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

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




Batten   Listen
noun
Batten  n.  A strip of sawed stuff, or a scantling; as,
(a)
pl. (Com. & Arch.) Sawed timbers about 7 by 2 1/2 inches and not less than 6 feet long.
(b)
(Naut.) A strip of wood used in fastening the edges of a tarpaulin to the deck, also around masts to prevent chafing.
(c)
A long, thin strip used to strengthen a part, to cover a crack, etc.
Batten door (Arch.), a door made of boards of the whole length of the door, secured by battens nailed crosswise.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Batten" Quotes from Famous Books



... of opulence, through the unlatched wicket in some porte-cochere—red-painted brick pavement, foliage of dark palm or pale banana, marble or granite masonry and blooming parterres; or through a chink between some pair of heavy batten window-shutters, opened with an almost reptile wariness, your eye gets a glimpse of lace and brocade upholstery, silver and bronze, ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... was particularly desirous that Sir George and Lady Kirkbank, with Lady Lesbia, should stay at his Berkshire place during the Henley week. He had a large steam launch, and the regatta was a kind of carnival for his intimate friends, who were not too proud to riot and batten upon the parvenu's luxurious hospitality, albeit they were apt to talk somewhat ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... five hundred English adventurers who swarmed to Canada on the heels of the English army thought to batten on the sixty thousand defeated French inhabitants, far otherwise thought and decreed the English generals, Sir Jeffrey {277} Amherst, and Murray, who succeeded him. "You will observe that the French are British subjects as much as we are, and treat them accordingly," ruled ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... that Watton had found opportunity to show Tressady that morning a paragraph from one of the numerous papers that batten on the British peer, his dress, his morals, and his sport. The paragraph, without names, without even initials, contained an outline of Lord Ancoats's affairs which Harding, who knew everything of a scandalous nature, declared to ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... never hear a fiddler fiddle? I have. I heard a fiddler fiddle, and the hey-dey-diddle of his frolicking fiddle called back the happy days of my boyhood. The old field schoolhouse with its batten doors creaking on wooden hinges, its windows innocent of glass, and its great, yawning fireplace, cracking and roaring and flaming like the infernal regions, rose from the dust of memory and stood once more among the trees. The limpid spring bubbled ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... weapon simply crashes through the bone, disintegrating it at the point of entrance, and cracking or splintering it for a variable, but limited, distance beyond. On the other hand, when the head is struck by a "blunt" object—for example, a batten falling from a height—the force is applied over a wider area and the elastic skull bends before it. If the limits of its elasticity are not exceeded, the bone recoils into its normal position when the force ceases to act; but if the bone is bent ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... by means of slotted lead strips (known as "cames"). The window frames used in a few of the Jamestown houses were handwrought iron casements. Most of the humbler dwellings had no glass panes in the windows. The window openings were closed by batten shutters, operated by hinges of wood and fitted with wooden ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter

... to stiffen his resolve. He had need of it. Tyler Sudley had said that he did not know how the law stood, and for himself, he was not willing to risk his liberty on it. He gazed apprehensively upon the little batten shutter of the window of the room where Nehe-miah Yerby slept, expecting to see it slowly swing open and disclose him there. It did not stir, and gathering resolution from the terrors that had beset him when he fancied his opportunity ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... old homeplace on de plantation down dar now. Lula a-washin' here, makes me study 'bout de old washplace on Marse Henry's plantation. Dere was a long bench full of old wood tubs, and a great big iron pot for bilin' de clothes, and de batten block and stick. Chillun beat de clothes wid de batten stick and kept up de fire 'round de pot whilst de 'omans leaned over de tubs washin' and a-singin' dem old songs. You could hear 'em 'most a mile away. Now and den one of de 'omans would stop singin' ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... remaining weeks of camp life proved to be monotonously dreary. Ivan was not of the type of man to press his popularity and batten upon it. Rather, flattery, and the inevitable toadyism of weaker natures, revolted him; and he began once more to retire into himself, and to live again with dreams, which now formed themselves round any one of three topics: first and ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... a lifting of the eyebrows, and a pursing of the mouth, in an anxiety not altogether burlesque. He knew himself the prey of any one who chose to batten on him, and his hospitality was subject to frightful abuse. Perhaps Mr. Norton has somewhere told how, when he asked if a certain person who had been outstaying his time was not a dreadful bore, Longfellow answered, with angelic patience, "Yes; but then you ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... as they struggled out of the hold. "You've done all I can ask. Hurry! Get out!" and they got out and then turned to batten the hatch cover down. But the rush of fire was too swift to be denied. A thick-bodied pillar choked through the opening and spouted to the top of the funnel—great gouts of the devouring element pulsed softly, but with lightning swiftness, down the deck, and shrivelled a life raft. ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry

... do this? It is most unreasonable to flee the knowledge of good like the infection of a horrible disease, and batten and grow fat in the real atmosphere of a lazar-house. This was my first thought; but my second was not like unto it, and I saw that our satirist was wise, wise in his generation, like the unjust steward. He does not want light, because the darkness is more pleasant. He does not ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... her last voyage to Calabria, having taken macaroni from Amalfi and bringing back wine of Verbicaro. A fine boat, the Giovannina, able to carry twenty tons in any weather, and water-tight too, being decked with hatches over which you can stretch and batten down tarpaulin. A pretty sight as she ran up to the end of the breakwater, old Luigione standing at the stern with the tiller between his knees and the slack of the main-sheet in his hand. She was running wing and wing, with her bright new sails spreading far over the water on each side. Then ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford

... view of the bearer joint to front leg, and also the half-round seat battens resting on the bearer, also showing them with their edges planed. It is advisable to have a space between the edges of each batten, say about 1-8 in., to allow rainwater to drain. The ends of the seat battens are pared away to fit the transverse rails neatly as shown in Fig. 2. The struts for the post range in diameter from 1-1/2 in. to 2 in. The ends of the struts are pared to ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... and ardent people over whom he was to rule. He spoke no Spanish, and he was surrounded by greedy Flemish courtiers dressed in outlandish garb, speaking in a strange tongue, and looking upon the realm of their prince as a fat pasture upon which, locust like, they might batten with impunity. The Spaniards had frowned to see the great Cardinal Jimenez curtly dismissed by the boy sovereign whose crown he had saved; they clamoured indignantly when the Flemings cast themselves upon the resources ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... varnished, and packed in boxes or bundles for the market. Many sawn sticks, however, are supplied with bone and horn handles, which are fastened on with glue; and then of course there is less wood waste, as a larger number of them may be cut from one batten. ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... returning to the tower and removing the traces of the two murders, the frightful punishment of climbing that tower, of touching those skeletons, of undressing them and burying them. That will be enough. We will not ask for more. We will not give it to the public to batten on and create a scandal which would recoil upon M. d'Aigleroche's niece. No, let us ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... to find the men. Four of the party were alive, one had died. The sick man had been dragged on the sledge thirty-nine days, and they had buried him after all in a solitary spot in the far north—"a paddle and a batten" made a rude cross, and the sketch shows it most effectively in Doctor Moss's book. Five only of the seventeen of the party came back in working condition, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... Joe Batten was the youngest member of the Athletic team and at that time quite a promising young player. He did not last long with the Athletics, however, and after playing on one or two other league teams he dropped out sight. He was ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... in beating the bookmakers; we have then an outer circle, composed partly of stainless gentlemen who do not bet and who want no man's money, partly of perfectly honest fellows who have no judgment, no real knowledge, and no self-restraint, and who serve as prey on which the bookmakers batten. ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... as careless as I could. It seemed a rash thing to go down to the afterhold, where any one might batten me down. But, there being no help for it, I took the bucket and went. I filled it well up to the brim from the second cask, returned to deck, and handed it to the man who stood behind Martin. They took it, pretty respectfully, and went below, Martin still ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... Croker's Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland, ed. Wright, pp. 135-9. In the original the gnome is a Cluricaune, but as a friend of Mr. Batten's has recently heard the tale told of a Lepracaun, I have adopted ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... Socialism and Anarchism, is that close relation of the ideal to the present sufferings of men, which has enabled powerful political movements to grow out of the hopes of solitary thinkers. It is this that makes Socialism and Anarchism important, and it is this that makes them dangerous to those who batten, consciously or unconsciously upon the evils of our present order ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell

... down. But as for swearin'—well, if you knew how full of cusswords I was there one spell you wouldn't find fault; you'd thank me for holdin' 'em in. I had to batten down my hatches to do it, though; I ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... majority of the nation is certainly not, at the present day, Tory in political preferences, though there is still a large leaven of that feeling also. But very many persons who are political Liberals are social Tories: they venerate the aristocracy; they batten daily upon the "Court Circular"; they cling to class distinctions in theory, and still more in practice; they strain towards "good society" and social conformity; their ideal is "respectability." Indeed, it appears to me that comparatively very few English people are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... of wind," replied Uncle Teddy, "but I would advise you all to batten down the hatches, I mean, tie your tent flaps." As he spoke a white towel came fluttering over the bluff from one of the tents above and went sailing off over the lake. At that they all scattered to make their ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey

... if that didn't work, the whole blooming bunch of middlemen who batten and fatten between the factory and the family could be eliminated, and the arrogant retailer, wholesaler, factor and agent be placed on the retired list through the Mail-Order Plan. Or, aye again, the consumers' wants could be anticipated as they are by The Standard ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... drove afield, and that they had no flocks to batten; and, though it be allowed that the representation may be allegorical, the true meaning is so uncertain and remote, that it is never sought, because it cannot be known when it ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... "—he pointed to a shrivelled rhizome—"was not identified. It may be a Palaeonophis—or it may not. It may be a new species, or even a new genus. And it was the last that poor Batten ever collected." ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... Mr. Burns about this excessive care. I would have been well content to batten the hatch down and let them perish ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... sports of fancy: though ten times told, the tale to them never can be tedious; though dull "as the fat weed that grows on Lethe's bank," the jest for them has all the poignancy of satire: on the very offals, the garbage of wit, they can feed and batten. Happy they who can find in every jester the wit of Sterne or Swift; who else can wade through hundreds of thickly-printed pages to obtain for their reward such witticisms as ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... it. "One thing! In Potsdam, on that cloudless July night, when the world, on which he proposed to batten, slept, toiled, feasted, fasted, occupied with its futile loves and hates, that thing must have occurred ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... at the sledge. It is extremely difficult even to take one's place on a board a dozen inches wide. My petticoats have to be firmly wrapped around me, and care taken that no fold projects beyond the sledge, or I should be soon dragged out of my frail seat. I fix my feet firmly against the batten, and F—— cries, "Are you ready?" "Oh, not yet!" I gasp, clinging to Mr. U——'s hand as if I never meant to let it go. "Hold tight!" he shouts. Now what a mockery this injunction was. I had nothing to hold on ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... morning Sir W. Batten, Pen, and myself, went to church to the churchwardens, to demand a pew, which at present could not be given us; but we are resolved to have one built. So we staid, and heard Mr. Mills, a very good minister. Home to dinner, where my wife had on her new petticoat that she bought yesterday, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... without sashes, but with sturdy iron gratings and solid iron shutters. On the fourth floor the doorway communicating with the main house is entirely closed twice over, by two pairs of full length batten shutters held in on the side of the main house by iron hooks eighteen inches long, two to each shutter. And yet it was through this doorway that the ghosts—figuratively speaking, of course, for we are dealing with plain fact and history—got ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... of the game," he said, "and so does dear Jessie here. We both of us adore it. As long as I find such good pickings upon you, I certainly am not going to turn away from so valuable a carcass, in order to batten myself, at considerable trouble, upon minor capitalists, out of whom it is difficult to extract a few hundreds. It may have puzzled you to guess why I fix upon you so persistently. Now you know, and understand. When a fluke finds a sheep that suits ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... be able to console herself for those and similar bitternesses by the knowledge that on the whole the world honours those who battle against ill-fortune without complaint far above the needy crowd of spongers who strive to batten without effort on the crumbs that fall from the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various

