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Blank   Listen
verb
Blank  v. t.  (past & past part. blanked; pres. part. blanking)  
1.
To make void; to annul. (Obs.)
2.
To blanch; to make blank; to damp the spirits of; to dispirit or confuse. (Obs.) "Each opposite that blanks the face of joy."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Blank" Quotes from Famous Books



... "I shall leave a blank for what you want to say about the short-haired one, and she will give her husband his orders, and he'll do it. Do not think me wicked; they are all so disgusting, your prologues, but je ne leur veux pas de ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... remained unchanged, save for the death of Dan and the marriage of Reuben; but the sailor had been so little at home, that there was no great blank left by his absence, and Reuben was too close at hand to be greatly missed. Janet had not returned to service. Her mother had been rather horrified at the manner in which the poor girl had been treated by her mistress when the plague had appeared in the house. She did not ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... blank face of the rock, sheltered by a jutting ledge above it, was an inscription, a little faint, but he ascribed that to the poor quality of the pencil and roughness of the tablet. This is what ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... papers. 'Well, well,' said the President, 'it is a little risky for an army man to be wandering around without papers to show where he belongs and what he is, but I will see what can be done for you.' And taking a blank card from a little pile of similar blanks on the table, he wrote some lines upon it, addressed it, and handing it to the man bade him deliver it to a certain quartermaster, who would attend ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... to hear it, coupled with every word of praise that the language possessed. From admiration they rose to enthusiasm, from enthusiasm to a generous patriotic passion in which Spain was the world and Don John was Spain, and all the rest of everything was but a dull and lifeless blank which could have no possible ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford

... resemblance, as stanzas, to the stanzas of Horace's Odes. I have then followed Milton in appropriating the measure in question to the Latin metre, technically called the fourth Asclepiad, at the same time that I have substituted rhyme for blank verse, believing rhyme to be an inferior artist's only chance of giving pleasure. There still remains a question about the distribution of the rhymes, which here, as in most other cases, I have chosen to make alternate. Successive rhymes have their ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... experiences which they have passed through during life. This inclination is baneful in its influence, To such persons I would say, eliminate the past. Try the forgetting habit, cultivate health and along with it good cheer. Make your mind a blank so far as the past is concerned, and fill it with uplifting thoughts for the present and the future. Worry is a mental poison, the toxic element produced in the mind by retention of waste matter, thoughts of the dead past ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden

... and at the end of each he had ten or twelve blank sheets put in, in case the reader ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... I—but there are no words to express what I would have suffered, what I may yet have to suffer. Godensky would be praised for his cleverness, as well as securing a satisfactory revenge on me for refusing him. The only thing which rejoices me now is the thought of his blank disappointment when he gets the news from the Commissary ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... unregarded grave; his pulses, that beat so fast, all still and silent—senseless, motionless, like the birds he had killed? And that was not all: that other world! To enter on what would last for ever and ever and ever, on a state which he had never dwelt on or realised to himself, filled him with a blank, shuddering awe; and next came a worse, a sickening thought: if his feeling for the bliss of heaven was almost distaste, could he be fit for it? could he dare to hope for it? It was his Judge Whom he was about to meet, and he had been impatient and weary of Bible and Catechism, and ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge

... writer's name in a ring at the extreme left corner of the page, the top half of the first page of copy should be left blank, so that the headlines may be written there by the headline writer. All the sheets should have a margin of an inch at the bottom and at each side of the paper, and all other sheets than the first should have a margin of an inch at the top. The side margins are necessary for the corrections ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... left college. There is one woman, Mary Johnston, who was paid $20,000 in advance royalties on one book before a word of it was printed. A number of distinguished writers had signed the general petition before the writers' blank had reached them, among them Mark Twain, Booth Tarkington, Ernest Thompson Seton, Julia Ward Howe, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mary Wilkins Freeman and ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... no information on the subject, and Mr Howroyd refused point-blank to discuss the matter. 'You'll hear all there is to hear in time; but it may come before me to be heard, and I can't discuss it with ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin

... noisy arguments were not much more effective than the interchange of diplomatic broadsides which they had for a moment superseded. The day had gone by for blank cartridges and empty protocols. Nevertheless Lord Henry's harmless thunder was answered, the next day, by a "Quintuplication" in worse Latin than ever, presented to Dr. Dale and his colleagues by Richardot and Champagny, on the subject of the armistice. And then there was a return quintuplication, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... screwing out a little ephemeral fame from instituting a jubilee for Thomson.(826) I fear I shall not make my court to Mr. Berry, by owning I would not give this last week's fine weather for all the four Seasons in blank verse. There is more nature in L'Allegro and Penseroso, than in all the laboured imitations Of Milton. What is there ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... the 'History of Joseph' done into blank verse are really beautiful idylls. The substance with which he worked, indeed, is so good that there would be a difficulty in spoiling it completely; but the prose of the translation in the English Bible, faultless as it is, loses nothing in Bunyan's hands, ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude

... offered as a picture. The hillside is without detail, the sky a blank. The first item introduced attracts the eye, the second and third are joined with the first. If they parallel the line of the hillside they do nothing toward the development of the picture but rather harm by introducing an element of monotony. If, however, they are so placed in sky ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore

... hang o'er the sun, Lights gleam portentous in the air, And yet who knows? This troubled heart Still gives not up to blank despair. ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham

... in front of his writing-table with a blank sheet of paper in front of him—a creamy, virginal sheet, inviting and elusive. "A few black smudges and the whole of life might be there," he thought, "concentrated but limited with four corners and no boundaries." He thought of the untouched whiteness of the paper violated by a masterpiece—or ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco

... explaining how the place could stand a siege against a thousand Indians. Finally, he was taken out on the parapet, where there was a six-pounder at each angle. The old savage inquired how they could shoot such a thing, and at Hobbs' request, a blank cartridge was put in the piece and fired. Old Wolf sprang back in amazement, and the Indians on the outside, under the walls, knowing nothing of what was going on, ran away as fast as their legs could carry them, convinced that their ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... following instincts that urged them to find out something about life—in spite of the most earnest discouragement.... None of them believed for a moment that the school was preparing them for life. Most of them regarded it as a long inexplicable passage of blank, grey occupations through which they had to ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... wants some tards, too," said the little fellow; and Mrs. Parker, taking a number of blank cards, wrote ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... attended to my person; I allowed my beard to grow— my face was never washed, unless mechanically, when ordered by the keeper; and if I was not mad, there was every prospect of my soon becoming so. Life passed away as a blank—I had become indifferent to everything—I noted time no more—the change of seasons was unperceived —even the day and the night followed without my ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... on a strong arm, and little feared Abandonment to help if heaved or sank Her heart at intervals while Love looked blank, Life rosier were ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... insolence, which suddenly reawakened in the outraged woman her frenzy of rancor, interrupted or rather suspended for several moments by pity. She took the frame in her hands, she cast it upon the ground, trampling the glass beneath her feet, then she began to write, on the first blank sheet, one of those notes which passion alone dares to pen, which does not ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... the utmost we have tasked our powers, And Nem'esis still frowns and shakes her head; When, wearied out and baffled, we confess Our utter weakness, and the tired hand drops, And Hope flees from us, and in blank despair We sink to earth, the face, so stern before, August will smile—the hand before withdrawn Reach out the help we vainly pleaded for, Take up our task, and in a moment do What all our ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... room he stood stricken and rooted to the spot. At a small table, close up to the blank window and the white street of snow, sat the old anarchist Professor over a glass of milk, with his lifted livid face and pendent eyelids. For an instant Syme stood as rigid as the stick he leant upon. Then with a gesture as of blind hurry, he brushed past the Professor, dashing open the door ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... says Brown. He was always calling Beriah "Elijah" or "Isaiah" or "Jeremiah" or some other prophet name out of Scripture. "Does this go?" And he held out the telegraph-blank with the morning's ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... angered and vindictive man had, however, begun sensibly to abate, and old thoughts, memories, duties, suggested partly by the blank which Lucy's absence made in his house, partly by remembrance of the solemn promise he had made her mother, were strongly reviving in his mind, when he read the announcement of marriage in a provincial journal, directed to him, as he believed, in the bride's hand-writing; ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... generous enough; and they pass those hours in a sort of coma, which are not dedicated to furious moiling in the gold mill. When they do not require to go to the office, when they are not hungry and have no mind to drink, the whole breathing world is a blank to them. If they have to wait an hour or so for a train, they fall into a stupid trance, with their eyes open. To see them, you would suppose there was nothing to look at and no one to speak with; you would imagine they were paralyzed ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... fingers delicately worked—seconds that told terribly on Hawk Carse. For the screen was blank and lifeless, and there was no way of knowing how far the work in the laboratory had meanwhile progressed. In his mind remained each detail of the scene as he had viewed it last: the strapped-down figure, the approaching anesthetic cylinder, the knives lying in readiness.... How ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore

... are the schools from which men are brought to sustain the tottering fortune of nations; they are equally avocations from what ought to be the principal pursuit of man, the good of mankind.] dogs, horses, and wine, are employed to fill up the blank of a listless and unprofitable life. They speak of human pursuits, as if the whole difficulty were to find something to do; they fix on some frivolous occupation, as if there was nothing that deserved to be done: they consider what tends to the good of their fellow creatures, as ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... saw in his hand a paper, which he told the deponent that he had received from a certain Captain Kuhn, who had been lately from New York, where he had been a prisoner, and that this deponent understood and believed it was a permission or pass to go to New York with any vessel, as it was blank and subscribed by Admiral Arbuthnot: that he does not know that the said Robert Harris ever made any improper use of ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... a blank in my memory. Standing under Mrs. Ransome's picture (I would stand there), I received the congratulations of the hundred or more people who were anxious to see Mr. Allison's bride, and of the whole glittering pageant I remember ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green

