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Ravel   Listen
verb
Ravel  v. t.  (past & past part. raveled or ravelled; pres. part. raveling or ravelling)  
1.
To separate or undo the texture of; to unravel; to take apart; to untwist; to unweave or unknit; often followed by out; as, to ravel a twist; to ravel out a stocking. "Sleep, that knits up the raveled sleave of care."
2.
To undo the intricacies of; to disentangle.
3.
To pull apart, as the threads of a texture, and let them fall into a tangled mass; hence, to entangle; to make intricate; to involve. "What glory's due to him that could divide Such raveled interests? has the knot untied?" "The faith of very many men seems a duty so weak and indifferent, is so often untwisted by violence, or raveled and entangled in weak discourses!"






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ravel" Quotes from Famous Books



... said Scattergood. He seated himself, and mopped his brow, and fanned himself with his broad straw hat, whose flapping brim was beginning to ravel about the edges. Presently he ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland

... startling that, except for documentary evidence, I should be sometimes inclined to think my memories dreams. I have a great respect for the younger generation myself (they can write our lives, and ravel out all our follies, if they choose to take the trouble, by and by), and I should be glad to be assured that the feeling is reciprocal; but I am afraid that the story of our dealings with Darwin may prove a great ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... racionala. Rationalism racionalismo. Rationalist racionalisto. Rattle (a toy) kraketilo. Rattlesnake sonserpento. Raucous rauxka. Ravage (lay waste) ruinigi. Rave deliri, paroli sensence. Ravel maltordi. Raven korvo. Ravenous englutema. Ravine intermontajxo. Ravishing (delightful) rava. Raw (chilly) fresxa, frosta. Raw (uncooked) nekuirita. Raw (without skin) senhauxta. Raw material kruda. Ray (of light) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... White goddess in raiment of beauty, The scorn that the Skidings may bear me? I'll set them a weft for their weaving! I'll rhyme you the roystering caitiffs Till rocks go afloat on the water; And lucky for them if they loosen The line of their fate that I ravel!" ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown

... comparatively easy to restore the road surface at any time by the addition of screenings or clay and sand. Usually there will be a few small areas of the surface that, on account of faulty construction, will ravel or become rutted much earlier than the remainder of the surface. These can be repaired by the methods described in the chapter on "Water-bound Macadam Construction." When the surface begins to ravel seriously, maintenance becomes much more difficult and in order to prevent raveling and ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg

... square—or oblong, as the case may be—of that loosely woven linen which is used for glass-towels, making it about four inches larger all round than the table it is meant to fit. Pale yellow or brown is the best color to select. Ravel the edges into a fringe two inches deep; then, beginning two inches within the edge, draw the linen threads all round in a band an inch and three-quarters wide. Lace the plain space thus left with dark-red ribbon of the same width, woven in and out in regular spaces, and at each corner ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various

... ravel out this mystery as we walk. Come to the Prado: this smiling day will bring the fair ones ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... just put there; within this last hour, I dare say. Look at the clean ravel in the end. They've taken away the old, tramped one. That's a piece out of saved-up spare ends of breadths, left after some turn-round or make-over, I know! It's faded, and it's homely; but it's spandy clean! I sha'n't let it stay raveled long. And I've got things. Just ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... remember his amusement over what he called the "queerness" of a sonata by the Belgian Lekeu for violin and piano, which he had read or heard. It is likely that he would have found little to attract him in the more characteristic music of d'Indy, Debussy, and Ravel; his instincts and temperament led him into a wholly different region of expression. He was a prophet of modernity; but it was a modernity that he alone exemplifies: it has ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman

... were. They made plain how much of beauty the chamber music repertory offered the amateur string player; not only in the classic repertory—Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Spohr; in Schubert, Schumann, Brahms; but in Smetana, Dvorak and Tschaikovsky; in Cesar Franck, Debussy and Ravel. Not the least among Kneisel's achievements is, that while the professional musicians in the cities in which his organization played attended its concerts as a matter of course, the average music lover who played ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens

... calm little groups, chatting, smoking, pretending to pay no heed to the rustling animation of the women's world. But they could not really talk, because of the glassy ravel of women's excited, cold laughter and running voices. They waited, uneasy, suspended, rather bored. But Gerald remained as if genial and happy, unaware that he was waiting or unoccupied, knowing himself the ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... similar departments our English friend knows well that truth or God will have nothing to do with the Devil or falsehood, but will ravel all the web to pieces if you introduce the Devil or Non-veracity in any form into it: in this department, therefore, our English friend avoids falsehood. But in the religious, political, social, moral, and all other spiritual departments he freely introduces falsehood, nothing doubting; and has long ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... not easy at a first performance to take in everything with both eye and ear, and I shall excuse myself from attempting to do justice to M. RAVEL'S music. But I was free (the curtain being down) to listen to one long orchestral passage which followed the capture of Chloe. It was of the nature of a dirge, and it seemed to me to suggest very cleverly the sorrows of a poultry-yard. I suppose Chloe must have been in the habit of feeding ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various

... steward, who had probably never had a live fish jump so promptly before into his hands. And we had it for dinner. One day a ship made to us a signal of distress, and sent a boat, saying that they were completely out of fuel; also that their passengers consisted entirely of the celebrated Ravel troupe of acrobats and actors. It would have been an experience to have crossed in that packet with ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... visible conductor, without any person heralding its approach, so silently, so insidiously, that I could not help thinking how very near it came to flattening out me and my match-box worse than the Ravel pantomimist and his snuff-box were flattened out in the play. The train was late,—fifteen minutes, half an hour late, and I began to get nervous, lest something had happened. While I was looking for it, out started a freight-train, as if on purpose to meet the cars I was expecting, for ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... seven. Beginning with C the scale reads: C, D, E, F[sharp] or G[flat], A[flat], B[flat], C. This scale has been used somewhat extensively by the ultramodern French school of composition represented by Debussy, Ravel, and others, but is not making any progress toward universal adoption. The remarks of a recent English writer[21] on this subject may be interesting to the student who is puzzled by the apparent present-day tendencies of French ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens

... noble arts which he possessed, naming it along with playing at chess, on the harp, and ravelling runes, or as the original has it, "treading runes"—that is, compressing them into a small compass by mingling one letter with another, even as the Turkish caligraphists ravel the Arabic letters, more ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... the other things to, and you'll find them ready there, just inside the hall door. They'll make down very well for you, but you can tell her from me that she'd better double-seam them, for the stuff's apt to ravel. And attend to what Mr Murchison says; go out by the gravel—what do you suppose it's ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... faithful love No power shall dim or ravel Whilst I stay here,—but oh, my dear, If I ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber

... brain and perfects with his hands is wonderful," agreed the priest. "It is a test of ingenuity and patience, and as such should be respected. Moreover, velvet is a useful product. The best silk varieties are very durable. They ravel little, and can be steamed almost to their original freshness when they become worn. Of course cheap velvets and plushes—which are merely velvets with a longer nap—are another matter. There is much cotton in them, and consequently they catch the dirt, and are soon defaced. More ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett

... you this new little gingham frock? Shall we see what it is made of? If you ravel out one end of the cloth, you can find the little threads of cotton which are woven together to make your frock. Where ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews

... in the kitchen, a comfortable room, with her child. In the darkest of twilight, he went through the gate and down the path where a few daffodils stooped in the wind, and shattered crocuses made a pale, colourless ravel. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... Winslow, sharply, "a vegetable sprouts. Can't you? Is these stocking caps made so's they won't ravel?" she inquired capably of Abel Ames. "These are real good value, Mary," she added kindly. "Better su'prise the little thing with one of these. A ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale

... weapons would he? give him a Broad-side my brave boyes with your pikes, branch me his skin in Flowers like a Satin, and between every Flower a mortal cut, your Royalty shall ravel, jag him Gentlemen, I'le have him cut to the kell, then down the seames, oh for a whip To make him Galoone-Laces, ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... a certain number of turns, ravel out at the ends and hang loose. After them come interlaced threads, greater in number and finer in texture. In the tangled jumble occur what might almost be described as weaver's knots. As far as one can judge by the result alone, without having seen the bird at work, this is how ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... rewards of such industry, it must not be imagined that its disabilities did not insist upon due recognition and ugly ravel, and that such shred and fibre did not obtrude their unwelcome appeals for repair upon their ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... their own hearts; they see the world in the height of their own joys and afflictions. These amiable egotists fill all nature with the voice of their own plaints, and they have ever a tangled skein of their own peculiar thoughts to unravel and to ravel again. The second order of men of genius, albeit they are not deficient in keen susceptibility or profound reflection, see the world outstretched before them, as it lies beneath the impartial light of heaven; they understand, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... piece of work [Fr.], pretty piece of business [Fr.]. [legal terms] disorderly person; disorderly persons offence; misdemeanor. [moral disorder] slattern, slut (libertine) 962. V. be disorderly &c adj.; ferment, play at cross-purposes. put out of order; derange &c 61; ravel &c 219; ruffle, rumple. Adj. disorderly, orderless; out of order, out of place, out of gear; irregular, desultory; anomalous &c (unconformable) 83; acephalous^, deranged; aimless; disorganized; straggling; unmethodical, immethodical^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... Windsor, we went into the mob, and by and by we got within the castel walls, when great was the lamentation for the purdition of shawls and shoos, and the Doctor's coat pouch was clippit off by a pocket-picker. We then ran to a wicket-gate, and up an old timber-stair with a rope ravel, and then we got to a great pentit chamber called King George's Hall: After that we were allowt to go into another room full of guns and guards, that told us all to be silent: so then we all went like sawlies, holding our tongues in an awful manner, into a dysmal ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt

... doesn't," answered Brian; "but if you're ever going to get at the explanation of a thing like that, you must begin at the beginning, and ravel it out bit by bit. I believe it began that night when Elsie heard the stone turning, and I shall continue to think so until I have reason to ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery

... broadest point. It is advisable to cut a pattern out of brown paper, and to mark off the material from this, so arranging the pattern that the long 47-1/2-inch side lies on a selvedge. [The edge of a fabric that is woven so that it will not fray or ravel.] ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams

... cord is moved, one by one the competitors step aside defeated, till the field is left to a single champion, who, like an India-rubber ball, goes on rebounding till he seems likely to disappear through the chimney, like a Ravel. Some sturdy young visitors, farmers by their looks, are trying their strength, with various success, at the sixty-pound dumb-bell, when some quiet fellow, a clerk or a tailor, walks modestly to the hundred-pound weight, and up it goes as steadily as if the laws of gravitation had suddenly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... him? He would cut off his fingers with a joiner's saw, and smash them with a mason's mell; put him in a brot behind a counter, and in some grand, magnanimous mood he would sell off his master's things for nothing; make a clerk of him, and he would only ravel the figures; send him to the soldiering, and he would have a sudden impulse to fight on the wrong side. No, no, Miss Ailie says he has a gift for the ministry, and ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... to others also: there is one family at Paris, and another at Montpelier, whose surname is Montaigne; another in Brittany, and Xaintonge called De la Montaigne. The transposition of one syllable only is enough to ravel our affairs, so that I shall peradventure share in their glory, and they shall partake of my shame; and, moreover, my ancestors were formerly surnamed Eyquem, a name wherein a family well known in England at this day is concerned. As to my ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... he says. "They adored each other with their hearts. It was many months ago when, from the Plaza Perdita, they came together here to the Donna Anna's house, the Hacienda Tulorosa. Who was the Donna Anna? Her mother was an Indian, a Navajo, and the child of a head man. Her father was the Senor Ravel, a captain of war he was, and the Americanos slew him at Buena Vista. No; they were not married, the father and the mother of the Donna Anna. But what then? There are more children than weddings in Mexico. Also the mother of the Donna Anna was a Navajo. The Captain Ravel long ago brought ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... therefore he does not wait to supply them before he seeks to gratify others. When man rises in the scale of civilization, his whole nature rises. You can't mount a ladder piecemeal; your head will go up first, unless you are an acrobat, and choose to go up feet foremost; but even if you are Gabriel Ravel, your whole body must needs ascend together. The savage is comfortable, not according to your notions of comfort, but according to his own. Comfort is not positive, but relative. If, with your present habits, you could be transported back only one hundred years to the best house in London,—a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... gods, wouldst thou invert the course of the planets, and make them retrograde? Wouldst thou disorder all the celestial spheres, blame the intelligences, blunt the spindles, joint the wherves, slander the spinning quills, reproach the bobbins, revile the clew-bottoms, and finally ravel and untwist all the threads of both the warp and the waft of the weird Sister-Parcae? What a pox to thy bones dost thou mean, stony cod? Thou wouldst if thou couldst, a great deal worse than the giants of old ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... because we race no more, nor of our readings because we do not read, nor of our promenades because we do not go out. What, then, do we do? Some play billiards, others dominoes, and others backgammon. We weave, we ravel and we unravel. Time pushes us on and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... race, and indeed to others also; there are two families at Paris and Montpellier, whose surname is Montaigne, another in Brittany, and one in Xaintonge, De La Montaigne. The transposition of one syllable only would suffice so to ravel our affairs, that I shall share in their glory, and they peradventure will partake of my discredit; and, moreover, my ancestors have formerly been surnamed, Eyquem,—[Eyquem was the patronymic.]—a name wherein a family well known in England is at this day concerned. As to my other name, every ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... programme contains some examples of modern French music (a delicate horror by Ravel, perhaps) and of the early Italians. You will get something sweet and suave and restful by Palestrina or Handel, and conclude, perhaps, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... one stage to another, insensibly adapt themselves. Thus the four principal vaudeville theatres have each their own style. There is an immeasurable distance between the vaudeville grivois, the laxity, not to say the positive indecency, of the Palais Royal—supported by the double-entendres of Ravel and Madame Lemenil, and the buffoonery of Alcide Tousez—and the neat and correct little comedies of the Gymnase, so admirably enacted by a Ferville, a Numa, and a Rose Cheri. To the latter theatre, the Parisian matrons conduct their daughters; the former they themselves hesitate to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... makes its simple impression upon the mind sophisticated by education. The negroes, as they came nearer, suggested only Christy's Minstrels, of whom they were a tolerably faithful imitation,—while the cocoa-nut-trees transported us to the Boston in Ravel-time, and we strained our eyes to see the wonderful ape, Jocko, whose pathetic death, nightly repeated, used to cheat the credulous Bostonians of time, tears, and treasure. Despite the clumsiest management, the boat soon effected a junction with our gangway, allowing some nameless official to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... must part; sweet mercy bless Us both i' th' sea, camp, wilderness! Can we so far Stray, to become less circular Than we are now? No, no, that self-same heart, that vow Which made us one, shall ne'er undo, Or ravel so, to make ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick

... Harwood and Simms, either English or Welsh. They're all right. Then there's a nigger named Sam; Schmitt, a Dutchman, with his partner, whose name I don't know, and two Frenchies, Ravel and Pierre. That makes eight, nine counting myself. Then in the starboard watch I'd pick out Jim Carter and Joe Cole, two Swedes, Carlson and Ole Hallin, and another nigger. Then there are a couple of Finns who ought to be with us, but I can't talk their lingo. That would give us ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... so much change should come when them dost go, Is mystery that I cannot ravel quite. The very house seems dark as when the light Of lamps goes out. Each wonted thing doth grow So altered, that I wander to and fro, Bewildered by the most familiar sight, And feel like one who rouses in the night From dream of ecstasy, and cannot know At first if ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson

... called linen at the shops is half cotton, and does not wear so well as cotton alone. Cheap linens are usually of this kind. It is difficult to discover which are all linen; but the best way is to find a lot presumed to be good, take a sample, wash it, and ravel it. If this be good, the rest of the same lot will probably be so. If you can not do this, draw a thread each way, and if both appear equally strong it is probably all linen. Linen and cotton must be put in clean water, and boiled, to get out the ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the ravel line sweel, From the fast-whirring reel, With a music that gladdens the ear; And the thrill of delight, In that glorious fight, To the heart of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... is not so good to wear. The best, is the cheapest in the end. When washed, it should be done with salt water, wiping it dry; but frequent washing injures it. Bind matting with cotton binding. Sew breadths together like carpeting. In joining the ends of pieces, ravel out a part, and tie the threads together, turning under a little of each piece, and then, laying the ends close, nail them down, with nails having kid under ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... business[Fr]. [legal terms] disorderly person; disorderly persons offence; misdemeanor. [moral disorder] slattern, slut (libertine) 962. V. be disorderly &c. adj.; ferment, play at cross-purposes. put out of order; derange &c. 61; ravel &c. 219; ruffle, rumple. Adj. disorderly, orderless; out of order, out of place, out of gear; irregular, desultory; anomalous &c. (unconformable) 83; acephalous[obs3], deranged; aimless; disorganized; straggling; unmethodical, immethodical[obs3]; unsymmetric[obs3], unsystematic; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus



Words linked to "Ravel" :   interlace, composer, lace, twine, ravel out, unsnarl, straighten out, ravel, harm, impairment, intertwine, unknot, raveling



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