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Limber   Listen
noun
Limber  n.  
1.
pl. The shafts or thills of a wagon or carriage. (Prov. Eng.)
2.
(Mil.) The detachable fore part of a gun carriage, consisting of two wheels, an axle, and a shaft to which the horses are attached. On top is an ammunition box upon which the cannoneers sit.
3.
pl. (Naut.) Gutters or conduits on each side of the keelson to afford a passage for water to the pump well.
Limber boards (Naut.), short pieces of plank forming part of the lining of a ship's floor immediately above the timbers, so as to prevent the limbers from becoming clogged.
Limber box or Limber chest (Mil.), a box on the limber for carrying ammunition.
Limber rope, Limber chain or Limber clearer (Naut.), a rope or chain passing through the limbers of a ship, by which they may be cleared of dirt that chokes them.
Limber strake (Shipbuilding), the first course of inside planking next the keelson.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Limber" Quotes from Famous Books



... been placed upon a limber and driven into Cawnpore. Her spirit had risen as they were assailed by insults and imprecations by the roughs of the town, and she had borne up bravely till, upon their arrival at the entrance to what ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty

... observed, especially on the pines and oaks. The round yellow clusters growing on the branches of the oaks sometimes give the entire forest a yellow hue. In the foot-hills I saw a kind of parasite, whose straight, limber branches of a fresh, dark green colour hang down in bunches over twenty feet in length. Some epiphytes, which most of the year look to the casual observer like so many tufts of hay on the branches, produce at certain seasons extremely ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... you again." The circus man took hold of Pony and felt his joints. "You're put together pretty tight; but I reckon we could make you do if you'd let us take you apart with a screw-driver and limber up the pieces with rattlesnake oil. Wouldn't like it, heigh? Well, let me see!" The circus man thought a moment, and then he said: "How would double-somersaults on ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells

... away, but installed about halfway between it and the flitter were two of the alien warriors. Perhaps they had changed watches during the night. If they had not, they could go without sleep to an amazing degree, for as Raf walked in a circle about the flyer to limber up, they watched him closely, nor did their grips on their odd weapons loosen. And he had a very clear idea that if he stepped over some invisible boundary he ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... shade, all barred With lines of denser blackness, dexter-borne. Rank after rank, they came, out of the dark, So silently no pebble crunched beneath Their feet more sharp than did a woodchuck stir. And so came on the foe all stealthily, And found their guns a-limber, fires ablaze, And men in calm repose. With bay'nets fixed The section in advance fell on the camp, And killed the first two sentries, whose sharp cries Alarmed a third, who fired, and firing, fled. This roused the guard, but "Forward!" was the word, And on ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... run up to headquarters, and find out about the weather;' and clim' up the main-mast as limber as a squirrel, and when he came back, thar' was Tommy's hat stickin' way up top o' the mast; so Tommy, he promised to pay him—them two was always foolin' together, but good-natered enough." The captain introduced this little incident, in the midst of his narration, with ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... buttons, or watch chain, without which a morning call can scarcely be accomplished by either hostess or guest. This alone will give us a sense of perfect rest which we have never before experienced. Similar exercises are given for other portions of the body—legs and feet—a revolving of the head to limber the neck; a revolution of the shoulders and the body to gain that flexibility which is ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... jinks!" cried King, capering about in his long Court robes, and looking like a very merry Monarch, indeed. "First the May-pole dance, that'll limber us up some." ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells

... and limber, Bore him home on poles and branches, Bore the body of the beaver; But the ghost, the Jeebi in him, Thought and felt as Pau-Puk-Keewis, Still lived on ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow

... spouse and I informed the nation, And led you all the way to reformation; Not with dull morals, gravely writ, like those, Which men of easy phlegm with care compose,— Your poets, of stiff words and limber sense, Born on the confines of indifference; But by examples drawn, I dare to say, From most of you who hear and see the play. There are more Rhodophils in this theatre, More Palamedes, and some few wives, I fear: But yet too far our poet would not run; Though 'twas well offered, there ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... good luck," breathed Mr. Phipps, as the lad rode away at the same time straightening out his rope which he allowed to drag behind his pony while he recoiled it, working it in his hands to limber the rawhide. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin

... composed of several thick pieces placed lengthways, which, after being scarphed together, are bolted and clinched upon the upper side. In iron vessels the keel is formed of one or more plates of iron, having a concave curve, or limber channel, along its upper surface.—To give the keel, is to careen.—Keel formerly meant a vessel; so many "keels struck the sands." Also, a low flat-bottomed vessel used on the Tyne to carry coals (21 tons 4 cwt.) ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... pains were fiercest. How I groaned until the muscles became limber. I found myself using very rough language, groaning, gritting my teeth viciously. But I stayed with the work and held up my end, while the laymen watched us sedulously, and seemed to grudge us even a moment to wipe the sweat out of our ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... Horn, taking advantage of the calm to exercise the boat's crew with the fire-arms and to limber up the weapons, was passing out the Lee-Enfields from their place on top the cabin skylight, Jerry suddenly crouched and began to stalk stiff-legged. But the wild-dog, three feet from his lair under the trade-boxes, was not unobservant. He watched and snarled threateningly. It was not ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... rose and tightened his belt about him and set out afresh. The long sleep had restored his vigor and his eye gleamed with satisfaction. The muscles that had stiffened from long disuse—he would not have admitted that the stiffness came from age—were limber as of old, and he felt that, after all, it was good to be once more upon the trail. But even his confidence would have been rudely shaken could he have foreseen the peril wherein that trail ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... son. There's no sort of business about him. I don't know just how you'd describe him. He's tall; and he's got white hair and a moustache; and his fingers are very long and limber. I couldn't help noticing them as he sat there with his hands on the top of his cane. Didn't seem to be dressed very much, and acted just like anybody. Didn't talk much. Guess I did most of the talking. Said he was glad I seemed to be getting along so well with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... considerable weight and hardness. Before it cools and hardens, however, they take care to turn the edges, made thin for this purpose, up toward each other, thus forming a groove extending through the whole length of the metal-coated thong, with the exception of the extremity, which is left limber that it may be wound round the hand of the executioner, while a strong iron hook is appended to the other extremity. The scaffold on which the victim suffers is called in Russian 'Kobyla,' literally a mare. It is an inclined plane, on which the sufferer is tied, his back is stripped ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... from the ruin, the ivy-clad ruin, With old shaking arches, all moss overgrown, Where the flitter-bat hideth, The limber snake glideth, And chill water drips from the slimy ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow

... round the saddle-girth; With horsey wink and saucy toss A youngster throws his leg across, And so, his rider on his back, They lead him, limping, to the track, Far up behind the starting-point, To limber out each ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, might not be altogether unwarranted. But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the .. centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... often stationary in one shoulder or loin, at other times shifts about suddenly to other portions of the body. The muscles are tender and the joints stiff, the animal seems lame till he becomes healed, and limber when all appearance of the disease vanishes. In old cases the limbs become so much enlarged, and the joints so swollen, that the dog is rendered perfectly useless, and consequently increases his sufferings by idleness. 'This form of the disease ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... ain't got a sufficiency yet, boys. Limber up them guns again. Same order as before. Put a few more petals on them flowers, and I'll trim ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... traces of Hellenic and foreign influence alike." See Mahaffy, "Hist. of Greek Lit." vol. ii. ch. x. p. 257 (1st ed.); cf. Walt Whitman, "Preface to" original edition of "Leaves of Grass," p. 29—"The English language befriends the grand American expression: it is brawny enough and limber and full enough, on the tough stock of a race, who through all change of circumstances was never without the idea of a political liberty, which is the animus of all liberty; it has attracted the terms of daintier and gayer and subtler and more ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon

... well-grown apprentices, The swing of their axes on the square-hew'd log, shaping it toward the shape of a mast, The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine, The butter-color'd chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, The limber motion of brawny young arms ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... the other end of the alleyway. "And you have been sprinkling it on this midshipman's uniform? You are the fellow who runs the temperance drinks place? A nice business for you to be in—drugging midshipmen and trying to ruin them! To prison you go, unless you limber up your tongue. Who put you up to this miserable business? Talk quickly—or off to a cell ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock

... I went into the parlour with my books, I found my mother looking anxious, Miss Murdstone looking firm, and Mr. Murdstone binding something round the bottom of a cane—a lithe and limber cane, which he left off binding when I came in, and poised ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... in the spring, although it may be done in the fall. But the spring is a more limber time with Nature. Sap is begining to flow; life is new and fresh again; all the plant world is ready to start up and do something. Then, too, the bark of trees should be in as flexible a condition as possible. The two things really necessary ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw

... at hand a large coarse pen of little flexibility and smooth point for drawing heavy lines of even width. In using water-color in place of ink such a pen will be found more satisfactory than the Gillot 303, as the thinness of the fluid causes the line to spread whenever pressure is applied to a limber and finely pointed pen, with the result that the line is not only broadened, but when dry shows darker than was intended, as more color is deposited than in a narrow line. When a [200] narrow line of even width and sharpness is desired it ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown

... such a duty," answered Joshua, on whose grave features there came a smile. "Dame Linkon, if you would limber your joints we could make ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... it is in the style of a glorious vapourer, full of lofty airs and mock thunder. Nothing could be further from the truth of the man, whose character, even in his faults, was as compact and solid as adamant, and at the same time as limber and ductile as the finest gold. Certain critics have seized and worked upon this, as proving Shakespeare's lack of classical knowledge, or carelessness in the use of his authorities. It proves neither the one ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... the limber, bounding feet That swept the winter's snows? What stateliest stag so fast and fleet? ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... do goo vor lime, an' bring Hwome cider wi' my sleek-heaeir'd team, An' smack my limber whip an' zing, While all their bells do ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes

... upon the snow-shoes With a long and limber stride; And I hailed the dusky stranger, As we traveled side ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs

... no burn, I tell you it felt good. By the time we arrived in Oakland I was as limber and strong as ever,—though Charley and Neil Partington were afraid I was going to have pneumonia, and Mrs. Partington, for my first six months of school, kept an anxious eye upon me to discover the ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London

... said Lloyd. "Campbell would not risk any scrimmaging or tackling this evening, with McGill men even now in town thirsting for their blood. He's got them out for a run to limber up their wind and things ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... as now in illegitimate, unworthy, and hurtful directions, but might become the very basis and groundwork of useful purposes. Such exercise would be so promotive of health and discipline, it would so train and LIMBER the physical powers, that the superior quality of study would, I doubt not, more than atone for whatever deficiency in quantity might result. And even suppose a little less attention should be given to ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... folding lips, the softness of which, yielding entry to any thing of a hard body, close round it, and oppose the sight; and feeling further, meets with, and wonder at, a soft fleshy excrescence, which, limber and relaxed after the late enjoyment, now grew, under the touch and examination of his fiery fingers, more and more stiff and considerable, till the titillating ardours of that so sensible part made me sigh, as if he had hurt me; on which he withdrew his curious ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... out of my window when I was a boy, so I need not disturb the aunts, and now I rather like it, for it's the shortest road, and it keeps me limber when I have no rigging to climb. Good-bye till breakfast." And away he went down the water-spout, over the roof, and vanished among ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... Miraflores tunnel through a mole-hill, past her concrete light-house among the astonished palms, and her giant hose of water wiping away the rock hills, across the trestleless bridge with its photographic glimpse of the canal before and behind for the limber-necked, and again I found myself in the metropolis of the Canal Zone. At the quartermaster's office my "application for quarters" was duly filed without a word and a slip assigning me to Room 3, House 47, as ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... nimble-witted, limber-legged prophet!" roared John Casson, throwing a pack of cards at Berkley. ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... legs we used to fling Limber-jointed in the dance, When we heard the fiddle ring Up the curtain of Romance, And in crowded public halls Played with hearts like jugglers' balls.— Feats of mountebanks, depend!— Tom Van ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley

... run," Smoke contradicted. "You can keep up with no man. Your backbone is limber as thawed marrow. If I run, I run alone. The world fades, and perhaps I shall never run. Caribou meat is very good, and soon will come ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... up in a big carry-all motor-van about the time Jack and his followers trooped on the field, and began to pass the ball around to limber up their muscles for the great test. They were given a royal reception, for there were many hundreds of Harmony rooters on hand to help the boys with cheers and the waving of flags and pennants. Besides, Chester was showing a fine spirit that could applaud a clever play, even on the part ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... Jackson Jorth, her uncle, huge, gaunt, hulking, with white in his black beard and hair, and the fire of a ghoul in his hollow eyes; Tad Jorth, another brother of her father's, younger, red of eye and nose, a weak-chinned drinker of rum. Three other limber-legged Texans lounged there, partners of Daggs, and they were sun-browned, light-haired, blue-eyed men singularly alike in appearance, from their dusty high-heeled boots to their broad black sombreros. They claimed to be sheepmen. All Ellen ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... Stella; can't you be a good fellow for once? Do it, if it hurts you. Honest, I hate to say it, but you're the limit, you are! My God! limber ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... mortification, he knew he would find his tea-leaves parched to a cinder. He lingered a moment, however, with his eyes still fixed upon the departing wolf that was just about to disappear over the crest of a ridge. The fox was still in his jaws, but no longer struggling. Reynard looked limber and dead, as his legs swung loosely on both sides of the wolf's head Lucien at that moment saw the latter suddenly stop in his career, and then drop down upon the surface of the snow as if dead! He fell with his victim in his jaws, and lay half ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... sixteenth of an inch or so at a time he succeeded in making another hole through the heavy planking. But this time the wire encountered a metallic obstruction. Sure enough, Tom could feel the troublesome hasp, but alas, the wire was now too limber to push it up. ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... Jamrkan and Sa'adan rode out with forty-thousand stalwart fighting-men, under each standard a thousand cavaliers, doughty champions, foremost in champaign. The two hosts drew out in battles and bared their blades and levelled their limber lances, for the drinking of the cup of death. The first to open the gate of strife was Sa'adan, as he were a mountain of syenite or a Marid of the Jinn. Then dashed out to him a champion of the Infidels, and the Ghul slew him and casting him to the earth, cried out to his ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... properly exercised for it when he was a child, might have turned out a fair contortionist. He was exceedingly slim and limber and had learned many of the tricks of the contortionist. He had done this merely to amuse his friends. Now the tricks stood ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell

... the centre brigades of Hardee were pushing into the gap, and, without serious opposition, were gaining Sherman's left flank. Waterhouse began to limber up his guns for a retreat. ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... any such word as this, we should naturally expect it to follow the signification of lithe; soft, limber: which will ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton

... appearance, fastened to his abbreviated shirt waist with stocking-suspenders, hated of all boys. Abe Carpenter, in a bathing-trunk, did shudder-breeding trapeze tricks, and Bud Perkins, who nightly rubbed himself limber in oil made by hanging a bottle of angle-worms in the sun to fry, wore his red calico base-ball clothes, and went through keg-hoops in a dozen different ways. In the streets of the town the youngsters appeared disguised as ordinary boys. ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White

... to limber up my German vocabulary he passed us along to his Ober-leutenant in the hut along the roadside. The Ober- Ieutenant was grave. He said we must report to army headquarters in Brussels, and that under no circumstances ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green

... keeper, and the lanky left-handed hitter strolled up to the plate, while Riordan, who was on deck, took up a couple of bats, swinging them about nervously to limber his arms. ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick

... rule to attack the enemy with renewed vigour, as soon as he begins to limber up his artillery in the combat, then on this particular fact depends a course of action which is aimed at the general situation of the enemy as inferred from the above fact, namely, that he is about to ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... side the girlish crowd, With lovely smiles and limber graces, Went singly, took their prizes, bowed, Returning sweetly ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various

... drunk. The oysters formerly mentioned grow on trees resembling willows in form, but having broader leaves, which are thick like leather, and bearing small knobs like those of the cypress. From these trees hang down many branches into the water, each about the thickness of a walking-stick, smooth, limber, and pithy within, which are overflowed by every tide, and hang as thick as they can stick of oysters, being the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... is unknown. The original Jewel House was behind it to the east, forming with the south side of the White Tower, and portions of the palace, a small courtyard, in which some remains of the ancient buildings may still be traced. On a raised platform is the gun-carriage and limber on which the body of Her Majesty the late Queen Victoria was conveyed on the occasion of her funeral, 2nd February, 1901, from Windsor Railway Station to St. George's Chapel. This was placed here by order of the Houses of Parliament. We now reach a doorway made ...
— Authorised Guide to the Tower of London • W. J. Loftie

