sin of omission rather than commission, though he did put my sponge-bag into my collarcase," I added musingly. "They're both round, you see. ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... in the road and sit with our feet in the ditch, like the tramps do," said Jack. "I'll bring the tea in my sponge bag. Rosher used to carry it about in his pocket, full of water for a little squirt he was always firing off in the French class. Pilson had the sentence, 'Give me something to drink;' and as soon as he'd said it, he got a squirtful all over ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... gaze upon even our best landscape paintings he would certainly take very little pleasure in them; he would consider them daubs executed after a recipe according to which one can obtain the most beautiful foliage by throwing a sponge dipped in green ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... punishment, nor could I find anything to say, out of countenance as I was and hideous, for to the disgrace of a shaven poll was added an equal baldness in the matter of eyebrows; the case against me was only too plain, there was not a thing to be said or done! Finally, a damp sponge was passed over my tear-wet face, and thereupon, the smut dissolved and spread over my whole countenance, blotting out every feature in a sooty cloud. Anger turned into loathing. Swearing that he would permit no one to ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... should have seen that kid. He fired a wet bailing sponge at me and I dodged it and it hit one of his own patrol—kerflop! I guess you'll think all us fellows are crazy, especially me. I should worry. I told them I escaped in the canoe and all that kind of stuff, but ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... Baxter recklessly. "He don't half trust me any more. He says I'm only good to sponge on him," and the former bully of Putnam Hall gave a ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield

... gold. Behind her seat bags filled with coin were piled up to the ceiling. On her right and on her left the floor was hidden by pyramids of guineas. On a sudden the door flies open, the Pretender rushes in, a sponge in one hand, in the other a sword, which he shakes at the Act of Settlement. The beautiful Queen sinks down fainting; the spell by which she has turned all things around her into treasure is broken; the money-bags shrink like pricked bladders; the piles of gold ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... haven't you! Reminds me of the days of my youth. Better sponge it clean with your handkerchief and some of that water. And when you did remember, the train ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... and I came right down on a small sea-fan, which I grabbed instantly. That ought to give way easily. But as I seized it, I brought down my right foot into the middle of a big round sponge. I started, as if I had had an electric shock. The thing seemed colder and wetter than the water; it was slimy and sticky and horrid. I did not see what it was, and it felt as if some great sucker-fish, with a cold woolly mouth, was trying to swallow ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton

... fun, that a general "Oh dear!" welcomed the ringing of the tea-bell. I suppose cookies and vinegar had taken away their appetites, for none of them were hungry, and Dorry astonished Aunt Izzie very much by eyeing the table in a disgusted way, and saying: "Pshaw! only plum sweatmeats and sponge cake and hot biscuit! I ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge

... first through the parenchyma, especially through its central portion or pith.' Whereby we are led back to our old question, what sap is, and where it comes from, with the now superadded question, whether the young pith is a mere succulent sponge, or an active power, and constructive mechanism, nourished by the abundant sap: as Columella ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... rule, too. Some one—I cannot say who—had taken up the affair, and was imposing the right ceremonial upon us. It may have been the cheerful, blue-jerseyed Irishman, to whose knee I returned at the end of each round to be freshened up around the face and neck with a dripping boat-sponge. He had an extraordinarily wide mouth, and it kept speaking encouragement and good advice to me. I feel sure he was a good fellow, but have never set eyes on him from ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... the principal sorts were species of trochus, chama, conus, voluta, cypraea, buccinum, ostrea, mytilus, and patella; among the latter was the large one of King George's Sound. Upon the beaches to windward of the cape we found varieties of sponge and coral; and beche de mer were observed in the crevices of the rocks but were neither large nor plentiful. Mr. Cunningham saw two land snakes, one of which was about four feet in length; the colour of its back was black and the belly yellow; ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... how great a pest he is himself? (Aloud.) But, my Euripides! my sweet! one thing more: Give me a cracked pipkin stopped with sponge. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... manufacturing industry, were those connected with the machinery for heckling and spinning flax, which he very greatly improved. His heckling machine obtained for him the prize of the gold medal of the Society of Arts; and this as well as his machine for wet flax-spinning by means of sponge weights proved of the greatest practical value. At the time when these inventions were made the flax trade was on the point of expiring, the spinners being unable to produce yarn to a profit; and their almost immediate effect was to reduce the cost of production, to improve ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... over the safety of the Tawtry House inmates. He was a simple-hearted fellow, of sterling honesty, and a keen intelligence, that enabled him to absorb information on all subjects that came within his range, as a sponge absorbs water. Although of slender build, his muscles were of iron, his eyesight was that of a hawk, and as a rifle-shot he had no superior among all the denizens of the forest, white or red. During three years of mutual helpfulness, a ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... pay for her board," asked Mrs. Livingstone. "You've no means of earning it, and I hope you don't intend to sponge out of me, for I think I've enough ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... keeper of the railroad restaurant their former conductor, who had been warned by the spirits never to travel without a flower of some sort carried between his lips, and who had preserved his own life and the lives of his passengers for many years by this simple device. His presence lent the sponge cake and rhubarb pie and baked beans a supernatural interest, and reconciled Basil to the toughness of the athletic bird which the mystical ex-partner of fate had sold him; he justly reflected that if he had heard the story of the restaurateur's superstition ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... careful, never to let loose and wet ends of the wash cloth drag along exposed parts of the body. It is a good plan to sew your wash cloth into a bag, and to slip your hand inside, and work with it put on like a mitten. A rubber or fibre sponge is to be preferred. Keep one for the face, neck, arms, and hands, and another for the feet and legs. The vulva is bathed best by means of a fountain syringe used as an irrigator, and a little sterilized gauze twisted around your dressing forceps. The gauze can be changed as often as necessary, ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery

... be the custom to go to and from the bathroom attired in a sponge, in connexion with which an ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey

... corners went on with whatever conversation they had in hand. Then came supper; but there were so many people to go into the supper-room that we could not all crowd thither together, and, coming late, I got nothing but some sponge-cake and a glass of champagne, neither of which I care for. After supper, Mr. Lover sang some Irish songs, his own in music and words, with rich, humorous effect, to which the comicality of his face contributed ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... estate." Keightley, the manager of the Tredyddlum and Polwheedle Copper Mines (which were as yet under water), besides singing as good a second as any professional man, and besides the Tredyddlum Office, had a Smyrna Sponge Company, and a little quicksilver operation in view, which would set him straight with the world yet. Filby had been everything a corporal of dragoons, a field-preacher, and missionary-agent for converting ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the second time that evening Judith was sure that their plans for a good time were ruined, when, just as she had given herself up for lost, the figure turned about and a voice, unmistakably Miss Ashwell's, said, "Bother! I've forgotten my sponge again." ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... five days Julian abruptly threw up the sponge and returned to London, abandoning the old salt to the tobacco-chewing, which was his only solace during the winter season, now fast drawing to a close. He went at once to see Valentine, who had a narrative to ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... not undertake to say how many just then. He gave this answer in a very indifferent tone, dabbing away all the time at his eyes with the sponge and lotion. He did it so awkwardly and roughly, as it seemed to me, that I took the sponge from him and ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... Bar 99 had just ridden up and Laura sent him at once for the doctor. She led the way into the house and swiftly gathered bandages, a sponge, and a basin of water. Together she and Curly bathed and wrapped the wound. Stone did not weaken, though he was pretty ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... with two other lads a little older than himself, boarders in one of the near hotels, and casual acquaintances of his. They joined him and the three rambled on together, whistling, talking, and occasionally stooping to pick up a shell, pebble, or bit of seaweed or sponge. ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley

... papa's hat looked rough and rusty: so what did she do but wash it with a sponge wet in water. She thought she was making the hat look quite nice and shiny; ...
— The Nursery, January 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various