... world assurance of a man. This was your Husband. Looke you now what followes. Heere is your Husband, like a Mildew'd eare Blasting his wholsom breath. Haue you eyes? Could you on this faire Mountaine leaue to feed, And batten on this Moore? Ha? Haue you eyes? You cannot call it Loue: For at your age, The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waites vpon the Iudgement: and what Iudgement Would step from this, to ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... no less provocative of the appetite, than he is satisfactory to the criticalness of the censorious palate. The strong man may batten on him, and the weakling ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... lightest feather of a thing that ever sat upon water. It had a complete flushed deck, with only a small hatch near the bow, and this hatch it had always been our custom to batten down when about to cross the Strom, by way of precaution against the chopping seas. But for this circumstance we should have foundered at once—for we lay entirely buried for some moments. How my elder brother escaped destruction I cannot say, for I never had an ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... seeming humility text reads "humilty" the fancy shops of Paree printed "Pare'" with accent on "e" tool-house, piggery, poultry-house, corn-crib text reads "con-crib" about the size of a common window button text unchanged: error for "batten"? to support the comb as it is built text reads "as t is" with blank space and why not hen's? apostrophe in original what she lays in winter must be subtracted text reads "substracted" should then be placed one inch below text reads "theu" the collections throughout ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen

... list of Mayors of the city from 1654 to 1887, we notice nearly twenty of the names as having been given by Dickens to his characters, viz. Robinson, Wade, Brooker, Clarke, Harris, Burgess, Head, Weller, Baily, Gordon, Parsons, Pordage, Sparks, Simmons, Batten, Saunders, Thomson, Edwards, and Budden. The name of Jasper also occurs as a tradesman several times in the city, but we are informed that this is a recent introduction. In the Cathedral burying-ground occur the names of Fanny Dorrett and Richard Pordage. Dartle, we were ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... on the schooner; I could see the brass glisten on the tiller as it banged about; and still no soul appeared upon her decks. I could not choose but suppose she was deserted. If not, the men were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down, perhaps, and do what I chose with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his ideal Governor, who is also ours, recommends, amongst other things, that His Excellency should be allowed to choose his own advisers. By this Mr. Froude certainly does not mean that the advisers so chosen must be all pure-blooded Englishmen who have rushed from the destitution of home to batten on the cheaply obtained flesh-pots ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... Cover them with a thin layer of damp kelp and put in the potatoes. Another layer of sea-weed, then the roasting-ears. After that come the fish, wrapped in paper. Then the mussels, clams or anything else you want. When you get them all in, cover the whole thing with a lot of heavy kelp and batten it down with a big piece of canvas. The whole trick is knowing just when to open the oven. Nothing can burn so it's better to leave it too long than to ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... finally—which is often only after much bush grumbling, accusation, recrimination, and denial—he severely and carefully re-arranges theme pages, folds the paper, and sticks it away up over a rafter, or behind a post or batten, or under his pillow where it will safe. He wants that paper ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... wings, they preferred walking to flying; one might kill them in millions, yet other, and hungrier millions would still come on, rejoicing in the death of their predecessors, as they now had not only men's eyes and wounds to eat, but could batten upon the bodies of their slaughtered friends also. Strange to say, we were not troubled here with ants; had we been, we should only have required a few spears stuck into us to complete our happiness. A very pretty view was to be obtained from the summit of any of ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... blazes upon her brow. Realizing that she is a social outcast, a moral pariah, she becomes reckless, defiant, and finally glories in betraying the fool who trusts her. No matter how fair the mountain upon which she has leave to feed, she will batten on the moor. Love was her excuse when first she went astray, and she hugs the delusion to her heart that Cupid can sanctify a crime; but where honor spreads not its wings of snow love perishes in the fierce simoon of lust. The man with ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... longitudinally for holding wires in wiring apartments for electric light or power. In use they are fastened to the wall, grooves inward, or else grooves outward, with the wires lying in the grooves and covered with the covering strip. For two wire work each batten contains two grooves; for the three wire system ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... a bar!"— "Thanks, champion, thanks!" the maniac cried, 560 And pressed her to Fitz-James's side. "See the gray pennons I prepare, To seek my true-love through the air! I will not lend that savage groom, To break his fall, one downy plume! 565 No! Deep amid disjointed stones, The wolves shall batten on his bones, And then shall his detested plaid, By bush and brier in mid air stayed, Wave forth a banner fair and free, 570 Meet signal for ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... is intended to be made of sound rough plank, from ten to fourteen inches wide, and at least one and a-half inches thick. These are to be tongued and grooved, so as to make a close joint, and nailed to the frame in a vertical manner. The joint is to be covered with a narrow strip, or batten, of one and a-half inch plank. These unplaned plank may be painted with two good coats and sanded, or they may be left to take such tints and complexion as time and the weather ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward

... favourite, and sickly, and therefore in most need of attention. But he greatly improved his acquaintance with William Webster; and although he had now so much to occupy him, would not be satisfied until he was able to drive the shuttle, and work the treadles and the batten, and, in short, turn out almost as good a bit of linen as William himself—only he wanted about twice as much time ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald

... poetics, politics and rhetorics, will I display no more mercy than sundry commentators of maltreated Aristotle. I will exhibit them in their state chaotic,—I will addle the eggs, and the chicken shall not chirp,—I will reveal, and secrets shall not waste me; I will write, and thoughts shall not batten on me." ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... otherwise have possessed. There was loss, there was discredit, in having recourse to such characters, when honest wants could be fairly supplied by upright men, and on liberal terms. Such reptiles have been confined in Scotland to batten upon their proper prey of folly, and feast, like worms, on the corruption ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... new style, differ by eleven days from those of the English accounts. The Dutch hamlet of Saratoga, surprised by Marin, was near the mouth of the Fish Kill, on the west side of the Hudson. There was also a small fort on the east side, a little below the mouth of the Batten Kill.] Albany was left uncovered, and the Assembly voted L150 in provincial currency to rebuild the ruined fort. A feeble palisade work was accordingly set up, but it was neglected like its predecessor. Colonel Peter Schuyler ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman

... you poison her with a mess of rice- porridge? that will preserve life, make her round and plump, and batten [111] more than you ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe

... garotter, or, indeed, a common thief Is very glad to batten on potatoes and on beef, Or anything, in short, that prison kitchens can afford, - A cut above the diet in a common ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert

... summon them to the excellent band of music, provided by the calculating liberality of the gaming-house keepers, and to loiter round the brunnens of more or less nauseous flavour, the pretext of resort to this rendezvous of idlers and gamblers. The waiters had disappeared to batten on the broken meats from the public table, and to doze away the time till the approach of supper renewed their activity. My interlocutor, with whom I was alone in the deserted apartment, was a man of about thirty years of age, whose dark hair and mustaches, marked features, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... was aching to tooth every detail of the great fight. And when they talked on military affairs, as Letchford and others did sometimes, it was difficult to keep from sending them all to the devil, for their amateur cocksureness would have riled Job. One had got to batten down the recollection of our fellows out there who were sweating blood to keep these fools snug. Yet I found it impossible to be angry with them for long, they were so babyishly innocent. Indeed, I couldn't help liking them, and ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... their way, and would have proceeded in their intent. The carpenter was there with his axe to strike off one of the bars of the grating—he had already given a blow on the batten, another would have been enough—and then the horrid scene would have begun; but at that moment a cry came from the after-part of the vessel that caused the carpenter to suspend his work, and look up in dismay. ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... this lengthy account may have justification. The Army Commander's opinion was shown not alone by his congratulatory message, but by the immediate honours awarded. To the Leicestershires fell one Military Cross[4] and four Military Medals, one of the latter going to Sergeant Batten, Marner's platoon-sergeant. The water-tank leans against the station no longer, and they have repaired the crumbled walls. But the cracks and fissures in the great fort lift eloquent witness to the way both ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... a hand to batten down the main hatch—the Johnnie plunging along all the time—and my head perhaps a little too high in the air, I stumbled off the break and plump over a man under the windward rail. I thought I was going to leeward and maybe overboard, but somebody hooked onto the full in the back of ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly

... are supposed to have been inventors of the loom. There were two kinds in use, one horizontal and the other perpendicular. Instead of a shuttle they used a stick with a hook at one end, which was used also as a batten. Herodotus says that it was the practice of the Egyptians to push the woof downwards, and this method is pictured in many paintings; but one representation found at Thebes shows a man pushing it upwards. The former method is, I believe, the one generally ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd

... I want you to make the acquaintance of that loving couple, Mr. and Mrs. Numagawa Jiro. You must disguise yourself. Jiro is to be shadowed constantly. Get any help you require, but do it. Be off, Winter, on the wings of the wind. Fasten on to Jiro. Batten on him. Become his invisible vampire. Above all else, discover his associates. Run now to the bank and cash this cheque. It repays the sum you advanced last night, and provides ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy

... Lister agreed with a smile. "Last run we couldn't keep the water out of the stokehold. Had to cover and batten gratings, and then a boat fetched adrift and smashed the ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss

... Unfortunately no such records as to height, etc., are kept about officers, and my search proved fruitless, more especially as the records at Woolwich for the period required were destroyed by fire some years ago. The best evidence I have obtained is that of General Gordon's tailors, Messrs Batten & Sons, of Southampton, who write: "We consider, by measurements in our books, that General Gordon was 5 ft. 9 in." As he had contracted a slight stoop, or, more correctly speaking, carried his head thrown forward, he looked in later ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... head and voice, the bristles and the shape of swine, but their mind abode even as of old. Thus were they penned there weeping, and Circe flung them acorns and mast and fruit of the cornel tree to eat, whereon wallowing swine do always batten." (Butcher ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... You mariners batten down the hatchways when the heavens are dark and seas are angry. Vittoria, with the same faith in her instinct, shut the avenues to her senses—would see nothing, hear nothing. The impresario's figure ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... or obstruction in the world, that could give an offence to any, and with the great honour he thought it would be to him. Being overtook by the brigantine, my Lord and we went out of our barge into it, and so went on board with Sir W. Batten, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... It gets good an' hard, this arsenic-tallow does, an' then Coyote drags the timber thus reg'lated out onto the plains to what he regyards as a elegible local'ty an' leaves it for the wolves to come an' batten on. Old Coyote will have as many as a dozen of these sticks of timber, all bored an' framed up with arsenic-tallow, scattered about. Each mornin' while he's wolfin', Coyote makes a round-up an' skins an' counts up his prey. An' son, you hear me! ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... curious selection which will be welcomed by readers of all ages.... The illustrations by Mr. Batten are often clever and irresistibly humorous. A delight alike to the young ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins

... "Pretty Polly Hopkins" occurs with flattering iteration, and he began to apply it to her, for he had come to think her very beautiful—such is the gracious power of love! And while the snow was flying, and the sleet and hail tinkled on the batten shutter, and the draughts bleated and whined in the crevices, ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock

... billetted on farm-houses in the parishes nearest to the town. Yet, as a warning that all was not their own, four frigates and two line-of-battle ships, with a commission from the rebel government of London, and flying the broad pennant of Admiral Batten, cruised between Jersey and Guernsey, never far from sight, although giving for the most part a wide berth to both the island castles, whose gunners ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene

... The batten door behind the bar now began to open slowly and noiselessly. Lefever peered through it. "Come in, Pedro," he cried reassuringly, "come in, man. This is no officer, no revenue agent looking for your license. ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... I have it, leave me; y'are infectious, the plague and leprosie of your baseness spreading on all that do come near you; such as you render the Throne of Majesty, the Court, suspected and contemptible; you are Scarabee's that batten in her dung, and have no palats to taste her curious Viands; and like Owles, can only see her night deformities, but with the glorious splendor of her beauties, you are struck blind as Moles, that undermine the ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... are thy triumphs, that adorn Fitliest our nature, and bespeak us born For loftiest action;—not to gaze and run From clime to clime; or batten in the sun, Dragging a drony flight from flower to flower, Like summer insects in a gaudy hour; Nor yet o'er lovesick tales with fancy range, And cry, ''Tis pitiful,'tis passing strange!' But on ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... another aperture, removing the mask, and ears attached, with great nicety. With equal dexterity he whittled a piece of pine board to the proper shape, and, turning the skin inside out, drew it tightly over the batten, fastening it in place with a few tacks. His task completed, he handed it to La Salle, and rose to go. The ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... vision rarely greets me now. Probably the Free Libraries have supplanted the flickering shop lights; and every lad and lass can enter and call for Miss Braddon and batten thereon "in luxury's sofa-lap of leather''; and of course this boon is appreciated and profited by, and we shall see the divine results in a year or two. And yet sometimes, like the dear old Baron in the ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame

... attacked—probably by their fathers. Well, I shall have none of them. They and their like are the curse of Kosnovia. Who will pay taxes to keep me in the state that becomes a King? Not they. Who will benefit by good government and honest administration of the laws? Assuredly not they, for they batten on corruption; they are the maggots not the bees of industry. Over whom, ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... night when Lady Darnley and the Russian Prince and the Sneyds were there? and Davy saying that this Cornish friend was a very clever man, and that he was anxious to do him honour, and be kind? This Cornish friend was Mr., now Dr. Batten, at the head of Hertford College. He had with him a rosy-cheeked, happy-looking, open-faced son, of nine years old, whom we liked much, and whose countenance and manner gave the best evidence possible in favour ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... Athenian populace knew little of her except that she had been great and that she had been unhappy; and the descendants of the men who had thronged the theatre to see the Oedipus of Sophokles, sickening with that strange disease which makes the soul crave to batten on the fruits that are its poison, found a rare feast furnished forth in the imaginary history of the one great woman ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various

... Whigs and Tories, vibrates between coffee-house and tea-table. He annoys his daughter by sometimes calling her 'Belinda,' and astonishes his wife with his mock-heroic apostrophes to her hood and patches. He reads his Spectator at breakfast while other people batten upon newspapers only three hours old. He smiles over the love-letters of Richard Steele, and reverences the name and the writings of Joseph Addison. Indeed, his devotion to Addison is so radical that he has actually been guilty of reading The Campaign and the Dialogue on Medals. This ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... laid close together side by side, while I nailed a fifth athwartships on the deck at the point where I intended to rear my planks. The length of the battens being three inches more than the combined width of the three planks, the projecting ends of the top batten afforded me a very convenient shoulder for the support of my shrouds and stay, which I cut from my coil ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... fact that scientific investigation still had, to some minds, a flavour of heterodoxy, gave it a perennial interest. The mob had broken down the walls of tradition to batten in the orchard of forbidden knowledge. The inaccessible goddess whom the Professor had served in his youth now offered her charms in the market-place. And yet it was not the same goddess after all, but a pseudo-science masquerading in the garb of the real divinity. This ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... to subside. By degrees the latest boats arrived, and in about three hours from the time of commencing, the crew of the steamer began to batten down the hatches. Just then, like the "late passenger," the late trawler came up. The captain of the steamer had seen it long before on the horizon doing its best to save the market, and good-naturedly delayed a little to take its fish on board, but ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne

... 811) are right in saying that the Australians have no ancestor-worship. The Kurnai ghosts 'were believed to live upon plants,'[13] which are not offered to them. Chill ghosts, unfed by men, would come to waning camp-fires and batten on the broken meats. The Ngarego and Wolgal held, more handsomely, that Tharamulun (Darumulun) met the just departed spirit 'and conducted it to its future home beyond the sky.'[14] Ghosts might also accompany relics of the body, such as the dead hand, carried about ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... gentleman opportunely came up within a minute or two to attend him to the Snuggery. It was the gentleman Clennam had seen on the night of his own accidental detention there, who had that impalpable grievance about the misappropriated Fund on which the Marshal was supposed to batten. He presented himself as deputation to escort the Father to the Chair, it being an occasion on which he had promised to preside over the assembled Collegians in the enjoyment of a ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... and Riis calls the gang a club run wild. They have their own ideality and a gaudy pinchbeck honor. A young tough, when arrested, wrenched away the policeman's club, dashed into the street, rescued a baby from a runaway, and came back and gave himself up. They batten on the yellowest literature. Those of foreign descent, who come to speak our language better than their parents, early learn to despise them. Gangs emulate each other in hardihood, and this is one cause of epidemics in crime. They passionately ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... seemed a sober and competent officer. They were seen to confer earnestly, as though the safety of the ship were uppermost in their minds. Soon the pirates of the prize crew were ordered to stow and secure all light sail and pass extra lashings about the boats and batten the hatches. They worked slowly, some of them shaking with fever, nor could kicks and curses and the sting of the whistling cat make them turn to smartly. The sailing-master signaled the Revenge ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... (46) "To batten the black-feathered wound-bird With the blade of my axe have I stricken Full thirty and five of my foemen; I am famed for the slaughter of warriors. May the fiends have my soul if I stain not My sharp-edged falchion once over! And then let the breaker of broadswords Be borne—and with speed—to ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown

... blood and marrow and life of the struggling people, you heartless extortioner! Begone, sirra; a foot of land upon the property for which I am agent you shall never occupy. You and your tribe, whether you batten upon the distress of struggling industry in the deceitful Maelstrooms of the metropolis, or in the dirty, dingy shops of a private country village, are each a scorpion curse to the people. Your very existence is a libel upon the laws by ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... and had to lie to. Ask old D. what that means, if you can't understand my description of it. The principle of it is to set two small sails, one fore and one aft, lash the rudder (wheel) amidships, make all snug, put on hatches, batten everything down, and trust to ride out the storm. As the vessel falls away from the wind by the action of one sail, it is brought up to it again by the other-sail. Thus her head is always kept to the wind, and she meets the seas, which if they caught ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... chip!" Wombold broke in. "Five thousand acres of prime valley land, all for a lot of failures to batten on, to farm, if you please, on ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi in English, and I found and read it when I was a small girl. It was very long, and perhaps I should find it a little dull now though I hope not, for I loved it then, reading in delicious secrecy and stealth, because the Sisterhood doesn't allow youthful pupils to batten on love stories, no matter how old-fashioned. I hadn't thought of the book for years; but evidently its story had been lying all this time carefully put away in a parcel, gathering dust on some forgotten shelf in my brain, ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... her 'ironing-table', upside down on top of the load, with the bedding and blankets between the legs; there were four of those common black kitchen-chairs—with apples painted on the hard board backs—that we used for the parlour; there was a cheap batten sofa with arms at the ends and turned rails between the uprights of the arms (we were a little proud of the turned rails); and there was the camp-oven, and the three-legged pot, and pans and buckets, stuck about the load and hanging under ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... inboard and secured with the davits. At the same time the light stuff from aloft was got below, the hammocks piped down, and the carpenters slapped the gratings on the hatches, and stood ready with the tarpaulins to batten them down. I never beheld a smarter piece of work done afloat—not even, ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... passed A long black time within, thou shalt come out To front the sun; and Zeus's winged hound, The strong, carnivorous eagle, shall wheel down To meet thee—self-called to a daily feast— And set his fierce beak in thee, and tear off The long rags of thy flesh, and batten deep ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... wrapping them in burlap for a distance of 2 feet from the forward end, and pouring boiling water over them, as was done with the snow shoes (page 39). Before bending the boards we had fixed screw eyes in the ends of each batten, except the forward one; a rope had been strung through these screw eyes and the ends were now tied to the head piece and drawn tight so as to bend the boards into a graceful curve. In this way the ropes were of ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond

... L. Batten, University of California, Los Angeles George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles Thomas Wright, William Andrews Clark ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe

... place in nature, cannot be cruel to his fellows. Intellect, if it is selfish, is wisely selfish. It perceives clearly that such a shocking abomination as our present condition cannot endure. It knows that a few men cannot safely batten down the hatches over the starving crew and passengers, and then riot in drunken debauchery on the deck. When the imprisoned wretches in the hold become desperate enough—and it is simply a question of time—they will fire the ship or scuttle it, ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... apparently an industrious and willing race, do most of the work about here. A few boats and canoes are drawn up upon the beach. The atmosphere is heavy with the odor of ancient fish. The water-line is strewn with cast-off salmon heads and entrails. Indian dogs and big, fat flies batten there prodigiously. Acres of salmon bellies are rosy in the sun. The blood-red interiors of drying fish—rackfuls of them turned wrong side out—are the only bit of color in all Alaska. Everybody and everything is sombre ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... queen, who had been absent on the Continent selling her jewels and endeavoring to raise a force, landed at Burlington, with four ships, having succeeded in evading the ships of war which the Commons had dispatched to cut her off, under the command of Admiral Batten. That night, however, the Parliament fleet arrived off the place, and opened fire upon the ships and village. The queen was in a house near the shore, and the balls struck in all directions round. She was forced to get up, throw on a few clothes, ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... ox: beef being apt to batten or fatten those that eat it. The cove has hushed the battner; ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... placed over the hatchway. Perhaps the crew were about to batten down the hatches. In vain I tried, while this was going forward, to strike the cask. I had not sufficient strength to do it. A fearful faintness was coming over me. Perhaps the movement of the ship contributed to this. I think I must have fainted, for I cannot ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston

... Home Base McAfee Missions Striking Home McAfee The Church and the New Age Henry Carver American Social and Religious Conditions Charles Stelzle The Church of To-morrow J. II. Crooker The Social Task of Christianity Samuel Zane Batten The Christian State ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen

... shade Th' Hesperian regions, and has softened much With bland amelioration, and with charms Of social sweetness, the hard lot of man. 260 But weighed in truth's firm balance, ask, if all Be even. Do not crimes of ranker growth Batten amid thy cities, whose loud din, From flashing and contending cars, ascends, Till morn! Enchanting, as if aught so sweet Ne'er faded, do thy daughters wear the weeds Of calm domestic peace and wedded love; Or turn, with beautiful disdain, to dash Gay pleasure's poisoned ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... gewgawish and idolatrous as it was, was not sufficiently tinselly and idolatrous for them, so they must be Popes, but in a sneaking way, still calling themselves Church of England men, in order to batten on the bounty of the Church which they were betraying, and likewise have opportunities of corrupting such lads as might still resort ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... the Merovingians, the Franks, the Swedes,—all had their grievances, which they would hasten to wreak on the Goths when they learned that the dreaded king was gone. Dreary would be the land of the Goths; on its battle-fields the wolves would batten; the ravens would call to the eagles as they ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... primitive weaving is practised,—in southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Here the loom work is at a more advanced stage of development than that of the northern area, the weavers making use of a loom frame, sheds, healds, batten and an improvised shuttle. The Navajo Indians are the most skilled weavers north of Mexico and a description of their weaving is fairly typical of this area. As the warps are of soft pliable threads ...
— Aboriginal American Weaving • Mary Lois Kissell

... the bo'sun had started to cut through the topmast, about fifteen feet beyond the first cut, for that was the length of the batten he required; yet so wearisome was the work, that we had not gotten more than half through with it before the man whom the bo'sun had sent, returned to say that the dinner was ready. When this was dispatched, and we had rested a little over ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson

... Vineyard; they might have taken it into their lonely old heads to run off with me. But heigh-ho! there are no caps at sea but snow-caps. Let me see. Nail down the lid; caulk the seams; pay over the same with pitch; batten them down tight, and hang it with the snap-spring over the ship's stern. Were ever such things done before with a coffin? Some superstitious old carpenters, now, would be tied up in the rigging, ere they would do the ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... church at St. Olave's where a poor dull sermon from a bawling Scotman, and Sam'l to sleep, a thing unseemly in the Church, but I awake and did fix in my mind the pattern of my Lady Batten's Hood, the which I would not ask of her for that we do of late a little make ourselves strange to her and her family, but the less matter because I now have it in my Eye. Mrs Lethulier masqued, which methought a strange thing to be seen at Worshipp, ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... at Sir Edward Codrington's fleet just home from the battle of Navarino. Even then, as a mere boy, I was struck by the grand symmetry of that ample basin: the break water—then unfinished—lying across the centre; the heights of Bovisand and Cawsand, and those again of Mount Batten and Mount Edgecumbe, left and right; the citadel and the Hoe across the bottom of the Sound, the southern sun full on their walls, with the twin harbours and their forests of masts, winding away into dim distance on each ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... arose and hung about us in clouds, with a humming sound as of sawmills far away. But this was long before you took your malaria of mosquitoes, and we minded them no more than little children mind them to-day. Indeed, I can keep peacefully still even now to watch a mosquito batten and fatten upon my hand, to see his ravenous, pale abdomen swell to a vast smug redness—that physiological, or psychological, moment for which you wait ere you ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... that frequent evils should have sprung from the inauguration of a system such as this. It became almost a religion to every Spanish official and trader to batten upon the unfortunate colonial, quite regardless of the fact that the pioneer settler was being strangled during the process. Since the hapless dweller in South America was not allowed to bargain or haggle, and was forced to take whatever was graciously sent out to him ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... yea, delightfully un-American; the outside of his house may be as rough as the outside of a bird's nest; it is the inside that is for the birds; and the front room of this house, when the daughter presently threw open the batten shutters of its single street door, looked as bright and happy, with its candelabra glittering on the mantel, and its curtains of snowy lace, as its ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... makes sweet. Here we rejoice, because no rent We pay for our poor tenement, Wherein we rest, and never fear The landlord or the usurer. The quarter-day does ne'er affright Our peaceful slumbers in the night. We eat our own and batten more, Because we feed on no man's score; But pity those whose flanks grow great, Swell'd with the lard of others' meat. We bless our fortunes when we see Our own beloved privacy; And like our living, where we're known To very few, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... grand to him without an obsequious landlord in the foreground: he must recline on Mammon's imperial cushions in order to moralize becomingly on the ancient world. The search for pleasure at the expense of discomfort, as frantic lovers woo their mistresses to partake the shelter of a but and batten on a crust, Adrian deemed the bitterness of beggarliness. Let his sweet mistress be given him in the pomp and splendour due to his superior emotions, or not at all. Consequently the wise youth had long nursed an ineffectual passion, and it argued a great ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... us, I think, with the small spread of canvas that we are showing. But it will be bad enough when it comes, I doubt not; so go below and call Murdock, the cook, and the cabin boy, and say I want them to come on deck, as I am about to batten down the fore scuttle. And when eight bells comes, you will have to go aft and stretch yourselves out on the cabin lockers, for the forecastle will be closed until this breeze ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... excuse till hair had clothed his cheek, * And gloom o'ercrept that side-face (sight to stagger!) A fawn, when eyes would batten on his charms, * Each glance deals thrust like ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... house John March sat reading newspapers. His healthy legs were crossed toward the flickering hearth, and his strong shoulders touched the centre-table lamp. The new batten shutters excluded the beautiful outer night. His mother, to whom the mail had brought nothing, was sitting in deep shadow, her limp form and her regular supply of disapproving questions alike exhausted. Her slender elbow slipped now and then from the arm of her rocking-chair, and unconscious ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... Dane-axes or battle-axes in their coats armorial were very numerous in ancient times. It may chance to be of service to your Querist A.C. to be informed, that those of Devonshire which displayed these bearings were the following: Dennys, Batten, Gibbes, Ledenry, Wike, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various

... who had worked among the Negroes left the country; agitators, political, educational, and religious, became more moderate; "bad niggers" ceased to be bad; labor became less disorganized; the carpetbaggers and scalawags ceased to batten on the Southern communities. It was not so much a revolution as the defeat of a revolution. Society was replaced in the old historic grooves from which war ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... discomfort joined, The listless body and the vacant mind; The fear, the hate, the theft and falsehood, born In menial hearts of toil, and stripes, and scorn There, all the vices, which, like birds obscene, Batten on slavery loathsome and unclean, From the foul kitchen to the parlor rise, Pollute the nursery where the child-heir lies, Taint infant lips beyond all after cure, With the fell poison of a breast impure; ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... disdain Spurns with his foot, and cries aloud, "Lie there, Proud youth, and tell thy terrors to the slain. No tender mother shall thy shroud prepare, No father's sepulchre be thine to share. Thy carrion corpse shall be the vultures' food, And birds that batten on the dead shall tear Thee piecemeal, and the fishes lick thy blood, Drowned in the deep sea-gulfs, or ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... Monaco. I got off the Laconia there, to visit Esme, and when I came on board again, Monny and Mrs. East and Rachel came with me. They'd been in Italy and France, and had picked up Miss Guest, who was only too enchanted to batten on Monny's kindness and dollars. It was I who had engaged their staterooms, on a cable from Monny, long before. And if there were a spy anywhere, he might have the idea that I wanted to smuggle Esme out of her convent by a ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... Boy at Public Schools Regard his books with fear and loathing, From Latin's arbitrary rules Deriving practically nothing:— He said,—"O bounding human Boys, Of all the fare whereon you batten, What chiefly mars your simple joys?" With one accord they ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... thou openest thy lips in speech, who will believe thy word? If thou hast need of aught, none shall satisfy thee. What sane man will venture to join thy rablle rout? Ill indeed are thy revellers to look upon, young men impotent of body, and old men witless in mind: in the heyday of life they batten in sleek idleness, and wearily do they drag through an age of wrinkled wretchedness: and why? they blush with shame at the thought of deeds done in the past, and groan for weariness at what is left to do. During their youth ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... When I did see her weep so ruefully; For sure my love should ne'er induce the front And mask of Hate, whom woful ailments Of unavailing tears and heart deep moans Feed and envenom, as the milky blood Of hateful herbs a subtle-fanged snake. Shall Love pledge Hatred in her bitter draughts, And batten on his poisons? Love forbid! Love passeth not the threshold of cold Hate, And Hate is strange beneath the roof of Love. O Love, if thou be'st Love, dry up these tears Shed for the love of Love; for tho' mine image, The subject of thy power, be cold ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... madam,' he cried. 'You have made your choice, and shall abide by it; and those who, by their looks, indicate their resolution to abet your folly, shall not fare the better for their interference. Mate, call the crew! force the palantines below; and batten them ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... - Do you know who is my favourite author just now? How are the mighty fallen! Anthony Trollope. I batten on him; he is so nearly wearying you, and yet he never does; or rather, he never does, until he gets near the end, when he begins to wean you from him, so that you're as pleased to be done with him as you thought you would ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a large amount of credulity, has made Russia for two hundred years the happy hunting-ground of charlatans and impostors of various sorts claiming supernatural powers: clairvoyants, mediums, yogis, and all the rest of the tribe who batten on human weaknesses, and the perpetual desire to tear away the veil from the Unseen. It so happened that my chief at Lisbon had in his youth dabbled in the Black Art. Sir Charles Wyke was a dear old man, who had spent most of his Diplomatic career in Mexico and the South American Republics. ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... yourself: 'I am getting up now to do the business of a man; and am I out of humor for going about that which I was made for, and for the sake of which I was sent into the world? Was I then designed for nothing but to doze and batten beneath the counterpane? I thought action had been the ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... congratulate myself an the co-operation of my friend Mr. J. D. Batten in giving beautiful or amusing form to the creations of the folk fancy of the Hindoos. It is no slight thing to embody, as he has done, the glamour and the humour both of the Celt and of the Hindoo. It is only a further proof that Fairy Tales are ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs

... every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man; This was your husband.—Look you now, what follows: Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear, Blasting his wholesome brother.[124] Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor?[125] Ha! have you eyes? You cannot call it love; for, at your age The hey-day in the blood[126] is tame, it's humble, And waits upon the judgment: And what judgment Would step from this to this? O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, If thou canst mutine,[127] ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare

... breed. Sometimes also the juices oozing from the putrid meat soak a small extent of the sandy floor. That is enough for the maggot's first establishment. These causes of failure are avoided with a layer of sand about an inch thick. Then the bluebottle, the flesh fly and other flies whose grubs batten on dead bodies are kept at a ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... puts all the owners of slum property, all the grasping shipowners, all those who batten and fatten on other people's welfare in a most favourable light. We have been thinking them almost criminals when they were in reality public benefactors. They lead to many improvements, and even though the improvements come too ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... blow the water out of the bay. At half-past two on July 12th, the anchor was raised, the cat falls manned, and we bade New York good-by once more. A brisk northeast breeze was blowing, kicking up an uncomfortable sea, and when Sandy Hook was passed it became necessary to close all ports and batten down hatches. ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... Who shall move the King? Will reports of his ambassadors that Cleves, or Charles, or Francis miscall the Queen? You know they will not, for the King is aware of how these princes batten on carrion. Will broad sheets of the Lutheran? You know they will not, for the King is aware of how those coggers come by their tales. Will the King go abroad among the people any more to hear what they say? ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford

... of a simple metal or wooden batten, sliding in two beckets attached to the outer or inner sides of each of the brackets of the carriage, retained in any position by a thumb-screw. This batten is graduated by experiment or calculation for either the parallel or ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... have done you good to have been kept waiting ten years or more. You're spoilt; that's what's the matter with you. You got your heart's desire too easily. You think this world is your own damn playground. And it isn't. Understand? You're put here to work, not play; to develop yourself, not batten on other people. You won her like a man in the face of desperate odds. You paid a heavy price for her. But even so, you don't deserve to keep her if you forget that she has paid too. By Heaven, Piers, she must have loved you a mighty lot to have ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... clear. Unless the words that will be spoken and the facts that will come to light in the course of this examination supply me with some clue that will enable me to give them the name of that mysterious X, they'll surrender me this evening for the people to batten on. Attention, Lupin, old chap, the great ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... only glazedly Reflected. Upwards, upwards through the shadows, Through the lush sponginess of deep-sea meadows Where hare-lipped monsters batten, ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley

... these famous Oriental stories most acceptably, and Mr. Batten's remarkable illustrations are all that can be desired. His genii are genii indeed, and his fairy princesses ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold

... The stranger was drawing the batten blinds together. Her ivory-white arms gleamed in the sun. For a moment they could see her face shining like a star against the dusky glooms within; then the bolt was shot ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... from his course for them! Spiders o' hell! I'll strike my topmast to Death himself first—so the devil go with them! The blind gods may crush—they shall not conquer! They may kill—but I snap my fingers in their faces to the death! A pretty pickle, indeed! Batten down the hatches, Ramsay. Lend Jean a hand to get the guns ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... dragged. He helped to close and batten the fore-hatch, and later performed similar service on the hatch aft. The main-hatch continued to gulp the black food which the chute fed ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... I've tried other things, but my thoughts always come back to the Hands. I'm proud of your success you know. I want to—to batten on it. And I want to carry it on. I have ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... settlers, a desperado, named Rogers, had taken possession of a part of the lands on the Batten Kill. He warned the people off, making various threats; but the Highlanders knowing their titles were perfect, disregarded the menace, and set about industriously clearing up their lands and erecting their houses. One ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... increasing sale for such ware. And is it not after all a hopeful sign for the age that even the most questionable literary tastes must nowadays ally themselves with religion—that the hotbed imaginations which used to batten on Rousseau and Byron have now risen at least as high as the Vies des Saints and St. Francois de Sales' Philothea? The truth is, that in such a time as this, in the dawn of an age of faith, whose future magnificence we may surely prognosticate from the slowness and complexity ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley

... applied one end of the fife to his mouth, blew out all the flour, and in this humble imitation of the smoke of a gun, poor puss was run up to the batten, where she hung till she was dead. I am ashamed to say I did not attempt to save the kitten's life, although I caused her foul murder to be revenged by ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat



Words linked to "Batten" :   fortify, strengthen, strip, batten down, secure



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com