... trifle with those who had such unlimited power to bless or to blast me. Master Hugh raved and swore his determination to "get hold of me;" but, wisely for him, and happily for me, his wrath only employed those very harmless, impalpable missiles, which roll from a limber tongue. In my desperation, I had fully made up my mind to measure strength with Master Hugh, in case he should undertake to execute his threats. I am glad there was no necessity for this; for resistance to him could not have ended so happily for me, as ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... three shells failed to explode. The Spanish general was soon convinced that his guns had accomplished their mission, for when they had fired some thirty shells a galloper was seen approaching the artillery officer, and the next moment that individual gave the word to cease fire and limber up. At the word, the drivers put their mules into motion and advanced toward the guns; whereupon Jack, who had been patiently awaiting this movement, gave an order to his sharpshooters, who immediately opened fire upon the teams, with the ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... rather a severe and dangerous sport. A lump of soft clay was stuck on the end of a limber and springy willow wand and thrown as boys throw apples from sticks, with considerable force. When there were fifty or a hundred players on each side, the battle became warm; but anything to arouse the bravery of Indian boys seemed to them a good ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman

... "Oh, limber up a bit, Bucky," said Thirkle. "What's the use of us all going to Kingdom Come over a little fight, when we've had so much fighting to get this? The gold turned all our heads, no doubt, but we can't be fools through it. The stuff's no ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore

... to explain it. He's been on the go pretty steadily, but what's a horse good for? Thursday afternoon we had our cross-country run and the ground was horribly stiff. I thought he had sprained his off foreleg for he limped a good deal on the home stretch, but he seemed to limber up all right the last few miles. I was sorry not to let him rest yesterday; would have put him in better trim I suppose for to-day's twenty mile pull,—but Cartwright and Peterson wanted to make up a tandem, and when they ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black

... of deep disgust from the Signaller brought no comment until the last letter was read, but then the Limber Gunner remembered and remarked ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable

... like a snow-fish, chucked out on the ice of the river St Lawrence, with your knees up to your nose, or your toes stuck into your arm-pits, as does take place in some of your foreign complaints; but straight, quite straight, and limber, like a gentleman. Still Jack is a little mischievous, that's sartain. In the Euridiscy we had as fine a ship's company as was ever piped aloft—'Steady, starboard, my man, you're half-a-pint off your course;'—we dropped our anchor in Port Royal, and we thought that ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... in his whirling globe. Continuing his investigations, he soon discovered that solid glass rods when rubbed produced the same effects as the tube. By mere chance, happening to hold a rubbed tube to his cheek, he felt the effect of electricity upon the skin like "a number of fine, limber hairs," and this suggested to him that, since the mysterious manifestation was so plain, it could be made to show its effects upon various substances. Suspending some woollen threads over the whirling glass cylinder, he found that as soon as he touched ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... "It'll limber us up and at the same time help the horses," he said. "Knowing what kind of rifles we carry and how we can shoot, the Sioux won't be in any hurry to ride into the forest directly after us. We've a big advantage now in being able to see without being seen. As we needn't hurry, ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler

... Convert more than half inspir'd, Strait to his Closet and his Books retir'd. There for all needful Arts in this extreme, For knotty Sophistry t'a limber Theme, Long brooding ere the Mass to Shape was brought, And after many a tugging heaving Thought, Together a well-orderd Speech he draws, With ponderous Sounds for his much-labour'd Cause. Then the astonisht Sanedrim he storm'd, And with such doughty strength the Tug perform'd: Fate did the Work ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.

... observed among the artillery-men, and in a short time several of the guns were dismounted, and four or five powder waggons blown up. Then a loud cheer burst from the Russian artillery-men as they saw the French bring up the horses from behind the shelter of the crest, limber-up and drive off with the guns. But from other points of vantage 150 guns were now pouring their fire into the town, and, as the flames broke out from several quarters, exclamations of grief and fury were ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... or closing the book to think, the memory re-telling some old and pretty tale; and then perhaps some graceful girl comes out of the house with a world of hopes and innocent desires in her wide-open eyes; or a tall and limber boy saunters out bare-headed and flannelled, conscious of life and health, and steps down to the punt that lies swinging at its chain—one hears it rattle as it is untied and flung into the prow; and then the dripping pole is plunged and raised, and the punt goes gliding away, through zones ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... spun twice on her chair and opened her photocells wide. Tin Philosopher coughed to limber up the diaphragm of ...
— Bread Overhead • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... up. They would leap and rear with impatience when taken into the open before they were hooked to the vehicle. They were being very well fed, and though once a week they had the hardest of work, for the rest of the time they had never more than enough to limber them up, for on schooldays I used to take them out for a spin of three or four miles only, after four. At home, when I left, my wife and I would get them ready in the stable; then I took them out and lined them up in front of the buggy. My wife quickly took the lines: I hooked the traces ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... I understand," quoth the limber youth from the South,—"in England a man isn't allowed to play with no fire-arms. He's got to be taught all that when he enlists. I didn't want much teaching how to shoot straight 'fore I served Uncle Sam. And that's just ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling

... gunners got down and stood there, quite at a loss. They ought to load; yet the word of command, "Prepare for action!" had not been given. And how could they load when the seats and the limber-boxes were still locked, and when ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... almost sufficient to sicken a healthy individual; how much more injurious must be its effects upon the lodgers themselves. Examine in the morning a child, who has passed the night thus confined. You will find him limber as a rag, exhausted by perspiration, wholly destitute of animation, without appetite, and on the very verge of cholera. I should recommend an entirely different plan of management. Instead of a feather bed, the child should be placed on a hard mattress, or on blankets ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... wheelropes, made of green hide, laid up in the form of rope, were stretched and fitted; and new topsail clew-lines, &c. rove; new fore-topmast backstays fitted; and other preparations made in good season, that the ropes might have time to stretch and become limber before we got ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... we hitched, Ike took good britches hold, and lifted me up and down a few times like I was a child. He was the heaviest, but I had the most spring in me, and so I jest let him play round for sum time, limber like, until he suddenly took a notion to make short work of it by one of his backleg movements. He drawed me up to his body and lifted me in the air with a powerful twist. Just at that minit his back was close to the river bank, and as my feet touched the ground ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various