... and worked there regularly. One thing seemed strange in the way they treated us. When we were as hot as possible with exercise, at the moment of leaving off and changing our dress, men came to the dressing-rooms to sponge us with ice-cold water. They said it did nothing but good, and certainly I never felt any bad effects ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... hope of finding the tribal cure for cancer; of the time when, on a girl-chase, he had toured with a theatrical company for a few months while his father thought he was at the hospital working. Her sponge-like eagerness for all the Romance, the Adventure he could give her was insidious in its effect on him; she was flattered that he, with all his cleverness, his "grown-up-ness" that went so queerly with his babyishness, should have so thrown ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... violent haemorrhage or a bony splinter. The physiologists imitate this process of nature when they wish, for example, to obtain, in animals under experiment, a state of complete immobility. But did the first surgeon who thought of trepanning the skull in order to exert on the brain, by means of a sponge, a certain degree of compression, ever imagine that an analogous procedure had long been employed in the insect world, and that these clumsy methods were merely child's play beside the astonishing feats of ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... side, where I watched with him the drilling and training of the native gunners, who, under the orders of Ny Deen, whose clothes glittered in the sun, went slowly and fairly through the gun-drill, making believe to carry cartridges to the gun muzzle, ram them home, fire, and then sponge out the bores, and all in a way which went to prove that, after a few months, they would be clever enough gunners to do a great deal of mischief to ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... than five hours after we retired, which was about the first of the small hours, he rushed into my room, and finding that the awful noises which he made, had no effect in waking me, dragged me bodily out of bed, and clapping my wet sponge in my face, walked off, as he said, to fetch the bitters, which were to make me as fine as silk ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... higher, and disported itself in an S or two and a "figure eight," all of which Johnny absorbed as a sponge absorbs water. ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower

... cloud-scuds sustained by a highly rarefied atmosphere—permitted only a very dreamy idea of lofty mountains stretching beneath them in shapeless proportions, of smaller reliefs, circuses, yawning craters, and the other capricious, sponge-like formations so common on the visible side. Elsewhere the watchers became aware for an instant of immense spaces, certainly not arid plains, but seas, real oceans, vast and calm, reflecting from their placid depths the dazzling fireworks of the weird and wildly flashing meteors. ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... senses could believe in the practicability of the extreme Nihilist theories, he instanced our old acquaintance, saying, "Yes, there is a man, who in his very inmost conscience believes that no good of any sort can be achieved for humanity till the sponge shall have been passed over all that men have instituted and done, and a perfect tabula rasa ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... the steward, I turned in, homeward bound, and took tother glass, which I set down at the bottom of the first, and that gives the thing the shape it has. But as I was there again to-night, and paid for the three at once, your honor may as well run the sponge over the whole business. ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... trivial, and almost idiotic ghoul of our own days, sponges the fly-leaves and boards of books for the purpose of cribbing the book-plates. An old "Complaint of a Book-plate," in dread of the wet sponge of the enemy, has been discovered by Mr. ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang

... dipped a sponge in a cup of vinegar, and put it upon a reed, and gave him a drink of it. Then Jesus spoke his last words ...
— The Wonder Book of Bible Stories • Compiled by Logan Marshall

... the Netherlands, just forty years of fighting. Maurice and the war had been born in the same year, and it would be difficult for him to comprehend that his whole life's work had been a superfluous task, to be rubbed away now with a sponge. Yet that Spain, on the entrance to negotiations, would demand of the provinces submission to her authority, re-establishment of the Catholic religion, abstinence from Oriental or American commerce, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... its specific heat is increased; and the additional quantity of heat requisite is, as it were, sucked in from surrounding bodies—so producing cold. This action may be compared to that of a wet sponge from which, when compressed, a portion of the water is forced out, and when the sponge is allowed to expand, the water is drawn back. This effect is manifested by the increase of temperature in air-compressing machines, and the cold produced by allowing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various

