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Dam   Listen
noun
Dam  n.  
1.
A female parent; used of beasts, especially of quadrupeds; sometimes applied in contempt to a human mother. "Our sire and dam, now confined to horses, are a relic of this age (13th century)...Dame is used of a hen; we now make a great difference between dame and dam." "The dam runs lowing up and down, Looking the way her harmless young one went."
2.
A king or crowned piece in the game of draughts.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dam" Quotes from Famous Books



... want to be one of the big and active men of the world, who do big things. I want to map out the wilderness. I want to dam the raging flood and drive the new railroad across the desert. I want to construct. I want to work day and night when the big deeds are to be done. That's why I wouldn't care for the Army or Navy; it's too idle ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock

... sake," cried the man as his face glowed in his emotion, "let life wash in from its holy source to these our brothers. Shame on you—you greedy ones, you dollar worshipers—you dam the stream, you muddy the waters, you poison the well of life—shame—shame!" he cried and then paused, gloated perhaps in his pause, for the storm he saw gathering in the crowd, to break. His face was transfigured by the passion ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... who brewed the storm;—for, beloved reader, what could it have profited her, even if she had known the black art? This, however, did not strike Dom. Consul, and Satan, by the permission of the all-righteous God, was presently to use us still worse; for just as we got to the Master's Dam, [Footnote: It is also called to the present day, and is distant a mile from Coserow.] he came flying over us in the shape of a stork, and dropped a frog so exactly over us that it fell into my daughter her lap: she gave a shrill scream, but ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... we camped for a night at a dam which contained a small quantity of water. The next morning the burghers, discovering that there were fish in the pool, but having no fishing-hooks, undressed and began to convert the water into a muddy mass, thus compelling the fish to come to the surface for air. While still engaged ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald

... deepest intuition into child's nature, and therefore had the deepest reverence for it, wrote as follows: "Where we behold children we suspect there are princes, but as to the kings, where are they?" Not only life's tragic elements diminish and dam up its vital energies. Equally destructive is a parent's want of reverence for the sources of life which meet them in a new being. Fathers and mothers must bow their heads in the dust before the exalted nature of the ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key

... down the passes, but the river runs lazily through the valley. It flows beside a cornfield, then wanders over to a meadow of clover or into a patch of sugar-cane, turning the while from side to side as the varying mountain vistas come into view. At the far end where it is pushed over the mill dam and out of the valley, the Wolf roars protestingly; then rushes on to the Cumberland River a ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan

... floors of valleys, by giving an ever-shifting direction to the rivers which drain them, and which spread detritus in their course. Supposing these glaciers to have had no terminal moraines, they might still have forced immense beds of gravel into positions that would dam up lakes between the ice and the flanks of the valleys, and thus produce much terracing on the latter.* [We are still very ignorant of many details of ice action, and especially of the origin of many enormous ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... "The bridge is a dam also. All the debris from the upper reaches collects against it and soon there will be floods to add to the other distress the Grass has brought. More than half the country is gone now: the territories pillaged from Mexico, argued from Britain, bought from France, have all been lost. Only ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... Britain, and I should have preferred not to see it here, for it is in no way worthy of the beautiful clothes Messrs. Scribner have given it. Weighted with "An Edinburgh Eleven" it would rest very comfortably in the mill dam, but the publishers have reasons for its inclusion; among them, I suspect, is a well-grounded fear that if I once began to hack and hew, I should not stop until I had reduced the edition to two volumes. This juvenile effort is a field of prickles into which none may be ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... dwellings line Town Brook, now in place of the primeval forests of pine and oak. Its waters leap one dam after another, but cannot escape pollution till their dark tide mingles with that of the clear sea. But for all that the contour of the chasms in the big sand hills through which it flows to the sea is changed but little. The low sun leaves it in shadow most ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... face, Polly." He picked up a handful of dirt and smeared it over his face. With the help of the tears it was very effective. "I'm jest as bad as bad can be. I know a whole string of cuss words an' I can say them as fast as now-I-lay-me. Doggone, devil, deuce, dam, da—" ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson

... Century Club; his chivalrous character; on sad endings of novels; his first visit to Leeds; his failure as a speaker. Boundary Commission for electoral divisions. Bow Street Police Court in 1867. Bradfield, Bursting of reservoir dam at. Bradford Caucus and W. E. Forster. Brett, Police-sergeant, Murder of. "Briefs and Papers,". Bright, John, at Blackburn in 1865; at reform demonstrations in 1866; his last reform speech in 1866; champions Queen Victoria; and Cave of ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... heat, 'Neath the vine-tree's broad shadow, to rest him and eat. Then straightway he hasted, with tenderest care, To spread forth the board and the banquet prepare, While he spared of his own to take youngling or dam But dressed for the stranger his ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various

... for her husband's loss, which had been suspended during the extremity of the child's danger, now returned on Magdalen with the force of an augmented torrent, which has borne down the dam dike that for a while ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... crew who came up towards him, dammee, ye meddle wit mee, mee dash your brains out. The crew, finding him resolute, did not think proper to attack him: upon which the lieutenant asked him, if he would serve king George. Dam king George, mee know no king George: mee be an Indian, mee have a king in my own country, whom mee love and fightee for, because he be de very good king: at which the lieutenant and captain fell ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown

... how the one lad laughed and leaped and clapped his hands for glee! A kid that bounds to meet its dam might dance as merrily. And how the other inly burned, struck down by his disgrace! A maid first parting from her home might wear as sad ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus

... about my birth be true or not. It is very certain that I never looked up to anyone as my mother; but was brought up at hazard among our women, and that my earliest friend was a foal, that lived as an inmate with us. It was born in the very tent which my father's wives occupied; and its dam, of the purest Arabian blood, was treated more like one of the family than a quadruped: in fact, it received much more attention than any of the wives; it enjoyed the warmest place in the tent, was beautifully clothed, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... good heavens! in the place of the old ferry-boat, grating against its chain—the old black boat which, cutting athwart the current, had been so full of interest to the artistic eye. Moreover, a dam established down-stream at Port-Villez had raised the level of the river, most of the islands of yore were now submerged, and the little armlets of the stream had become broader. There were no more pretty nooks, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... between two square rocks rising eight feet above the water so close together that we could not use the oars; then, when past these, pull ten feet to the right in order to clear the large rock at the end of the main dam, or barrier, not more than twenty feet below. To pull down bow first and try to make the turn, would mean to smash broadside against this rock. It could only be done by dropping stern first, and pulling ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb

... where the heavy water-wheel, revolving in a sea of foam, keeps it shadowy and moist. A short distance above stands the pond—a broad, beautiful expanse of water, glittering like a sheet of untarnished silver; and, in a shady nook, close by the dam, where the large weeping-willow sways its long, drooping branches to and fro wearily, floats a little boat, endeared by many ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... was not favorable ground for their labors as church officers, conducting baptisms and administering the sacrament. When they dammed a small stream in order to secure a pool for an announced baptism, the dam was destroyed during the night. A Presbyterian sister-in-law of Knight, from whom a devil had been cast, announced her conversion to Smith's church, and, when she would not listen to the persuasions of her pastor, the latter obtained legal authority from her parents and carried her away by force. ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... against the exact point of change? In the earlier nineteenth century the stream ran very low. In the days of the Impressionists, against whom the contemporary movement is in some ways a reaction, it had already become copious. Any attempt to dam and imprison this river, to choose out a particular school or movement and say: "Here art begins and there it ends," is a pernicious absurdity. That way Academization lies. At this moment there are not above half a dozen good painters alive who do not derive, ...
— Art • Clive Bell

... wind whistling past her ears, and the tune of "God Save the King" ringing in her brain, the rhythm set by the convulsive movements of Piebald Polly. On, on, through towns and villages, and then once more the open country—what is that noise? The roaring of water! Torrents are unloosed—the dam has burst! Miller's Leap. Can she do it?—can she?—can she? She can—and has. Dawn shows in the eastern sky—the lights ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward

... a hundred feet in height and 400 feet on a side, and almost filling the wall opposite to us was an intricate display of machinery, wheels, levers, rods and polished plates. This we had no doubt was one end of the great engine which opened and shut the great gates that could dam an ocean. ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss

... deeply stirred. "Why, confound the fellow," he was saying to himself,—"they can't knock him out! They knock him down in one place, and he bobs up in another!" The ideas of this brain were as difficult to suppress as certain other things in nature. Dam up ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell

... 'Ab[)i]melech', of '[E]phraim' and 'B[e]lial'. The seeming exceptions can be explained. Thus the priest said 'H[)e]rod' because in the Vulgate he read 'H[)e]rodes', but there was no Greek or Latin form to make him say anything else than 'M[e]roz', 'P[e]rez', 'S[e]rah', 'T[e]resh'. He said '[)A]dam' because, although the Septuagint and other books retained the bare form of the name, there were other writings in which the name was extended by a Latin termination. There was no like extension to tempt him to say anything but 'C[a]desh', '[E]dom', 'J[a]don', 'N[a]dab'. I must ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt

... rich, and he lived in a fine palace where there were many beautiful and costly things, and he was waited upon by a host of servants who were always ready to do his bidding. One day a friend of his, whose name was Dam'o-cles, ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin

... Dick. "The matter has gone too far to be stopped now. You might as well attempt to turn back a mill-dam that has burst its bounds, as the headstrong London 'prentices when they have taken up their cudgels. Go through with the business they will. This is not the only quarrel we have with De Gondomar. We hate him for his insolence and arrogance, which have been often displayed towards ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... distraction of the Horse. Not even the two outlying Grenadier Battalions will give way: those poor intercalated Grenadiers, when their Horse fled on the right and on the left, they stand there, like a fixed stone-dam in that wild whirlpool of ruin. They fix bayonets, "bring their two field-pieces to flank" (Winterfeld was Captain there), and, from small arms and big, deliver such a fire as was very unexpected. Nothing to be made of Winterfeld and them. They invincibly ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... and growled, so that I should not like to have been her fraternal cub, or her spotted dam or sire. "What business has any young woman," she cried out, "to indulge in any such nonsense? Mamma, I ought to be whipped, and sent to bed. I know perfectly well that Mr. Warrington does not care a fig about me. I dare say he likes French actresses and the ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... him a hand with it," remarked the barge-builder, "an' more advice than the old 'un 'ud take. But I dessay 'e could potter about with the dam' tub round about as far as Canvey, if 'e keeps it out of the wash of the steamers. He's been at this job two years now, and I shan't be sorry to see my yard shut of it. . . . Must humour the old boy, though. . . . Nigglin' job, mending boots, I reckon. If I mended ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson

... Philosophical Transactions for 1793, Mr. CORSE says: "If a wild elephant happens to be separated from its young for only two days, though giving suck, she never after recognises or acknowledges it," although the young one evidently knows its dam, and by its plaintive cries and submissive approaches solicits ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... water-wheel roused me from my idle humour. We had reached—much too quickly—our first mill-dam. It was a very primitive sort of dam, formed of stakes and planks, but chiefly of brambles, dead wood and reeds that had floated down and lodged there. Then began the tugging, pushing, and lifting, to be continued at irregular intervals for several days. The canoe was ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... that this was only meant to last during the war. The French Emperor thought that there was an opening for a new kingdom of Etruria with Prince Napoleon at the head. All sorts of intrigues were set afoot by all the great powers except England to re-erect Tuscany as a dam to stem the flood of unity midway. Cavour was determined to defeat them. It was against his rule to discuss remote events. He once said to a novice in public life, "If you want to be a politician, for mercy's sake do not look more than a week ahead." Every time, however, that there arose a present ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... either side of it, the castle occupying a knoll of ground which rose somewhat abruptly from the surrounding country. The moat was but twelve feet wide, and Archie and Sir John decided that this should be widened to fifty feet and deepened to ten, and that a dam should be built just below the castle to keep back the stream and fill the moat. The walls should everywhere be raised ten feet, several strong additional flanking towers added, and a work built beyond the moat to guard the head of the drawbridge. With such additions Aberfilly would be ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... insinuate that he knew Fisher to be dead, and that Arch. and William had killed him. He said he guessed the body could be found in Spring Creek, between the Beardstown road and Hickox's mill. Away the people swept like a herd of buffalo, and cut down Hickox's mill-dam nolens volens, to draw the water out of the pond, and then went up and down and down and up the creek, fishing and raking, and raking and ducking and diving for two days, and, after ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... of logs was chained across the river at a narrow gorge. This held back for two nights and a day the heavy cultch floating down stream, and piled up a good deal of water, too, for the boom soon became a regular dam. Below the dam thus made the level ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson

... off to a place called Birch Plains to-morrow morning, on the nine, Uncle Patsy,' says she; 'do you know where it is?' says she. 'I do,' says I; ''t was not far from it I broke me leg wit' the dam' derrick. 'T was to Jerry Ryan's house they took me first. There's no town there at all; 't is the only house in it; Ryan 's ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett

... "KILLALOE DAM GONE."—Under this heading, boldly displayed, the Scottish Leader announces that the inundation of the Shannon has caused further serious damage to the new drainage works at Killaloe. The way of putting it is undoubtedly terse and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various

... my friends in your great state. The good opinion of my fellow citizens of all sections is the sweetest solace in all my anxieties. I look forward with longing to the time when I can lay aside the cares of office—" ["dam sight," shouted a tipsy fellow near the door. Cries ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... only saying that we must not allow character, fancied or real, to dam any channel of investigation. If reflection convinces me that it is impossible for Doria to be in collusion with Robert Redmayne, I shall admit it. As yet that is not so. There are several very interesting points. Have you asked yourself why ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... and as we go, you will see the floods out—a wonderful sight, isn't it? The river is rising still, I hear; at the tan-yard they are busy making a dam against it. How high are ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... George Dormer of Stone Mills, in the parish of Bridport, put a female salmon, which measured twenty inches, and was caught in the mill-dam, into a small well, where it remained twelve years, and at length died in the year 1842. "The well measured only five feet by two feet four inches, and there was only fifteen inches depth of water." We should have been well pleased to have been told of the size of the fish when it died, in addition ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... "I say you're tellin' up a parcel o' lies you can't prove. Do I step into your dam Bank an' ask where you picked up the coin?—No? Well then, get out o' this an' take your Policeman with 'ee. Fend off, I say!" he snapped, as Rat-it-all ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... reason that I could not come to the city named after the elephant (Hastinapura), O destroyer of hostile heroes! O warrior, if I had come, Suyodhana would not have been alive or the match at dice would not have taken place. What can I do now? It is difficult to confine the waters after the dam ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... particular delectation. 'Enough if he hesitates. I forgive him his nausea. He awaits the impetus, and it will reach him, and soon. He will not wait for the mob at his heels, I am certain. A Minister who does that, is a post, and goes down with the first bursting of the dam. He has tried compromise and discovered that it does not appease the Fates; is not even a makeshift-mending at this hour. He is a man of nerves, very sensitively built; as quick—quicker than a woman, I could almost say, to feel the tremble of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... box," said John, who knew very well that the boys had been constructing a dam together all the ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... was, a wide fall stretching from shore to shore, but Roger, eyeing it suspiciously, added in an aggrieved tone, "But it's a dam. Must be a dam. Look how straight ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith

... overtake a rumour, if it have an hour's start of you. As well attempt to catch up the water which first rushed through the sluice-gates, opened an hour before you reached the dam. ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... circle were drawn around Mosby's stove, the lazy silence was broken by the familiar sounds of pistol shots and a series of more familiar shrieks and yells from the rocky hill road. The circle quickly recognized the voices of their old friends the roisterers and gamblers from Sawyer's Dam; they as quickly recognized the returning shouts here and there from a few companions who were welcoming them. I grieve to say that in spite of their previous attitude of reformation a smile of gratified ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... result of the toil of the worker was filched by some inexplicable process, he was immediately voted "balmy." They were not ripe for fighting. There was as yet no clearly seen Cause that would rouse them from their torpor. But one day the flood would burst the dam of besotted ignorance, and the human cataract ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... first surprised me, who so well remembered the respect I had formerly seen paid this lord by men infinitely superior in quality to the person who now saluted him in the following manner: "Here, you lord, and be dam—d to your little sneaking soul, tell out your money, and supply your betters with what they want. Be quick, sirrah, or I'll fetch the beadle to you. Don't fancy yourself in the lower world again, with your privilege at your a—." He then shook a cane at his lordship, who immediately began ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding

... adventure that is supposed to dominate the young, that the old negro was sure he would come to no harm. Instead of wandering about, and going to places where he had no business to go, the little boy sat where he could see the water flowing over the big dam. He had never seen such a sight before, and the water seemed to him to have a personality of its own—a personality with ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... two champions of the Danaans, even the sons of Diokles, Krethon and Orsilochos. Like them, two lions on the mountain tops are nurtured by their dam in the deep forest thickets; and these harry the kine and goodly sheep and make havoc of the farmsteads of men, till in their turn they too are slain at men's hands with the keen bronze; in such wise were these twain vanquished ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... his own teeth to show me how; and he slipped the thing into hiding under my armpits. "The warriors—they come back to-day," he warned. "You wait till we are far, then cut quick, or they do worse to you than to La Robe Noire! I leave one horse for you in the valley beyond the beaver-dam. Tra-la, comrade, but not forget you. I pay you back yet all the same," and with a whistle, ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... crossed a certain line of reserve which he had set up between us. He would ramble on by the hour about the things around us; about the trees, the birds, and squirrels; of the way the muskrats lived by the sawmill dam, and their cleverness in avoiding his traps; about the deer that "yarded" back of Taft's Knob last winter, and their leanness in the spring. Sometimes he would speak of Mother Marvin, saying she "thought a heap of Ruby, and ought to," ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... be confined mainly to the flood-plains of the rivers. Here and there considerable areas have been made fertile by capturing rivers, damming their streams so as to create great reservoirs, and then measuring out the waters to the farm lands below. The Salt River dam in Arizona, recently completed, will supply water to two thousand square miles, or ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... they found themselves near a place called Gower's Mill, and heard a sudden cry for help. Pressing forwards they saw a boat floating upside down, and whirling about tumultuously in the racing and rain-swollen eddies of the mill-dam. A floating straw hat was already being sucked in by the gurgling rush of water that roared under the mighty circumference of the wheel, and for a moment they saw nothing more. But as they ran up, a black spot emerged from the stream, only a few yards from the mill, ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... spruce thickets along the lake. Ask him if he ever tasted duck that could for a moment be compared to the black ducks in the rice marsh along the Ossawippi. And as for fish, and fishing,—no, don't ask him about that, for if he ever starts telling you of the chub they used to catch below the mill dam and the green bass that used to lie in the water-shadow of the rocks beside the Indian's Island, not even the long dull evening in this club would be long enough for the telling ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock

... down; and, instead of the ordinary roar of the water under the wheel, only a hissing sound was heard, where the imprisoned water spouted through the crevices of the flume. Vast stalactites of ice extended continuously along the whole face of the dam, like a frozen waterfall, behind which the water percolated curiously down into the foaming abyss, at the bottom of the fall. Jonas thought that all this, seen by starlight, looked ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott

... rapidly while the boat was building, and when they tried to sail their new craft it stuck midway across the dam of Rutledge's mill at New Salem, a village of fifteen or twenty houses not many miles from their starting-point. With its bow high in air, and its stern under water, it looked like some ungainly fish trying to fly, or some bird making an unsuccessful attempt ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay

... Ernest Boyd which has been appearing in your magazine, and I wonder if you could take the time to give me a little piece of information about them. You see there was a Nancy Boyd (her mother was Nancy Kroomen of Beaver Dam) and her bro. Ernest, who was neighbors to us for several years, and when they moved I sort of lost track of them. You know how those things are. But it's a small world after all, isn't it? and I shouldn't be at all surprised if this was the same party and, ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart

... can follow it, through the old pasture overgrown with alders, and up past the broken-down mill-dam and the crumbling sluice, into the mountain-cleft from which it leaps laughing! The water, except just after a rain-storm, is as transparent as glass—old-fashioned window-glass, I mean, in small panes, with just a tinge of green in it, like the air in a grove of young birches. Twelve ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... and some clams were stirred in. While these were cooking, he took his smooth-bore flint-lock, crawled gently over the ridge that screened his wigwam from the northwest wind, and peered with hawk-like eyes across the broad sheet of water that, held by a high beaver-dam, filled the little valley ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... I remember your politics, and I think I do, you are going to try and take away that title from me. You are amongst those, are you not, who have set themselves to dam the torrents?" ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... described less coarsely, but there was even more truth in the gist of the saying. Not only they did nothing. There was nothing for them to do. They floated about in a peaceful millpool, whose placid surface reflected nothing but their own idle selves, little guessing that the dam whereby their mimic sea was confined, would shortly break with a thundering crash and empty them all into the stream of real life that flowed below. For the few who disliked idleness there was no occupation but literature, and literature, to the Roman mind ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... Chink; the next time you so much as glance in Miss Vost's direction, you're going to walk away with a pair of the dam'dest black eyes in ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... were growing tall and pretty to look upon, like suddenly grown girls, and the sun was beginning to shine hot. Now she passed over rustic bridges, under posted warnings to drive slow or pay a fine, or through sandy fords across purling streams, hearing the monotone of some unseen mill-dam, or scaring the tall gray crane from his fishing, or the otter from his pranks. Again she went up into leagues of clear pine forest, with stems as straight as lances; meeting now a farmer, and now a school-girl or two, and once a squad of scouts, ill-mounted, ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... released. Another blow from the ram, and the door fell to finders. They leaped in over the table like a freshet over a dam. I darted to the window. M. Etienne was in the garret, helping hold the ladder for me. I flung myself upon it all too eagerly. Like a lath ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... the brother of the guardian of the shades of men. His wife desired to have a large prawn that lived in the Baram river; so USAI built a dam across the river at LUBOK SUAN (a spot where the river is about 250 yards in width) and baled out the water below it, seizing the crocodiles with his fingers and whisking them out on to the bank. While this operation was in progress, the dam gave way; and USAI'S wife was drowned in the sudden ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... Wyndham, sir," and writes it down. Then he takes the paper and reads out loud: "Sire unknown, dam unknown, breeder unknown, date of birth unknown. You'd better call him the 'Great Unknown,'" says he. ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis

... fort shnadud cach ambi ria ndula m' chri, a Ri slan, ic do guide dam cen dichil, an rimm ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous

... did Wardour endure and stem my opposition. Swift and strong as the current of my will flowed naturally, he was ever its master, as the stone dam can stay and lull the fiercest rivers. He persisted, knowing well what was at stake, and to my surprise Dr: Pemberton and Mr. Gerald Stansbury cooperated with his decision. Nor did Mr. Lodore oppose it, though losing thereby one of his ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... oppressed and bewildered, after listening intent, with grave and wondering eyes, to the conversation around him; at others, the bright animal life shone forth radiant, and no three-months' kitten—no foal, suddenly tossing up its heels by the side of its sedate dam, and careering around the pasture in pure mad enjoyment—no young creature of any kind, could show more merriment and ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... it up!" cried a voice out of the darkness. "Keep it up, and perhaps some beaver'll come along and build a dam to get you out of that mess you're in! You're always getting ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman

... were falling round him. He spoke, but his voice was drowned in a deafening explosion, and the whole landscape about him seemed afire. In the semi-darkness hundreds of protectors could be seen struggling in the rushing water, moving stones and building a dam. Waldmeer again faced his far-off audience and spoke:—"Prince Marentel has turned the course of the stream. All now depends on the success or failure of his final test with explosives, which will take place ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben

... After their boy was born, the wanderer wished very much to go back to his Elder Brother and to show him his wife and child. But the beaver-woman refused to go, so at last he went alone for a short visit. When he returned, there was only a trickle of water beside the broken dam, the beautiful home was left desolate, and wife ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... improvement, which I offered to make at my own expense. I asked permission to dam up a little stream, dig some trenches, and irrigate the fields, by which I could have doubled the produce both in quantity and quality. You will hardly imagine the answer I received. The monks declared the extraordinary fertility which would result from the irrigation, would ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... is how he puts it now. [JOHN cannot help raising his head to listen.] 'Gentlemen, the Opposition are calling to you to vote for them and the flowing tide, but I ask you cheerfully to vote for us and DAM the ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie

... foxes. All three were suckled by one of my dogs, and here they are. You see, they play with the goats, and are exceedingly fond of the mules. They positively prefer the company of the mules to mine, although when I come here with their foster-dam, the deerhound, they all condescend to leave this compound and to follow me through ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... breed, Motley fruit of mongrel seed; By the dam from lordlings sprung. By the sire exhaled from dung: Think on every vice in both, Look on him, and see their growth. View him on the mother's side,[2] Fill'd with falsehood, spleen, and pride; Positive and overbearing, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... called 'triers,' and, being high Calvinists, were nick-named Dr. Absolute, chairman, Mr. Fatality, Mr. Fri-babe, Mr. Dam-man, Mr. Narrow-grace, Mr. Indefectible, Mr. Dubious, and others. They turned out of their livings those clergymen who were proved to be immoral in their conduct, and others who did not come up to the orthodox standard. Of these, Mr. Walker, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... neighbors and to stop up the current of his life with a long silence is like obstructing a river—eventually the water either sweeps away the dam or rises over it, and the stronger the dam the more destructive is that final rush to freedom. Vic Gregg was on the danger side of thirty and he lived alone in the mountains all that winter. He wanted ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... refreshment of his land near Kikiloa, and, having marked the route, he ordered the menehune, as they call the little people, to do the work. It would have been polite to ask rather than to command; still, they did what was required of them, each oaf lugging a stone to the river for the dam, which may be seen to this day. The hum and bustle of the work were heard all night, and so pleased was the farmer, when morning came and the ditch was built, that he set a feast for the menehune on the next ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... fergit that ye're our candidate, that ye are to express the opinion of the people who will elect ye, and not any dam' ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... business, and four thousand persons meet together every day in its Exchange. Its river is crowded with shipping; American cars rattle along its streets; and ferry-boats built on the American principle steam to and fro across the Alster-Dam. Its hospitals, sailors' home, libraries, and ornamental gardens are not inferior to those of New York itself: in these two cities, if the dollar does jingle too often in conversation, it is sometimes made to shine in a worthy cause. After ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... grandfather; great- grandfather; fathership[obs3], fatherhood; mabap[obs3]. house, stem, trunk, tree, stock, stirps, pedigree, lineage, line, family, tribe, sept, race, clan; genealogy, descent, extraction, birth, ancestry; forefathers, forbears, patriarchs. motherhood, maternity; mother, dam, mamma, materfamilias[Lat], grandmother. Adj. paternal, parental; maternal; family, ancestral, linear, patriarchal. Phr. avi numerantur avorum[Lat]; "happy he with such a mother" [Tennyson]; hombre ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... No: like the dam Of the young lion, femininely raging (And femininely meaneth furiously, 380 Because all passions in excess are female,) Against the hunter flying with her cub, She urged on with her voice and gesture, and Her floating ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... walnut I found in the valley near Watts Bar Dam. I named it Pineland. It is just a seedling. It is a most wonderful nut if it wasn't for its hard shell. It's hard as the dickens. It is a wonderful bearer, has borne every year for nine years. It happens to be in unusually good soil. But I have grafted a few up away from the river, and the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various

... interposition; obtrusion; discouragement, discountenance. impediment, let, obstacle, obstruction, knot, knag[obs3]; check, hitch, contretemps, screw loose, grit in the oil. bar, stile, barrier; [barrier to vehicles] turnstile, turnpike; gate, portcullis. beaver dam; trocha[obs3]; barricade &c. (defense) 717; wall, dead wall, sea wall, levee breakwater, groyne[obs3]; bulkhead, block, buffer; stopper &c. 263; boom, dam, weir, burrock[obs3]. drawback, objection; stumbling-block, stumbling-stone; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... dam swallowed this excrescence immediately on the birth of her foal, and that, if prevented doing so, she lost ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various

... But the Newtown Creek method is fatal to such a result. Of course that method often apparently wins. But it always fails when directed against a resolute and earnest purpose. The great causes persist through seeming defeat to victory. But to oppose them with sneers and blackguardism is to affect to dam Niagara with a piece of paper. The crafty old lawyer advised the younger to reserve his abuse until he felt that he had no case. Judge Grover remarked that it was when the case was lost that the ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis

... changes in Beaver Tooth's colony since the days of his feud with Kazan and the otters. Old Beaver Tooth was somewhat older. He was fatter. He slept a great deal, and perhaps he was less cautious. He was dozing on the great mud-and-brushwood dam of which he had been engineer-in-chief, when Baree came out softly on a high bank thirty or forty feet away. So noiseless had Baree been that none of the beavers had seen or heard him. He squatted himself flat on his belly, hidden behind a tuft of grass, ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... after-hours he, used to delve into for anybody's or everybody's benefit. He was particularly strong on folk-lore, and could dig up a few fat volumes any time on the folk-lore of any nation we had ever heard of. He liked to lie flat on the coffer-dam to read, with a row of tin letter-files under his head for a rest, the electric bulb and its shade so adjusted as to throw all the light on the page of his book. He had done a lot of reading and writing in his ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly

... are prone to consider these things harshly now, when slavery has been dead for nearly half a century, but it was a sacred institution then, and to sell a child from its mother was little more than to sell to-day a calf from its lowing dam. One could be sorry, of course, in both instances, but necessity or convenience are matters usually considered before sentiment. Mark Twain once said ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... 'Enamelling and Damascening,' Professor H. HERKOMER being in the Chair." Our excellent Bushian Professor was the right man in the right place, being so interested in theatrical matters; but, at the same time, wouldn't the lecture on "Damascening," or "How to Dam-a-scene," have been more suitably given at the Playwreckers' Club, with Mr. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various

... clung to the rocks and picked their way along dripping ledges. Bobby missed no chance to swim. If he could scramble over rough ground like a squirrel or a fox, he could swim like an otter. Swept over the low dam at Dean village, where a cup-like valley was formed, he tumbled over and over in the spray and was all but drowned. As soon as he got his breath and his bearings he struck out frantically for the bank, shook the foam from his eyes and ears, and barked indignantly at the saucy fall. ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... no. Meg Van Dam could face Mausers, but a Red Cross bazaar was as near as she got to the war. We call her the General because—oh, you'll find out. Meg is Mrs. Robert ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... pretty chickens and their dam?" asked the cousin, parting his coat-skirts to the genial influence ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... amount of it that we see; we wish people would mind their own business; we detest meddlers; we should be able to do more work if it were not for the bores—and so on. But what—what in heaven's name shall we do with the deluge when it comes? With what dam shall we withstand it; through what sluices shall we lead it; into what useful turbines shall we direct it? These things are ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... river, Through bush, and brake, and forest, Ran the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis; Like an antelope he bounded, Till he came unto a streamlet In the middle of the forest, To a streamlet still and tranquil, That had overflowed its margin, To a dam made by the beavers, To a pond of quiet water, Where knee-deep the trees were standing, Where the water lilies floated, Where the rushes waved ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow

... this engagement consisted only of three hundred men from Heilbron, twenty from Kroonstad, and forty or fifty from the Johannesburg Police, these latter under Captain Van Dam. The Police had arrived on the battlefield during the fighting, and had behaved in a ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet

... State of Maine, Monroe Seedling, Burpee's Extra Early, Blue Victor, Dunkirk Seedling, Early Sunrise, Beauty of Hebron, Rochester Rose, Early Potentate, Pink Eye, Queen of the Valley, Early Rose Monroe County. Silver medal Potatoes Montgomery County. Silver medal Potatoes A. J. Moore, Beaver Dam. Silver medal Potatoes.—American Wonder, Epitomes, Pride of Jersey, Mohawk Valley, Pan American, Rural New Yorker No. a, Mr. Dooley, Adirondack, Bovee, White Hebron, Early Puritan, Clark's Nonesuch, Prize Taker, Michigan Russet, Early Sunrise ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis

... sometimes on Dyke tops, sometimes in Dyke bottoms which only required the efforts of a few able-bodied rats to let the water in upon us. It is quite surprising to see on what a precarious tenure Holland is held. Take but a Dyke away, overturn one dam, and see what discord follows—and this does sometimes happen. In 1809 the Ice broke through near Gorum and carried away countless houses, men, cattle, &c. I have said the country improved, i.e., we got into a land of ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... nobleman said in 'is well-known wy: "Sit in me Club winder an' watch it ryne on the dam people!" That's if I was a average nobleman! If I was a bit more noble, I might be tempted to come the kind'earted on twenty thou' a year. Some prefers yachts, or ryce 'orses. But philanthropy on the 'ole is syfer, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... creeking day by day, Tells when She goes her long white egg to lay: A goose I have, which, with a jealous ear, Lets loose Her tongue, to tell what danger's near. A lamb I keep, tame, with my morsels fed, Whose dam An orphan left him, lately dead: A cat I keep, that plays about my house, Grown fat With eating many a miching mouse: To these A Trasy I do keep, whereby I please The more my rural privacy: Which are But toys, to give my heart some ease:— ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick

... cold for them to be out when he saw tracks two or three days ago!" replied Thede. "They're building a dam over on the river some place, and I suppose they think they've got to finish the job before real ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... wanted three appointments, and a well known engineer who had a grievance against the Patent Office. Followed these, an hour's conference with the Attorney General regarding the New Pension Bill, and at noon a conference with the head of the Reclamation Service on the matter of a new dam. ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... tell thee thou dost injure us; Thou talk'st of Christ, contrary to thy promise: Thou shouldst not think of God: think of the devil, And of his dam too. ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe

... butt their heads three times against the wall and take note that the wall falls not. Then and then only are they safe from Megalocephalia. There are temptations in life that require all of one's will to succumb to; and he who resists not the current of his being, nor attempts to dam the fountain of life for another, shall be crowned with bay and be ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... your natives or your women to possess such a thing as an individual will. That is a luxury for the strong sex only!... It all means just one thing. Out in the back veldt you are years and years and years, positive, aeons, behind the times; and you'd sooner represent a big dam to the progress of the world than yield one little silly, rotten cotton prejudice to help it forward. So there!..." And having delivered herself of this piece of oration Diana got up, pushed her chair back with a jerk, and finished, "I'm going out on the terrace. ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... twists and pokes suffice to repair it. The men at the lead curve in towards the beach, and the gins and piccaninnies wade out in line to meet them. Gradually the cable, shocking in its frailty, is worked in, enclosing a patch of the fish in a perilous coffer dam. Tumult and commotion are almost as necessary contributories to the success of the stratagem as is the cable. But before they realise what has happened, they are in such close company that escape is impossible; ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... own lodge, and there is no work by the colony in common. If, however, there is a question of inhabiting the bank of a shallow stream, certain preliminary works become necessary. The rodents establish a dam, so that they may possess a large sheet of water which may be of fair depth, and above all constant, not at the mercy of the rise and fall of the stream. A sudden and excessive flood is the one danger likely to prove fatal ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... over the hill, I observed a few lodges moving rapidly away, and also some mounted warriors, who could see me, and who kept blazing away with their guns. The two Indians who had fired at me and had killed my horse were retreating across the creek on a beaver dam. I sent a few shots after them to accelerate their speed, and also fired at the ones on the other side of the stream. I was undecided as to whether it was best to run back to the command on foot or hold my position. ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody

... to have such decisions left to him, and she hid her impatience lest her showing it should incline him to delay. But one day, as she sat at tea in the gallery, he came in in his riding-clothes and said: "I've been over to the other side of the mountain. The February rains have weakened the dam of the Alette, and the vineyards will be in danger if we ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... if it might granted be, Jack and Gill, Mat and Will, And all the world would agree. "A plague take them all!" sayes Besse; "And a pestilence too!" sayes Margery, "The devill!" sayes Dick; "And his dam, (34) too!" sayes Nick; ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... the Midas. Long sinuous lengths of canvas hose wound down the creek bottom from the dam, like gigantic serpents, while the roll of gravel through the flumes mingled musically with the rush of waters, the tinkle of tools, and the song of steel on rock. There were four "strings" of boxes abreast, and the heaving line of shovellers ate rapidly into the creek bed, while teams ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... spot selected for their winter home, about a mile from the river on the bank of a small stream that flowed into it and near by a pond formed by an old and very large beaver dam. Here, before night of that first day, a snug hut of bark was erected for Ah-mo's accommodation, and from here the young men set forth the next morning on the busiest season of hunting and trapping in which either of them had ever engaged. ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... and suffixes, until the most ingenious philologist could not have figured out where the names had started. They made new words, also; they invented a whole language for use in these times of illumination, and which Thyrsis denoted by the name of "dam-fool talk". ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... progressive educator of a former generation, taught geography. When he desired to show how water running over hard rocky soil produced a Niagara, he took his class down to the creek behind the school house, built a dam and allowed the water to flow over it. When he wished to show how water flowing over soft ground resulted in a deltoid Nile, he took the class to a low, flat portion of the creek bed and pointed out the effect. The ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson

... East Indiaman, who spoke English, hearing of the arrival of Capt. Edwards, and our unfortunate boat, run to them with the glad tidings of their Captain having arrived; but one of them, starting up in surprise, said, "What Captain! dam'me, we have no Captain;" for they had reported, that the Captain and remainder of the crew had separated from them at sea in another boat. This immediately led to a suspicion of their being impostors; and they were ordered to be apprehended, and put into the castle. ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards

... of the river into the water, which was previously concealed from view; the dog's bark being echoed immediately afterwards by a cry of alarm from Teddy and a heavy plunge, as he, too, fell into the swiftly-flowing stream, and was borne out from the bank by the rapid current away towards the mill-dam below! ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson

... clearly—I suppose he sees clearly—the big process that dooms millions of lives to thwarting and discomfort and unhappy circumstances, and giving us no help, no hint, by which we may get that better "collective will and intelligence" which would dam the stream of human failure, and, on the other hand, Mr. Polly sitting on his gate, untrained, unwarned, confused, distressed, angry, seeing nothing except that he is, as it were, nettled in greyness and discomfort—with life dancing all about ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... they, with the Greeks Embarking, in their sable ships had sail'd To steed-fam'd Ilium; just revenge they sought For Atreus' sons, but perished first themselves. 655 As two young lions, in the deep recess Of some dark forest on the mountain's brow Late nourished by their dam, forth-issuing, seize The fatted flocks and kine, both folds and stalls Wasting rapacious, till, at length, themselves 660 Deep-wounded perish by the hand of man, So they, both vanquish'd by AEneas, fell, And like two lofty pines uprooted, lay. Them fallen in battle Menelaus saw With pity ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... the frail ship, wind-driven through crashing waves, can turn and face the blast; no more than the long dry grass can turn and quench the roaring flame; no more than the drooping willow bough can dam the torrent and force it backwards ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... "'Lift thig dam trap, quig!' he shouted in a stifled voice; but the inspector and the detective simply doubled before him, and tried to hold their noses, whilst they laughed, and the light from their lanterns went dancing all ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson

... heard the Indians talk about these most industrious of all animals, and tell such wonderful stories of their cleverness; and so now, as the moon was still bright, it was decided to accept of the very kind invitations of some friendly Indians, and go and visit a large beaver dam that they had discovered was being constructed by a large colony of these animals. Nothing could have given greater pleasure to the boys than this invitation, and so it was ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young