... more propitious for this necessary understanding with Maria, who was feeling amiable, apologetic, as limber as Joan, and almost as warm. She had also ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... a grey-headed man, slack in the twist but limber in the joints—distinguished by a constant lowering of the eye and a spasmodic twitching of the corners of the mouth. He was active and nimble, and in moments of excitement much given to spitting Gaelic oaths like a wild-cat. But, spite his half-century of life, ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... chuffing away, waiting to get the traffic cop's sign when to cut in on the avenue. I just took a dodge and hung on to the extra tire under the top where nobody saw me, and when they stopped, I got the house number they went in. Little pink was lying all white and limber yet, and nurse looked worried as she carried her up. She said something fierce to the boys, the big one rang and they went inside. I saw a footman take the girl. I heard nurse begin that 'eat too much' story, then I cut ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... up in the shop all the week, it would be rather hard to prevent my having a little sport on Sunday. I think it is necessary to swallow a little fresh air on Sunday, to blow the sawdust out of my throat; and to have a game of ball occasionally, to keep my joints limber, for they get stiff leaning over the work-bench, shoving the jack-plane, and chiseling out ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown

... black cat with a long red dress comes out and murders the same pieces the prima donnas have sung. We have seen a colored girl attempt a selection from some organ-grinder opera, and she would howl and screech, and catch her breath and come again, and wheel and fire vocal shrapnel, limber up her battery and take a new position, and unlimber and send volleys of soprano grape and cannister into the audience, and then she would catch on to the highest note she could reach and hang to it like a dog to a root, till you would ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... tall as a Ships Mast, and very streight, bearing only Leaves: which are of great use and benefit to this People; one single Leaf being so broad and large, that it will cover some fifteen or twenty men, and keep them dry when it rains. The leaf being dryed is very strong, and limber and most wonderfully made for mens Convenience to carry along with them; for tho this leaf be thus broad when it is open, yet it will fold close like a Ladies Fan, and then it is no bigger than a mans arm. ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... by such an attitude), stretched himself upon the opposite place, reclining upon his elbow in a most painful and awkward situation, with his head raised above the end of the couch, that the economy of his hair might not suffer by the projection of his body. The Italian, being a thin limber creature, planted himself next to Pickle, without sustaining any misfortune but that of his stocking being torn by a ragged nail of the seat, as he raised his legs on a level with the rest of his limbs. But ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... Mr. Puffington, fat, fair, and rather more than forty—Puffington, no longer the light limber lad who patronized us in Bond Street, but Puffington a plump, portly sort of personage, filling his smart clothes uncommonly full. Men no longer hailing him heartily from bay windows, or greeting him cheerily in short but familiar terms, but bowing ceremoniously as they ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... CHOLERA.—There are a few diseases, such as septicaemia, limber neck and infectious enteritis, that are sometimes mistaken for fowl cholera. These diseases are caused by different microorganisms that may be found in the digestive tract and air-passages of healthy birds, ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... both the civilian and the soldier agreed that their only chance was to fight. Williams opened fire with his Infantry, and Ricketts took command of the guns. At the first discharge the horses bolted with the limber, and never appeared again; almost at the same moment Williams fell, shot through the body. Ricketts continued the fight until his ammunition was completely expended, when he was reluctantly obliged to retire to a village in the neighbourhood, but not until he had killed, ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... thought to hear such words spoken," she admitted; "but I guess she'll limber up all right. The atmosphere is bad ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... floor beside a powder can that had been used for a bucket, while just inside the south door stood a comical homemade shakedown. The frame was built of straight young aspen poles, while the springs were just a carefully woven layer of balsam boughs spread over a bottom of limber young saplings. It had once been a wonder of comfort and ease, but its value had passed with the departure ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley

... between bites of a doughnut, 'I don' care what I ride in so long as 'tain't a hearse. I want sumthin' at's comfortable an' purty middlin' spry. It'll do us good up here t' git jerked a few hunderd miles an' back ev'ry leetle while. Keep our j'ints limber. We'll live longer fer it, an' thet'll please God sure—cuz I don't think he's hankerin' fer our society—not a bit. Don' make no difference t' him whuther we ride 'n a spring wagon er on the cars so long's we're right side up 'n movin'. We need more steam; we're too dum slow. Kind o' ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... and my most prosperous parts, They do so spring and burgeon; I can feel A whimsy in my blood: I know not how, Success hath made me wanton. I could skip Out of my skin, now, like a subtle snake, I am so limber. O! your parasite Is a most precious thing, dropt from above, Not bred 'mongst clods, and clodpoles, here on earth. I muse, the mystery was not made a science, It is so liberally profest! almost All the wise world is little ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson

... for instance: "Especially to be remarked is the noble altruism of Lieut. Henry, who on more than one march has been observed to take his pack, containing all his worldly goods, off his back and to hand it without ostentation to some lucky driver of a limber, saying, 'Take it, my lad; your need is greater than mine.'" Or again, referring to my later career: "The pen is mightier than the sword, but Lieut. Henry's indelible pencil, when engaged on official correspondence, is mightier than both." Or at least, at the very beginning of things, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various