... the bank of the stream, we soon found that it narrowed down to a mere brook, and finally that it lost itself in a great green morass of sponge-like mosses, into which we sank up to our knees. The place was horribly haunted by clouds of mosquitoes and every form of flying pest, so we were glad to find solid ground again and to make a circuit among the trees, which enabled us to outflank this pestilent morass, which ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... cattle were fat; their fields of that curious grass through which Umpl had waded before he knew what it was good for were sure to harvest grain enough to make bread, and Sptz had found that grain-bread was as much better than acorn-bread as sponge cake is better than gingerbread; although both gingerbread and acorn- bread are good enough for any one, when one ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True

... In Australia, it means a man "down on his luck," "stone-broke," beaten by fortune. In America, the word means an impostor, a sponge. Between the two uses the connection is clear, but the Australian usage is logically ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... he also, since he is but a man, though he be emperor too, may have something befall him which he would not choose. But as for me, I am not able to write further. For my present misfortune has robbed me of my thoughts. Farewell, then, dear Pharas, and send me a lyre and one loaf of bread and a sponge, I pray you." When this reply was read by Pharas, he was at a loss for some time, being unable to understand the final words of the letter, until he who had brought the letter explained that Gelimer desired one loaf because he was eager to enjoy the sight of it and to eat it, since ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius

... upon herself to be decidedly narrowing. Perpetually in debt, without the means of reimbursement, barred from any generous action which does not seem like 'robbing Peter to pay Paul,' she sinks too often into the character of a sponge, whose only business is absorption. But I see you do not like what I am saying, and I will tell you something which I am sure you will like—my ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... from home before." Puzzling himself uselessly with such reflections as these, he went to the supper-table, and drank a glass of wine, picked a bit of a sandwich, and unnecessarily spoilt the appearance of two sponge cakes, by absently breaking a small piece off each of them. He was in no better humor for eating or drinking, than for whistling; so he wisely determined to light his candle forthwith, and go ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... as if to himself, and laid hand to pommel. The heap shuddered and turned on itself. It swarmed. Finally, like a drop from a sponge, Master Porges exuded and ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... sake, don't torment me now!' cried he in pitiable agitation; and then he began to mutter bitter curses against me, or the evil fortune that had brought me there; while I put down the sponge and basin, and resumed my seat at ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... the friction of a coarse towel, or flesh brush, or crash mitten. This may be done by warm or cold bathing; by a plunging or shower bath; by means of a common wash tub; and even without further preparation than an ordinary wash- bowl and sponge. ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott

... I turned up my sleeves and poured some of the "Milk of Beauty" into a little onyx bowl that was at hand, then I dipped a little sponge into it, and approached my Aunt Venus ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... head the boarders as usual," remarked the doctor, with a quiet grin. "What is the extent of the damage? Here, sit down and let me have a look at it; don't be impatient; I'll undertake to tinker you up as good as new in two or three minutes," he continued, as I seated myself, and he began to sponge the blood away. "There is no great harm done, merely a simple laceration of the scalp. There, I think that will keep the top of your head from blowing off, until after you have demolished the Frenchman. I should dearly ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... followed them like a dog, holding out its muzzle to Chris from time to time, and uttering as soon as he was caressed a piteous sigh. But he did not wince till they were close up to the slope, where the doctor asked for bucket, water, and sponge, and began his attentions, with Chris's help, to the suffering, ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... free and all be saved:" the second all be is a most unnecessary tautology. The poem was perfect and faultless, if you could have let it alone. I wonder how your mischievous flippancy could help maiming that most new and beautiful expression, "sponge Of sins;" I should not have been surprised, as you love verses too full of feet, if you have changed it to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole



Words linked to "Sponge" :   wipe off, learner, gather, assimilator, pass over, wipe, collect, obtain, spongy, wipe up, mop up, pull together, score out, absorbent material, freeload, scholar, rub out, garner, follower, efface, Porifera, absorbent, erase, invertebrate, phylum Porifera, mop



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com