... existed, but the present Crowhursts knew nothing of their ancestors beyond the generation immediately preceding. What was there to remember, or if there was anything worth remembering, why should they remember it? Life was blank, blind, dull as the brown clay in the sodden fields in November; nevertheless, the Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world shone into the Crowhurst cottage—that Light greater than all lights which can be lit by priest or ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford

... train; and then you are aware of an insane satisfaction in renewed flight through the darkness. You think hazily of the folk in their beds in the town left behind, who stir uneasily at the sound of your train's departing whistle; and so all is a blank vigil or ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... be discredited by a blank discharge, engagements were entered into, that within four months of the promulgation of the sentence, the emperor would invade England, and Henry should be deposed.[257] The imperialists illuminated Rome; cannon were fired; bonfires ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... the figure of an Indian warrior, who stopped on the threshold as if he doubted whether he would be welcome when those within saw him. As he stood with the blank darkness behind him and the crimson glow from the burning logs lighting up the front of his body, he formed a ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... respectfully phrased it, "down upon the governor," the good man, like the flowers in the poem, "dipped and rose, and turned to look at her." He sparkled while she stormed. He smiled when the shafts of her sarcasm were thrown point-blank at him. He was good-tempered before the storm began, while it lasted, and when it was over. Mrs. Cockayne had the ingenuity to pretend that Cockayne was the veriest tyrant behind people's backs; he who, as a neighbour of his very expressively put the case, dared not help himself ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... you, my man," said the venerable juror, "how you spell your name?" The name was spelt, the juror carefully inscribed it on a blank space opposite the charge, sighed with relief, and looked round. "Signify, gentlemen, signify!" cried the usher. "Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve. True Bill, True Bill! Next case. Page six, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... He tried to answer the question but couldn't. He was like one who walks in the darkness of the hallway of a house and comes to a blank wall. The old desire to run away from life, to wear himself out physically, came back upon him like ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson

... light which, with its strongly marked contrast of shadow, is the first requisite towards seeing objects pictorially. Pencil-drawings were pinned against the wall or scattered on the tables. Unframed canvases turned their backs on the spectator, presenting only a blank to the eye, and churlishly concealing whatever riches of scenery or human beauty Miriam's skill had depicted ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... mind went blank. When her thoughts returned she stood alone in the room. The clatter of Morgan's galloping horse died swiftly away down the road. She turned to Dan. Black Bart was crouched at watch beside him. She kneeled ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... thick darkness of profoundest night, when everything around him has disappeared, and he seems alone with himself and the black shades that surround him, feels his existence a blank and nothingness, except so far as memory recalls to him the glories and splendors of light. Everything is dead to him, and he, as it were, to Nature. How crushing and overwhelming the thought, the fear, the dread, that perhaps ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... blank stainless vanadium face showed no display of feeling whatsoever. "That's not the right attitude, friend. Everyone ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg

... feeling. Most people disappoint you by their lack of capacity to enjoy nature, in moments which are superlative to you—moments which alone would repay you for the whole trouble of living through blank years. But this boy's spirit responded to beauty, up to an extreme point which was highly satisfactory. I saw it in the exaltation on his little ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... under us. Our people don't worship long. They have too much to think of. They'll put up some arches, and a few statues and build tribute houses in a lot of towns, and then they'll go on about their business, and we who have fought will feel a bit blank." ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey

... inspiration of the Holy Ghost, seeking the most improbable of all excuses for the mistake to which intrigue had driven them. 'The courtiers of the Vatican and chief officers of the Church,' says an eyewitness, 'wept and screamed and cursed and gave themselves up to despair.' Along the blank walls of the city was scrawled: 'Rome to let.' Sonnets fell in showers, accusing the cardinals of having delivered over 'the fair Vatican to a German's fury.'[1] Adrian VI. came to Rome for the first time as Pope.[2] He knew no Italian, and talked Latin with an accent ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... an instant's blank astonishment. Miss Cameron opened her lips and closed them again, glancing at Mrs Kilbannon. They fell back together, but not in disorder. This was something much more formidable than common curiosity. Just what it was they would ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... that, 'that will help you out of your scrape! Sit down and write out the song as far as you can, explain your behavior truthfully, and they will think it all a good joke.' No sooner said than done! I had time enough, and found a blank piece of paper—and here is the result! I place it in these fair hands, an impromptu wedding-song, if you will ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... leaving the "sight" 8x13 inches. Within this margin all work and signatures must be included, one of the smaller sides of the sheet is regarded as its top, and measuring downward from the marginal line a space of not less than 1-1/4 inches is to be left blank for the insertion of Title, Name, ...
— Patent Laws of the Republic of Hawaii - and Rules of Practice in the Patent Office • Hawaii

... be made with reference to the comfort and happiness of adults. There may indeed be here and there a child's chair, or a child's carriage, or newspaper, or book; but there will seldom be, except by stealth, any free juvenile conversation at the table or the fireside. Here the child must sit as a blank or cypher, to ruminate on the past, or to receive half formed and ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott

... in the moon the long road lies, The moon stands blank above; White in the moon the long road lies That leads me ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman

... him point blank." This usually is intended to mean directly, or at short range. But point blank means the point at which the line of sight is crossed downward by the trajectory—the curve described ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce

... not all was pretense. Nature, now and then, treacherously slipped in a real thrill, where only play-acting was expected. Susan, laughing at the memory of some sentimental fencing, was sometimes caught unaware by a little pang of regret; how blank and dull life would be when this casual game was over! After all, he WAS the great writer; before the eyes of all the world, even this pretense at an intimate friendship was a feather ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... present do not think much of the future; and the work of the Jews was to be servants of Jehovah and doers of his law here. However, all men must think a little of the region beyond death. When the Jews thought of it, they projected their LAW upon its blank spaces. It was a place where Jehovah would vindicate his law—where the just should be happy, the unjust miserable. The perplexity which tormented Job, David, and Elijah—namely, that bad men should succeed in this world and good men fail—was to find its ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... begs to express his high sense of the services rendered by Samuel Hardwicke and his band, and his appreciation of the rare courage, discretion and fortitude displayed by the youthful leader of the Pensacola scouting party. A few blank commissions in the volunteer forces having been placed in the commanding General's hands for bestowal upon deserving men, he is greatly pleased to issue the first of them to Mr. Hardwicke, in recognition of his gallant conduct, creating him a captain ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston

... adds to its fascination is the entire loneliness in which the rider passes through those weird and ever-shifting scenes of winter radiance. Sometimes, when the snow is drifting up the pass, and the world is blank behind, before, and all around, it seems like plunging into chaos. The muffled pines loom fantastically through the drift as we rush past them, and the wind, ever and anon, detaches great masses of snow in clouds from their bent branches. Or again at night, when the moon is shining, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... Merton passed on his northward way to Kirkburn, whither Logan had summoned him, was blank with snow. The snow was not more than a couple of inches deep where it had not drifted, and, as frost had set in, it was not likely to deepen. There was no ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... crash, and the shattered door flew in splinters about our ears, while through the aperture we saw hundreds of savage countenances, with the points of pikes and swords and the muzzles of pistols directed at us. It was but for an instant, for directly we could run out our guns we fired them point-blank into the living mass. As soon as the smoke cleared away the ground was seen strewed with dead and wounded men; while the greater number, panic-stricken by the unexpected reception we had given them, instead of dashing forward to make their way through the opening, were rapidly ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston

... practical religion were condemned by sly innuendo and half-respectful allusion by which he might "without sneering teach the rest to sneer." In 1838 he was still so far recognized in the ministry as to be invited to address the graduating class of the Harvard Divinity School. The blank pantheism which he then enunciated called forth from Professor Henry Ware, Jr., a sermon in the college chapel on the personality of God, which he sent with a friendly note to Mr. Emerson. The gay and Skimpolesque reply of the sage is an illustration of that ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... On his return, he found his crew loud in complaints of the thievish propensities of the natives, and urgent to have an example made of some of them. On the next occasion he fired a gun at them with blank cartridge; but their nature was still too strong ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... blank with amazement as he looked at the ship. "In that tiny thing you generate such power?" he ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell

... consciously registering the smile of good humour, the generosity of an experienced man toward the chance visitor, and the willingness to defer to the gentleman from Up the Bank, brought his expression unconsciously to the cold, rough woodenness of blank insensitiveness—the malignance of a snapping turtle, to mention a medium reptilian face. A whim, and the necessity of delay, led Doss to suggest that they take a look up the Obion River as a likely hiding place. Of course, Doss knew best, and they quit the tumbling Mississippi ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears

... Robert, and a blank silence fell. 'Then it's all up?' said Cyril at last; 'it's no use our looking for a thing that's smashed into dust, and the dust scattered ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit

... realized what had happened Billy had possessed himself of the fallen club and struck one of them a blinding, staggering blow across the eyes. Then number three pulled his gun and fired point-blank at Billy. The bullet tore through the mucker's left shoulder. It would have sent a more highly organized and nervously inclined man to the pavement; but Billy was neither highly organized nor nervously inclined, ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... which was doubtless heavier to bear and more hopeless than that felt by any of the wanderers who in early days were left upon that shore. For there is no solitude like that of a heart which dwells alone, whose memories of the past can bring no gladness, and whose future lies cheerless and blank ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous

... ever pried or ever may pry, sealed as it is by the counsel of God against the curious vision of His children. And to some extent I think we all must admit that this popular notion holds true. There are those to whom the future must be a blank, who peer into it ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins

... all those persons told him they were furnished with money by sir John Friend, to defray the expense of their expeditions. His testimony was confirmed by other infamous emissaries, who received but too much countenance from the government. Blank warrants were issued, and filled up occasionally with such names as the informers suggested. These were delivered to Aaron Smith, solicitor to the treasury, who with messengers accompanied Lunt and his associates to Lancashire, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... place of your husband, my charmer, not your footman!' The dame was inexorable, said she could not take me without a character, but hinted that I might be the lover instead of the bridegroom; and when I scorned the suggestion, and pressed for the parson, she told me point-blank, with her unlucky city pronunciation, 'that she would never ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... tapestry weaving. With the improvement of drawing that came in these years, a greater excellence of weave was required to translate properly the meaning of the artist. The human face which had hitherto been either blank or distorted in expression, now required a treatment that should convey its subtlest shades of expression. Gifted weavers rose to the task, became almost inspired in the use of their medium, and produced such works of their art as have never ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... to be exact—who had been about to break forth into the second, or forty-second verse of his song (there being in all seventy-two stanzas, so it doesn't much matter which one is designated)—the older cowboy, I say, paused with his mouth open, and a blank look on his face. Then he grinned—that is the only ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker

... mothers, wives, sisters, haunted by a name that has ceased to be spoken on earth,—you, for whom there is no more news from the camp, no more reading of lists, no more tracing of maps, no more letters, but only a blank, dead silence! The battlecry goes on, but for you it is passed by! the victory comes, but, oh, never more to bring him back to you! your offering to this great cause has been made, and been taken; you ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... Montagu has been regarded in some quarters as a threat. It has even been considered to be a blank cheque for the Government of India to re-establish the reign of terror if they chose. It is certainly inconsistent with his desire to base the Government on the goodwill of the people. At the same time if the Hunter Committee's finding be true and if I was ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi

... parade or inspection! This is the sword of Damascus, I fought with in Flanders;[11] this breastplate, 25 Well I remember the day! once saved my life in a skirmish; Here in front you can see the very dint of the bullet Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish arcabucero.[12] Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of Miles Standish Would at this moment be mould, in their grave in the Flemish morasses." 30 Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up from his writing: ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... to give up one or more of their bad habits. "Mr. Blank has done this very thing for sixty or seventy years and now at the age of eighty or ninety he is strong and active," they reply to warnings. This is sophistry, for although an individual occasionally lives to old age in spite of broken health laws, the average person ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... Undine? As often as they heard a door open, every eye turned involuntarily toward it, and when nothing ensued but the entrance of the steward with some more dishes, or of the cupbearer with a fresh supply of rich wine, the guests would look sad and blank, and the sparks of gayety kindled by the light jest or the cheerful discourse, were quenched in the damp of melancholy recollections. The bride was the most thoughtless, and consequently the most cheerful person present; but even she, at moments, felt it unnatural to be sitting at ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... became blank before John North's eyes as he realized that a chain of circumstantial evidence was connecting him with the McBride murder. He glanced about at a score of men—witnesses, officials, and jury, and felt their sudden doubt of him, as intangibly but as certainly as ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... of Africa was almost a blank. Egypt and Morocco were marked out at the north and east, Cape Colony at the extreme south, and here and there a little outline of territory on the gold coast. All the rest was vaguely marked as Sahara or the ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 53, November 11, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... indeed were gone; and as one by one the depressed party separated and passed out into the silent moonlit streets of Rochester, all and each of them felt as if some great light had suddenly gone out, and life was changed to them. There was a mighty blank in space and a shadow everywhere, but spirit light came no more to ...
— Hydesville - The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism • Thomas Olman Todd

... either went to the Protectorate Refuge, or those under whose charge they went to live were obliged to give bonds or securities, 500 Mexican dollars was the usual amount of the security in the cases recorded. He also showed us the form of these bonds, both blank forms and some that had been made out; these bonds required that the girls named therein should not be removed from Singapore, and that the girls should be produced from time to time at the Protectorate, upon demand of the Protector, and within twenty-four hours. The bond was good for a specified ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell

... also a blank. Binnie suggested trying Monceau, two kilometres further on; but when they arrived there, fatigued and dirty, a thin drizzle was falling and it was almost dark. Percival ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various

... moor, with a name of its own And a certain use in the world, no doubt, Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone 'Mid the blank miles round about: ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... out, but all seemed a blank. No doubt, if he could at some time coax Joe to confess who it was he believed this stranger to be, who was in the vehicle, and who looked back so often as he whipped his tired horse, the puzzle might not appear ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren

... an unconscious gesture—half of scorn, half of despair—and paced the room slowly up and down. A life of toil—a life rounding into worldly success, but blank of all love and heart's comfort—was this to be the only conclusion to his career? Of what use, then, was it ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... introduced to you, I couldn't be sure! Maryllia—Miss Vancourt—has told me all about you,—and I know she has written twice since I've been here to ask you up to the Manor—once to tea, and once to dinner. Why haven't you come?" Walden was slightly embarrassed by this point- blank question. It was perfectly true he had received two invitations from the lady of the Manor, and had refused both. Why he had refused, he could not ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... Lucetta looked blank, twitched up her lovely eyebrows and lip, and burst into hysterical sobs. Here was a disaster—her ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... she had offered to tell his fortune; but he refused point-blank, for surely no good tidings could come to him from ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... concealment. Observing from without that the light in Leigh's windows was dim, he concluded that he was still upon the tower and went on up the stairs, striking match after match to guide his steps. As he paused to extinguish the embers, he encountered the blank darkness of the walls, relieved by ghostly slits of windows holding here and there a star; and the hollow drumming of the wind was like the sea. It was a release to emerge at last from this series of ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... Foresightless mechanize Its blank entrancement now as evermore Its ceaseless artistries in circumstance.... Yet seems this vast and singular confection Wherein our scenery glints of scantest size, Inutile all—so far ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... be profane, but when anyone pretended to be what they were not, it aroused his combative spirit, and it was the "blank humbuggery of the thing" that mightily displeased him. But the time came when the laugh was against him. He had been in bed and slept some hours one summer night; it was the time of the full moon, when its transcendent beauty ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... in carrying baggage for the troops. When asked how he came to be among the belligerents, having no interest in the matter, he replied, that he was under the impression the troops had orders not to fire on the people, or if they did, it should be with blank cartridge; he was confirmed in this belief by the fact, that the first four or five shots took no effect; but, "at any rate," he added, "when I saw the fun going on, I could not resist the ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... in regard to income tax and brewers' licences,—making our poor Prime Minister's mouth water. Lord Drummond was active among the colonies. Phineas Finn had at any rate his ideas about Ireland. But with the Prime Minister,—so at least the Duke told himself,—it was all a blank. The policy confided to him and expected at his hands was that of keeping together a Coalition Ministry. That was a task that did not satisfy him. And now, gradually,—very slowly indeed at first, but still with a sure step,—there ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... over there... gadzooks! but there's the specific purpose.... Is it not true, sir," he added, turning once more to Chauvelin, "that in the pocket of that exquisitely cut coat of yours, you have a passport—name in blank perhaps—which you ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This edition is interleaved with blank sheets for the reader's notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the care of the publishers, will meet with ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior

... high, Has quench'd my light, and cast her earthly load; Thus, lone and weary, my oft steps have trode, As some wild animal, the sere woods by, Fleeing with heavy heart and downcast eye The world which since to me a blank has show'd. Still with fond search each well-known spot I pace Where once I saw her: Love, who grieves me so, My only guide, directs me where to go. I find her not: her every sainted trace Seeks, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... in Woman's Rights!" said Mrs. Lawson, half her enthusiasm falling off and leaving her coarse features blank and bare. ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... means of existence to a few fragments of silver plate, which had somehow been saved from the universal wreck. This slender resource grew less day by day, and when that was exhausted the prospect was a blank. The student of De Maistre's philosophy may see in what crushing personal anguish some of its most sinister growths had their roots. When the cares of beggary come suddenly upon a man in middle life, they burn very deep. Alone, and starving for a cause that is dear to him, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley

... was unusually fidgety till the post came in, and there was a blank look on his countenance when the post-bag was opened and it produced no letter for him. Soon after breakfast, however, Admiral Triton's carriage drove up to the door, and out of it stepped the admiral himself. He quickly stumped into the drawing-room, and ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... I was at home, and that on taking up my Greek Testament one morning to read (as is my wont) a chapter, I found, to my surprise, that what seemed to be the old, familiar book was a total blank; not a character was inscribed in it or upon it. I supposed that some book like it had, by some accident, got into its place; and, without stopping to hunt for it, took down a large quarto volume which contained both the Old and New Testaments. To my surprise, however, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... closured stations Elicits further protestations. Blank desolation, grim and stark, Broods sadly o'er Carpenders Park, And Friezland, as perhaps is meet, Is suffering badly from cold feet. The population of Rhosneigr Is raging like a wounded tiger; And those who used to book at Llong ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various

... heart. Then she would prepare a right good supper for us, as a little salt was still left in the bottom of a barrel of meat which the Imperialists had broken up. I let her take her own way, and having scraped some soot from the chimney and mixed it with water, I tore a blank leaf out of Virgillus, and wrote to the Pastor Liepensts, his reverence Abraham Tiburtius, praying that for God His sake he would take our necessities to heart, and would exhort his parishioners ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... for instance, she told me (in confidence, mind you) That Captain BLANK CARTRIDGE, when playing at Nap, Has an odious habit of getting behind you, And calling according to what's on your lap. (By the way, we have only just heard that the Major, Who gave Lady B. such a beautiful ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various

... prepared for just such an emergency, grabbed up his shock-rod and stepped closer to the natives. He was standing there, to all appearances strictly on the job of making his charges work, when Philander came crawling up the rise into the pocket where this crew was mining the glossy, lustrous pitch-blank uraninite ore. ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans

... not of the stuff of which coxcombs are made, and had not begun to think even of the abyss that separated Lady Florimel and himself—an abyss like that between star and star, across which stretches no mediating air—a blank and blind space. He felt her presence only as that of a being to be worshipped, to be heard with rapture, and yet ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... so sorry he isn't at home!" Marie exclaimed, enjoying the blank disappointment that dulled Idina's expression. When she had produced her effect, she added that Angelo would come back in time for luncheon. Miss Bland turned her face away and looked down at a fountain ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... another to the Place Antoine, and again, farther on, a third coach, in which she was to go to the convent named. I begged her not to forget to burn all the letters she had received from me, and to write to me from the convent as often as she could, to seal her letters but to leave the address blank. She promised to carry out my instructions, and I then made her accept a packet of two hundred louis, of which she might chance to be in need. She wept, more for my situation than her own, but I consoled her by saying that I had plenty of money ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... kind could be taken in. He would be like a complete telegraph system with every branch office closed. No intelligence would be transmitted; since no message could be even filed for sending. Because of the paralysis of the sensory muscles, the child's conscious mind would remain blank. ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... something in the glass that reflected its shadow into his very soul, the expression of exultant triumph, so lately depicted upon his face, was all at once swept from it, giving place to a look of blank bitterness. ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... they would almost seem to be copied from the books commonly used in China. The impressions are taken off on one side of the paper only, and in binding, both the Chinese, and ancient German, or Dutch block-books, the blank sides of the pages are placed opposite each other, and sometimes pasted together.... The impressions are not taken off with printer's ink, but with a brown paint or colour, of a much thinner description, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... her territories bordering on us: and the plan of a convention is there stated. You are desired to propose the matter to that court, and establish with them so much of it as they approve, filling up the blank for the manner of the demand by us and compliance by them, in such way, as their laws and the organization of their government may require. But recollect that they bound on us between two and three thousand miles, and consequently, that they should authorize a delivery ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... its subtle sylvan consistency, and then at the lumbering coarse ... 'machina intersit' ... Grandmama Grey!—to say nothing of the 'small dog' that isn't the 'small boy.' Mr. Horne succeeds better on a larger canvass, and with weightier material; with blank verse rather than lyrics. He cannot make a fine stroke. He wants subtlety and elasticity in the thought and expression. Remember, I admire him honestly and earnestly. No one has admired more than I the 'Death of Marlowe,' scenes ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... words won't come. He gazes at his uncle helplessly. Mr. Reiss goes slowly to the writing-table and sits down. Taking a blank cheque from a pocket-book he always carries, he fills it in and passes it to the boy ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson

... sentry, too, stood at the entrance. The gates opened on to a spacious courtyard surrounded by buildings. Not a green thing was to be seen, and the gravelled yard was as naked and barren as the buildings themselves, whose blank windows suggested deserted rooms. Only a few were graced with white curtains, which gave promise of habitation. Even the young chestnut-trees that had been planted round the borders of the courtyard throve but poorly; now and then a yellow leaf fell to the ground, although ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... hundreds more than it could hold, with thousands of admiring spectators that went away without a sight. This extraordinary phenomenon of tragic excellence! this star of Melpomene! this comet of the stage! this sun of the firmament of the Muses! this moon of blank verse! this queen arch-princess of tears! this Donnellan of the poisoned bowl! this empress of the pistol and dagger! this child of Shakspeare! this world of weeping clouds! this Juno of commanding aspects! this Terpsichore ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... ages digs between himself and society, and which society attempts to bridge by the aid of the gallows. It is needless here to enter into details of this matter; of the second rising which preceded it; of the dead blank which followed it; of the heartless and disgusting cruelty which made the prisoners death a foregone conclusion at his mock trial; or of the deeds worse than butchery which characterized the last scene. Still, ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... phosphoric acid and potash as in Indian corn, and for yellow turnips the same as in swedes, are provisionally adopted; but in all the Tables the assumed results are given in parentheses. For locust-beans no figure has been assumed, and the columns are left blank. ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman

... until too late, that he had neglected to do it, as he disappeared in the course of the action, and was never afterwards heard of. If he was killed, or taken prisoner, he must have been a prize to somebody, though he left me a blank. ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... the files on The World Factbook Web site are large and could take several minutes to download on a dial-up connection. The screen might be blank during the download process. ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... evening, the Latin poems were sent in to the doctor's study for comparison, and Hamilton's blank counterfeit was titled on the cover, and dispatched with a degree of nervous anxiety that certainly would not have been called forth by a subject so empty. Louis was in an agony of remorse, when the truth burst on him. His only hope was, that Hamilton might have found the right packet. ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... and elevating influence of Hope, that great actuating principle from the opening to the close of life, what a dreary blank our existence would prove. In childhood it gorgeously gilds the future; the tints fade as maturity gains that future, and then it gently brightens the evening of life, while memory flings her mantle of witchery over the ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans

... larger business transactions. The common traffic of the city, the common currency indeed of all the world, was conducted by means of the little brown, green and pink council cheques for small amounts, printed with a blank payee. Asano had several with him, and at the first opportunity he supplied the gaps in his set. They were printed not on tearable paper, but on a semi-transparent fabric of silken flexibility, interwoven with silk. Across them all sprawled a facsimile of Graham's signature, his first ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... hearts and blank faces; they all felt that evil days had come that the Revolution which had been so petted and caressed by the best and fairest in France, had become a beast of prey, and that war, anarchy, ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... bluejackets, Gordons, Imperial Light Horse, and Engineers, under Lieutenant Digby-Jones, R.E., were still holding their ground manfully on the extreme westerly crest of Waggon Hill. The Boers were within point-blank range of them on two sides, while beyond the crest and down into Bester's Valley hundreds of others were waiting for the first sign of panic among our men to rush the position, but held in check by a company of the 60th Rifles and a few Light Horse occupying ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse

... rounds blank" an' follow me, An' it's "Thirteen rank" an' follow me; Oh, passin' the love o' women, Follow ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling

... Yates, gambler, confidence man and fugitive from justice, known to the police and in sporting circles as J. H. Rogers, went down with the Titanic after assisting many women aboard life-boats, became known when a note, written on a blank page torn from a diary: was delivered to his sister. Here is a ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... The blank look of utter astonishment upon the face of honest John Kenyon would have convinced any woman in her senses that he knew nothing at all of what she was speaking. A dim impression of this, indeed, flashed across the young ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... a pause. I would have given much to have seen the pair of them. When Mr. Malcolm MacPherson spoke his voice was that of blank, uncomprehending amazement. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... 'dying of soldiers and inhabitants in the town of Autree, seven, eight, and nine a day, for several weeks together.' A Colonel Pickering died of it, on whom the chaplain wrote an elegy. One has heard of blank-verse that is merely 'prose cut into lengths,' but his lines suggest that they must have been on the rack to bring them to the right measure. The author feared that it was the lack of action that had ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... daylight on the sidewalk of a city street, under a high blank wall, with shops on the opposite side; each with an hour-glass, empty of sand, in his right hand, and each clad only in a ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen

... for more than three years there is another blank, except for the journal of his trip to his western lands already referred to. But on January 1, 1785, he begins a new Diary and thenceforward continues it, with short intermissions, until the day of his last ride over ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth

... he hadn't made a fool of himself, if only he hadn't told that drivelling story about the Japanese umbrella, if only he hadn't laughed in that frantic manner, and if only——But no, he could not look back on the last five minutes. The past was a grey blank, but the flaming episode of the kiss had burnt a big black hole in his present consciousness. He felt that by that rash, unpardonable act he had desecrated the holy thing; and with it all, had forestalled, delayed, ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... His steps were quick and excited. His hands were thrust deep in his trousers pockets. The butts of innumerable half-smoked cigarettes lay scattered under his feet. He ceased his restless movement upon his companion's interruption, and for a moment or two gazed at Philip in blank silence. ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood

... ever lead the human mind beyond the resolution of the number of laws which now seem to govern phenomena into a smaller number; but if we reached the limit of the possible in that direction to-morrow, we should be as far from the secret of the universe as ever. When we have all got to the blank wall which everybody admits lies at the boundary of experimental evidence, the philosopher will know no more about what lies beyond than the peasant, though the peasant will probably do then what he does now—people it with the creatures ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... You see, your guns might just as well be thrown overboard for any good they would be," the major said. "The things would not be safe to fire a salute with blank cartridge." ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty

... be avoided. If you have made a mistake, tear a blank check from the back of your check book and use that in ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... yes; they would and they do; but believe me, the selfish feminine thing, whose only sincere worship is offered at the shrines of Fashion and Folly, is of all creatures the one whose life is to be despised and never desired, and whose death makes no blank even in the circles of her ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... discovery that he must bide in the poorhouse the Jews had built there till the elders had examined him. And there he had herded all day long with the sick and cripples and a lewd rabble, till evening brought the elders and his doom—a point-blank refusal to allow him to enter the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... absence of a blank space, which is nothing, or next to nothing, may make! The words here should have been printed, "God is all, and yet is no thing;" For what does 'thing' mean? Itself, that is, the 'ing', or inclosure, that which is ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... centuries, during which great things occurred and great tragedies were enacted, which seem all the darker and more tremendous to the mind because unwritten and unknown. But with the mighty dead of these blank ages I could not commune. Doubtless they loved and hated and rose and fell, and there were broken hearts and broken lives; but as beings of flesh and blood we cannot visualize them, and are in doubt even as to their race. And of their ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... gun and Mike backed slowly down the ramp. He was still holding Professor Brandon in his arms, the old man's eyes blank ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis

... said, "in which we would all be draped in Greek style, in sheets, and wear sandals and flesh colored hose, covered from neck to instep, and with long speeches in blank verse to mouth. That is the sort of a performance to ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison



Words linked to "Blank" :   graphic symbol, blank shell, keep, grapheme, empty, lacuna, cartridge, endorsement in blank, blank out, space, white, blank endorsement, unloaded, vacuous, uncommunicative, point-blank, prevent, coin blank, character, blank check, dummy, incommunicative, clean, crack, blankness, blank verse, flat solid, gap



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