... by sales of the fish he caught. He was believed to possess a secret charm that made his fish-bait irresistible. Certainly his fortune in this matter was superior to that of any other frequenter of the bass nooks below the dam. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... Major Thahib. This is a thword. Father's charger's got an over-weach. Jumping. He says it's a dam-nuithanth." ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... got to do is to follow the Laughing Brook way back into the Green Forest, and you'll come to Paddy's pond," said he. "He made that pond himself two years ago. He came down from the Great Woods and built a dam across the Laughing Brook way back there in the Green Forest and gave us a great scare here in the Smiling Pool by cutting off the water for a few days. He has got a very nice pond there now. Honker the Goose and his flock spent a night in it on their ...
— The Adventures of Poor Mrs. Quack • Thornton W. Burgess

... dam and the gray gristmill, Whose walls with the jar of grinding shook, And crossed, for the moment awed and still, The haunted bridge ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard

... depth, we saw some movement—not people, but movement. Something was moving about like a shadow. Suddenly the blows of a hatchet or a hammer resounded. They sounded so cheerful, so resonant, as in a forest, as on a river when you are mending a boat or building a dam. And in the presentiment of cheerful, harmonious work, I firmly embraced my wife, while she looked above the houses, above the roofs, looked at the young crescent of the moon, which was already setting. The moon was so young, so strange, even as a young girl who is dreaming and is afraid to tell ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... the distance of about half a mile from one of those wonderful lakes formed artificially in days long past for the purpose of irrigating the rice fields of the low country. They were usually created by the erection of a dam across the mouth of a valley, oftentimes not less than two miles in length, and from fifty to eighty feet in height, and of a proportionable thickness. Often these artificial pieces of water are ten or a dozen miles in circumference, and of great depth. They ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... to a prodigious area, that would be fertilized not only by irrigation, but by the annual deposit of soil from the water, allowed to remain upon the surface. This suggestion might be carried out by gradations; the great work might be commenced by a single dam above the first cataract at Assouan, at a spot where the river is walled in by granite hills; at that place, the water could be raised to an exceedingly high level, that would command an immense ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... and would be out for some days; we were glad, madly glad. All began to make noises at the same time, to sing, to shout, to yell; in the night, on the road with its lines of poplars we became madly delirious, we broke free like a confused torrent from a broken dam. Everybody (p. 213) had something to say or sing, senseless chatter and sentimental songs ran riot; all uttered something for the mere pleasure of utterance; we were out of the trenches and free for the ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... of such a mass! In what subterranean layer could they have had such confidence, in this country where the earth sinks in, all of a sudden, where islands disappear without leaving a trace—that they ventured to build upon it so mighty an edifice! And observe that not only one dam is thus built; in the two islands of Zuid Beveland and Walcheren a dozen have been constructed. There are two at Wormeldingen. In the presence of these achievements, of problems faced with such courage and solved with such ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... who imparted knowledge to me on all subjects relating to Arabian horses. He would descant by the hour on the qualities of a colt that was yet untried, but which, he concluded, must possess all the perfections of its sire and dam, with whose histories, and that of their progenitors, he was well acquainted. Hyder had shares in five or six famous brood mares; and he told me a mare was sometimes divided amongst ten or twelve Arabs, which accounted for the groups ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various

... several of our managing and principal people being sick. It is indeed an awful time here with us now, scarcely a day but some are seized with fevers. It is, I believe, owing to the abundance of water, there being rice-fields all around us, in which they dam up the water, so that all the country hereabouts is about a foot deep in water; and as we have rain, though moderate to what I expected the rainy season to be, yet the continual moisture occasions fevers in such situations where rice is cultivated...Felt ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... sometimes the congregation is startled from repose by the shrill squeal of some unlucky brute, complaining of the torture inflicted by the sharp teeth of its ill-natured mate or vicious neighbor; or, perhaps, the flutter of fans is suspended at the obstreperous neigh by which some anxious dam recalls the silly foal that has strayed from her side; or the dissonant creaking of a cramped wheel makes doleful interludes between the verses of the hymn. Here naughty boys, escaped from the confinement of the sanctuary, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... together with a few letters from the Doge to the Venetian ambassador at Milan, and one or two other not very important documents contained in the archives of Venice, all printed by Comte Dam, are the sole authentic vouchers for this conspiracy now known to exist; and it must be confessed that they are insufficient for its elucidation. The Abbe St. Real, who for a long time was esteemed the chief historian of this dark transaction, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various

... respec' the sect! See! Women, lovely women! See? Respec' sect! Gimme y'han', buzzer—er—brother Quar'er! Your m' fr'en'; I'm your fr'en'. I know how it is. Gotter wife m'own. Rotten one. Stingy! Takes money outter m' pockets. Dam 'stravagant. Ruin me! ... Say, old boy, what about dividend due 'morrow on Orange County Eclectic—mean Erlextic—no!—mean 'Letric! ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... naturally would be, since I understand that the Germans invented it. I hear he came near losing his entire wheat-crop lately. Warren Mead's cows broke into the field one day last week—it was the very day the Germans captured the Chemang-de-dam, which may have been a coincidence or may not—and were making fine havoc of it when Mrs. Dick Clow happened to see them from her attic window. At first she had no intention of letting Mr. Pryor know. She told me she had just gloated over the sight of those cows pasturing ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... "fall," of water or the like; pronounced as "shoot," with which in meaning it is identical), a channel or trough, artificial or natural, down which objects such as timber, coal or grain may slide from a higher to a lower level. The word is also used of a channel cut in a dam or a river for the passage of floating timber, and in Louisiana and on the Mississippi of a channel at the side of a river, or narrow way between an island and the shore. The "Water-Chute" or water tobogganing, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various



Words linked to "Dam" :   jam, milldam, dkm, dike, Glen Canyon Dam, meter, Aswan High Dam, Tai Dam, hectometre, dam up, obstruct, hectometer, close up, Hoover Dam, dyke, female, tinker's dam, occlude, barrier, decametre, m, dekameter, metre, metric linear unit, block



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