... is a beautiful straw!" said Miss Ruey, in a plaintive tone, tenderly examining the battered old head-piece,—"I braided every stroke on it myself, and I don't know as I could do it ag'in. My fingers ain't quite so limber as they was! I don't think I shall put green ribbon on it ag'in; 'cause green is such a color to ruin, if a body gets caught out in a shower! There's these green streaks come that day I left my amberil at Captain Broad's, and went to meetin'. Mis' Broad she says to me, 'Aunt Ruey, ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... we got him limber, straightened out, and warm, it didn't rip so when he breathed, then they put him in the parlour on the big davenport. Leon said if the sparkin' bench didn't bring him to, nothing would. Laddie sat beside him and mother kept peeping. She wouldn't let ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... off with limber vows; but I, Tho' you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths Should still say, "Sir, no going!" Verily, You shall not go! A lady's verily is As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet? Force me to keep you as a prisoner, Not like ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... have made him hesitate to leave three stirring boys under her entire control. Possibly he forgot that he had had his parents, and a doting aunt or two, to pad the angularities of Mrs. Handsomebody's rule, and to say whether or not her limber cane should seek his plumpest and ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... arranged for the following Sunday at Erribiague, a far-distant village, near the tall mountains. Ramuntcho, Arrochkoa and Florentino were to play against three celebrated ones of Spain; they were to practice that evening, limber their arms on the square of Etchezar, and Gracieuse, with other little girls of her age, had taken seats on the granite benches to look at them. The girls, all pretty; with elegant airs in their pale colored waists cut in accordance with the most recent vagary of the season. And they were laughing, ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti

... with a discouraging and cynical suspicion. I certainly did look as rugged as a navvy. When they gave me a going over, they found that my heart was out of place and that my left hand might never limber up again. They voted for a discharge in jig time. I had all I could do to keep from ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes

... had left his horse below and his gun, she waited for him to come back, which he did, by and by, dripping and soaked to his knees. Then she saw him untie the queer "gun" on his saddle, pull it out of a case and—her eyes got big with wonder—take it to pieces and make it into a long limber rod. In a moment he had cast a minnow into the pool and waded out into the water up to his hips. She had never seen so queer a fishing-pole—so queer a fisherman. How could he get a fish out with that little switch, she ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... two-by-six plank four or five feet long with a single grab-nail in the end,—the springboard of the Pacific coast logger, whose daily business lies among the biggest timber on God's footstool. Each then clambered up on his precarious perch, took hold of his end of the long, limber saw, and cut in to a depth of a foot or more, according to the size of the tree. Then jointly they chopped down to this sawed line, and there was the undercut complete, a deep notch on the side to which the tree would fall. That done, they swung the ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... alive as the softer parts of the body. It is the lime that makes them stiff. This can be eaten out by putting the bone in strong vinegar or other acid for a few days. A long bone will then become so limber that it can ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison

... no other than the man Garnache had known as "Sanguinetti"—brought him, still clad in the clothes in which he had come. He was a tall, limber fellow, with a very swarthy skin and black, oily-looking hair that fell in short ringlets about his ears and neck, and a black, drooping mustache which gave him a rather hang-dog look. There was a thick stubble of beard of several days' growth about his chin and face; his eyes were furtive in ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... got a long, limber Willow rod an inch thick, and bending it around like a hoop, they tied it with Leatherwood to each pole at a point four feet from the ground. Next they cut four short poles to reach from the ground to this. These were lashed at their upper ends to the Willow rod, ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Instead, as he stepped forward, nose up, chin up, eyes very bold, he swung a most amazing weapon. It was as scarlet as his own coat, as long as he was tall, and polished to a high degree. But it was not unbending, like a sword: It was limber to whippiness, so that as he twirled it about his blonde head it snapped and whistled. And Gwendolyn remembered having seen others exactly like it hanging on the bill-board at the Face-Shop. ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates

... cut the fuse for one second's time. After preparing several shells and receiving no word from his general he made ready several charges of canister, knowing the enemy to be close at hand. Still nobody came for the ammunition. He observed next that the drivers of the limber-chest had dismounted and left their horses, and the horses being without a driver, backed the wheels of the limber over the ammunition. To prevent damage, he seized the off-leader by the bridle, turning them back to a front position. While doing ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... trying out in one corner of the grounds in full view of the entire mass of spectators. Many curious eyes watched them limber up their arms for the work before them. Besides Hendrix and Donohue several reserve pitchers on either side were in line, sending and receiving in routine; but of course never once delivering their deceptive curves or drops, lest the opposing players get a line on their best tricks, ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton

... the inoffensive frog, 'A little child, a limber elf,' With health and spirits all agog, He does the long jump in a bog Or teaches men to swim and dive. If he should be cut up alive, Should I not be cut ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray

... the ridge and plumping into the ground. None were so successful as the first, and only few of them burst, but shells are very unpleasant, and it was a relief when at the second or third shot from our batteries we found the enemy's shells had ceased to arrive. We had destroyed the limber, if not the gun, and after that the shells were all on one side. Some say the Boers had two guns, but I only saw one myself, and I watched it as a mouse ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson

... grin. Him took de slop bucket out of my hand and look at it, all 'round it, put upside down on de ground, and set me down on it; then he fall down dere on de grass by me and blubber out and warm my fingers in his hands. I just took pity on him and told him mighty plain dat he must limber up his tongue and ask sumpin', say what he mean, wantin' to visit them pigs so often. Us carry on foolishness 'bout de little boar shoat pig and de little sow pig, then I squeal in laughter over how he scrouge so close; de slop bucket tipple over and I lost my seat. Dat ever ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... near to me, and your naked feet in their sandals, And through the scent of the balcony's naked timber I distinguish the scent of your hair; so now the limber Lightning falls from heaven. ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington

... night I served the Duca di Sant' Agata, were my tongue so limber! The gondolier and the confessor are the two privy-councillors of a noble, Master Stefano, with this small difference—that the last only knows what the sinner wishes to reveal, while the first sometimes ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... hot fire now opens on the extreme left, and in a few minutes the artillery are ordered forward, and the six guns pass us at a gallop. They are soon lined up and firing shrapnel at some Boers, who scurry away over the brow of a kopje. The guns limber up and jump the railway line—a pretty stiff little obstacle—the narrow gauge metals being on top of a narrow embankment. Then across a level field of veldt, and they commence to ascend a slight depression, ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch

... out his feet; patent leather gaiter-boots, and a cane that he flourished right and left with such determined strokes, that the children kept carefully out of his way. Several persons looked back to wonder and laugh at this strange figure, the drollery of which was greatly enhanced by his limber style of walking, and a certain expression of the whole outer man, which said, "Who says I am not as good as anybody on this avenue; Mr. ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... and supple as she was, and moreover rendered swift with the terrible spur of hysteria, was no match for Annie Eustace who had the build of a racing human, being long-winded and limber. Annie caught up with her, just before they reached Alice Mendon's house, and had her held by one arm. Margaret gave a stifled shriek. Even in hysteria, she did not quite lose her head. She had ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... change, and Mr. 'Possum touched him and said his complexion seemed pretty solid, somewhat like a shell, and Mr. Crow told him how he had to move rather carefully in it, at first, though very likely it would limber up in time. Then he told them how he was going to do the kitchen that way, and perhaps other things, and they all got excited and talked about it, and Mr. 'Possum said that probably he would have them give him a coat next ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine

... flock, And one withal the kids. But I will stake, Seeing you are so mad, what you yourself Will own more priceless far- two beechen cups By the divine art of Alcimedon Wrought and embossed, whereon a limber vine, Wreathed round them by the graver's facile tool, Twines over clustering ivy-berries pale. Two figures, one Conon, in the midst he set, And one- how call you him, who with his wand Marked out for all men the whole round of heaven, That they who reap, or stoop behind ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil

... ever seen it, therefore this was not known to be so, it was only an opinion. It was not my opinion; I think there is no sense in forming an opinion when there is no evidence to form it on. If you build a person without any bones in him he may look fair enough to the eye, but he will be limber and cannot stand up; and I consider that evidence is the bones of an opinion. But I will take up this matter more at large at another time, and try to make the justness of my position appear. As to that dragon, I always held the belief that its color ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... is the dress of the women that gives life and color to the shifting show of street life. In Europe it is the soldier, and in England the private soldier particularly. The German private soldier is too stiff, and the French private soldier is too limber, and the Italian private soldier has been away from the dry-cleanser's too long; but the British Tommy Atkins is a perfect piece of work —what with his dinky cap tilted over one eye, and his red tunic that fits ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... never have taken place; but the circumstances which might have called it out have occurred thousands of times. How many times has a dependent woman who had hastily married an improvident husband awakened at the end of a short honeymoon to find that she had only a limber stick or a broken reed to lean upon, instead of a self-reliant, independent, self-sustaining man, able to provide for her the comforts of a home and to protect her from the rudeness and suffering of ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... His carved oar limber Was fir-tree timber,— A mast-fir tall, From Gudbrand's dale. Taking another, With both together He rowed amain; Like arrowy cane Or steel blade brilliant Were the oars resilient. The sun climbs up The mountain ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner

... his misused body stiffen, that when he was called it required another ten minutes and a second glass of whiskey to unbend his joints and limber ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... doing no good here, and now that my knee is getting more limber I was hoping that I might get on active service again. I wondered whether maybe you might like to do a little ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... is finished with the most scrupulous care by Mr. Rogers himself. This cast is used as a pattern for making whatever number of molds may be needed to supply the demand for any particular group or statue. The molds are made of glue softened with water, so as to be about as limber as India-rubber. This is poured over the pattern while in a warm and liquid condition; it is, therefore, necessary to surround the pattern with a stiff case to hold the glue in place. This case is made of plaster, and is built up by hand around the pattern. When the glue ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... seed and apple thorn; Wire, brier, limber-lock, Five geese in a flock, Sit and sing by a ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)

... from the tree. We removed the grass from the upper hole. A thick volume of smoke rolled out. The bear must be dead. No creature could live in such an atmosphere. I introduced my ramrod through the opening. I could feel the soft hairy body of the animal, but it was limber and motionless. It was dead. Feeling convinced of this, at length, we removed the rocks below, and dragged it forth. Yes, the bear was dead,—or, at all events, very like it; but, to make the thing sure, Cudjo gave him a knock on the head with his axe. His long, shaggy hair was literally filled with ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... middle of the Dike leaped a young man, smiling, and forth from the gully which had saved his life. To look at him, nobody ever could have guessed how fast he had fled, and how close he had lain hid. For he stood there as clean and spruce and careless as even a sailor can be wished to be. Limber yet stalwart, agile though substantial, and as quick as a dart while as strong as a pike, he seemed cut out by nature for a true blue-jacket; but condition had made him a smuggler, or, to put it more gently, a free-trader. Britannia, being then at war with ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... tractor! Finally, when it broke down and we had no fresh accumulator, we had to unlimber the front gun, attach drag ropes to the tractor, haul vigorously on the ropes until the engine started up, then back the tractor and front limber back to the guns, limber up, cast off the ropes and go ahead again. We did this three or four times in the course of an hour, and enjoyed the sense of triumphing over obstacles. But it was very laborious, and the intervals between successive breakdowns grew ominously ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton

... Earl of Lambeth! 'Sho', that was what he was! Sho'!" and some transient feeling of awe stamped itself upon their small faces as they viewed the long and limber figure ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... me,' she says; and blame-don! ef the girl didn't keel right over in my arms—as limber as a rag! Clean fainted away! Honest! Jest the excitement, I reckon, o' breakin' it to her so suddent-like—'cause she liked Annie, I've sometimes thought, better'n even she did her own mother. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... with arm so swift that the eye multiplied it like a spoke in a quick-spinning wheel. He stood holding the weapon so, his wrist rather limber, the muzzle of the pistol pointing in the ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... ring enfolds the world; Me on this cheerless nether world ye threw, And gave me nine unlighted realms to rule; While on his island in the lake afar, Made fast to the bored crag, by wile not strength Subdued, with limber chains lives Fenris bound. Lok still subsists in Heaven, our father wise, Your mate, though loathed, and feasts in Odin's hall; But him too foes await, and netted snares, And in a cave a bed of needle-rocks, And o'er his visage serpents dropping gall. Yet ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... several days, Frank," he advised, "on Wednesday perhaps, when we start to go over the entire thing again and try new signals, it will be time. There are a few weak spots in the team that need help, and I'm going to devote two afternoons to them exclusively. Wander around, and limber up with walks or a bicycle ride. But please don't employ your spare time rounding up ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes

... canoe, and he dipped the implement the other named into the water, just as Hurry's limber tongue ceased. Wah-ta-Wah saw the departure of her warrior on this occasion with the submissive silence of an Indian girl, but with most of the misgivings and apprehensions of her sex. Throughout the whole of the past night, and down to the moment, when they used the glass together in the hut, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... twiles in the vernal vale, In adumbration of azure awe, And I listlessly list in my swallow-tail To the limpet licking his limber jaw. And it's O for the sound of the daffodil, For the dry distillings of prawn and prout, When hope hops high and a heather hill Is a dear delight and a darksome doubt. The snagwap sits in the bosky brae And sings to the gumplet in accents sweet; The ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... no more. I had no strength to move, but I could think acutely, and feel, as I longed for the strength of Uncle Jack, and to hold in my hand a good stout but limber cane. ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn

... its own, is the lake-loving ALDER, whose home, too, is by the flowings of all the streams. Just one degree fainter in its hue—or shall we rather say brighter—for we feel the difference without knowing in what it lies—stands, by the Alder's rounded softness, the spiral LARCH, all hung over its limber sprays, were you near enough to admire them, with cones of the Tyrian dye. That stem, white as silver, and smooth as silk, seen so straight in the green sylvan light, and there airily overarching the coppice with lambent tresses, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... wide in horror, then his chest collapsed and his neck felt limber. "Oh, my God," he whispered, as though in appeal to the Infinite Father of Mercy and Justice, "what a thing to say about me! ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers

... settin' open?" She repaired this oversight with a deft touch, and then proceeded: "We-uns ain't got no short-sweetenin' at our house, but I'll send my leetle brother ter fetch some long-sweetenin' fer yer coffee ter night. Hyar, Sol,"—addressing the small, limber, tow-headed, barefooted boy, a ludicrous miniature of a man in long, loose, brown-jeans trousers supported by a single suspender over an unbleached cotton shirt,—"run ter the ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... has rings, that did it. She—gave the music-stool a twirl or two and fluffed down on to it like a whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin. Then she pushed up her cuffs as if she was going to fight for the champion's belt. Then she worked her wrists and her hands, to limber 'em, I suppose, and spread out her fingers till they looked as though they would pretty much cover the key-board, from the growling end to the little squeaky one. Then those two hands of hers made a jump at the keys as if they were a couple of tigers coming ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... with a wave of the hand indicated his purchase of the morning. This was a tall and strong negro, young, supple, and of a cheerful countenance. Rand was in high good-humour. "He's a runaway, Mocket says, but I'll cure him of that! He's strong as an ox and as limber as a snake." Taking the negro's hand in his, he bent the fingers back. "Look at that! easy as a willow! He'll strip tobacco! His name ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... get limber!" threatened Lovey Mary. "If you do I'll spank you right here on the street. Stand up! Straighten out your legs! Tommy! do ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice

... Lambourne; "why, thy limber bit of a thigh, thrust through that bunch of slashed buckram and tiffany, shows like a housewife's distaff when the flax ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... positively delightful to the onlookers to see Hen Lord doing right and left, ladies' chain, balance to opposite and cast off, at a girl's beck and call. He was not a bad dancer, when his sluggish blood once got into circulation; and he was considerably more limber at the end of Money Musk, considerably less like a wooden image, than ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... after it had passed through it to the hills on the east and north-east. The rations and stores for this Division were carried by the main railway through Shellal to Karm, were thence transported by limber to a point on the Turks' line to Beersheba, which had been repaired but was without engines, were next hauled in trucks by mules on the railway track, and finally placed in lorries at Beersheba for carriage up ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... top of the door (A), and a corresponding one through the door-jamb between two logs. Set the door in place. A strip of rawhide leather, a limber willow branch, or a strip of hickory put through the auger hole of the door and wedged into the hole in the jamb, makes a truly wild-wood hinge. A peg in the front jamb prevents the door going too far out, and a string and peg inside ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America



Words linked to "Limber" :   flexible, attach, warm up, limber up, limber pine, horse-drawn vehicle, supple



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