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Drain   Listen
verb
Drain  v. t.  (past & past part. drained; pres. part. draining)  
1.
To draw off by degrees; to cause to flow gradually out or off; hence, to cause the exhaustion of. "Fountains drain the water from the ground adjacent." "But it was not alone that the he drained their treasure and hampered their industry."
2.
To exhaust of liquid contents by drawing them off; to make gradually dry or empty; to remove surface water, as from streets, by gutters, etc.; to deprive of moisture; hence, to exhaust; to empty of wealth, resources, or the like; as, to drain a country of its specie. "Sinking waters, the firm land to drain, Filled the capacious deep and formed the main."
3.
To filter. "Salt water, drained through twenty vessels of earth, hath become fresh."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Drain" Quotes from Famous Books



... chopping bowl," Tom continued, as he hastily dropped peeled onion after onion into the wooden bowl. "Now, get the potatoes off the fire, and we'll drain and peel 'em." ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock

... at a moment when I cannot think of my neighbor, I am filled with thoughts of myself. I am very unhappy; my only refuge is in the Church; her bosom is large enough to hold all human woe, her love so full that we may draw from its depths and never drain it dry." ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac

... himself from the social intercourse which for Roosevelt was a relaxation but which for him would have proved a nervous and physical drain, Wilson deprived himself of the political advantages that might have been derived from more extensive hospitality. He was unable to influence Congressmen except by reason of his authority as head of the party or nation. He lost many a chance of removing political ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... no drain of casualties, and remarkably little sickness. Inoculations were frequent and to judge by results very successful. Cholera inoculation was the mildest, typhoid or paratyphoid sometimes gave sore arms and headaches, tetanus only the wounded ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... pistol at his own head and fractured his jaw; the younger Robespierre threw himself out from a window, but survived the fall; Lebon stabbed himself; Couthon did the same, but without fatal effect; and Henriot was flung from a window into a drain and mutilated: all the rest were taken unhurt; and on the morrow, Robespierre, and all that survived, were all executed amidst the acclamations and applause of the citizens. On the two following ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... scarcely able to direct my tottering steps. I wished never to see her again; but in a quarter of an hour I returned. I do not know what desperate resolve I had formed; I experienced a full desire to know her mine once more, to drain the cup of tears and bitterness to the dregs, and then to die with her. In short I abhorred her, yet I idolized her; I felt that her love was ruin, but that to live without her was impossible. I mounted the stairs like a flash; I spoke to none of the servants, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... bathroom, and I heard her emptying the Flask down the drain pipe. It was a very handsome Flask, silver with gold stripes, and all at once I knew the young man would want it back. So ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... had left their legal studies in the Fort to see what was toward in the northern portion of the Island. A Municipal sweeper lurched across the open and proceeded to spend twenty minutes in brushing the grating of a drain, leaving the accumulated filth of the adjoining gutter to fester and pollute the surroundings; and two elderly cooly-women, each carrying a phenomenal head-load of dung- cakes, becoming suddenly aware of the presence of troops ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.

... just alluded to have been devised by different dairy manufacturers. Generally, they consist of a special bottle having a full-sized top, thus permitting the easy removal of the curd. The one shown in Fig. 18 is provided with a sieve of such construction that the bottles will drain thoroughly if inclined in ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell

... should be redeemed. The problem of the nation's food supply is becoming urgent; for its solution we must look more and more to scientific methods in agriculture. Yet contrast the support our government gives these vital interests with war's mighty drain on our treasury. Congress appropriated $648,000,000 for all expenditures in 1910. Of this amount $407,000,000 were appropriated for war expenditures and the glories of militarism. For this same year agriculture received ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association

... should then be taken in the left hand, and turned three times from left with a quick swing. Then very gently, slowly, and with care, turn it upside down over the saucer, leaving it there for a minute, so that all the moisture may drain away. ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent

... "tuberculosis, paralysis, locomotor ataxia, dropsy, cancer, diabetes, sciatica, chronic rheumatism, chronic kidney or mental disease, or any other chronic disease," not especially named in the constitution, that may, in the judgment of the board of directors, cause permanent drain upon the funds of the Association, the said member shall receive the disability allowance for twenty weeks, after which all payments shall cease and his certificate shall be cancelled.[59] The disability insurance is ...
— Beneficiary Features of American Trade Unions • James B. Kennedy

... if I could, to see you all, and talk over with you the thousand things that are filling our minds and hearts! We can not drain this bitter cup at one draught and then go on our way as though it had never been. The loss of a mother is never made up or atoned for; and ours was such a mother; so peculiar in her devotion and tenderness and sympathy! I ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... be sweetened in direct ratio to the amount realized on his property. So look well for the real reason. The house may be unduly expensive to maintain. It may be so badly built that bigger and better repairs become a constant drain on the family purse. There may be something so wrong with the adjoining property that one must either buy that, too, or give up any idea of living on the spot ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... I would drain the bitter cup To him in boundless mercy given, A glorious Sabbath-day to win Of ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney

... current down either pole, and meeting at the equatorial plane to be thence deflected in radii. But this radiation would be general from every part of the axis, and would be kept up as long as the rotation continued, if the polar currents can supply the drain of the radial stream, that is, if the axis of the vortex is not too long for the velocity of rotation and the elasticity of the ether, there will be no derangement of the density, only a tendency. And in this case the periodic times of the parts of the vortex will be directly as the distances ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett

... suppose ye may have seen champagne, how it's all wired and waxed. Now, they take a clean tub, them fellows do, and just shake the basket and jounce it up and down till they break the bottles and let the wine drain out; then they take it down in the hold and put it back with the rest, and when the cargo is delivered there's only one or two whole bottles in that basket, and there's a dreadful fuss about its being stowed so foolish." The captain told this with ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... vain for those murmuring rills and refreshing springs which fructify and embellish more happy lands. Nothing like those tributary streams which feed rivers in other countries are here seen; for when I speak of the stream at Sydney, I mean only the drain of a morass; and the river at Rose Hill is a creek of the harbour, which above high water mark would not in England be called even a brook. Whence the Hawkesbury, the only fresh water river known to exist in the country, derives its supplies, would puzzle a transient observer. ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... country would be periodically inundated. The fall from the levee to Bayou St. John, which communicates with Lac Pontchartrain, is about thirty feet, and the distance one mile. This fall is certainly inconsiderable; but I apprehend that it would be sufficient to drain the streets effectually, if proper attention were directed ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... the workmen had to contend with a sheet of water which made its way right across the outer soil. It became necessary to employ very powerful pumps and compressed-air engines to drain it off, so as to close up the orifice from whence it issued; just as one stops a leak on board ship. They at last succeeded in getting the upper hand of these untoward streams; only, in consequence of the loosening of the soil, the wheel partly gave ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne

... directly from it on the eastern side. From the first line of the creek, extends on both sides of the road a dense forest. From the latter point to Fairview heights, and to Chancellorsville, on the south side of the road, the country is cleared. This clearing is bounded on the south by a drain, which runs from near Chancellorsville, between Fairview and the works occupied by Slocum. It extends some distance on the ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... century man as truly as the Prodigal or Pantagruel. To live to the full; to know all science and all mysteries, to drain to the dregs the cup crowned with the wine of the pleasure and the pride of life: this was worth more than heaven! The full meaning of the parable of salvation well lost for human experience was not brought out until Goethe took it up; but it is implied both in the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... in a mildly sympathetic tone, and he went on to tell me about that business of the Bonham drain. Things of that kind, I observe, are apt to weigh on the minds of Medical Officers of Health. I was as sympathetic as I knew how, and when he called the Bonham people "asses," I said they were "thundering asses," but even ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... principally performed by the women of Pont l'Abbe, who are supposed, like the Germans of our baking and sugar-refining houses, to be peculiarly constituted to resist heat. The gridirons are then hung up to drain. The sardines are next packed in tin boxes, cold oil poured over them, and the boxes soldered down. From 800 to 900 boxes are placed in a boiler and boiled for half an hour to test the boxes, and those which leak are put aside. ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser

... minimum required being when the two salts act on each other in as dry a form as possible. Take the precipitate of iodide of silver, got by decomposing 100 grains of nitrate of silver with 97.66 grains of iodide of potassium; drain off the last water completely, so that the precipitate occupies not more than five or six drachms by measure; throw on it 640 grains of iodide of potassium; rapid solution ensues; when perfectly clear, add water up to four ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various

... South. The Wearing-out Process. Sequelae of Vicksburg and Gettysburg. Congress vs. President. Mr. Foote and his Following. Drain of Men and Material. Home Guards. The "Speculator Squad". Dire Straits in Camp and Home. Carpet Blankets. Raids and their Results. Breaking down of Cavalry Mounts. Echoes of Morgan's Ohio Dash. His Bold Escape. ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... miserable part of it is this. The growth of the town has made it dangerous to use the present supply station. The water must not come out of the mill-pond any longer, as the town is tilted so that all the surface drainage goes into it, and the sewers that drain into it, while they drain a few hundred yards below the intake of the waterworks, cannot help tainting the whole pond. Mr. Hendricks has had an expert here who declared that both the typhoid and diphtheria epidemics here last fall were due directly to the water supply, and Mr. Hendricks ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... good liquor Will end a contest quicker Than justice, judge, or vicar; So fill a cheerful glass, And let good humour pass. But if more deep the quarrel, Why, sooner drain the barrel Than be the hateful fellow That's crabbed when he's ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... forty yards from the barn to the wood: there was no mound or hedge, but a narrow, deep, and dry watercourse, a surface drain, ran across. Stooping a little and taking off my hat, I walked in this, so that the wheat each side rose above me and gave a perfect shelter. This precaution was necessary, because on the right there rose a steep Down, from whose summit the level wheat-fields could be easily ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... great souls are unspeakable, almost superhuman. They are beyond the scales where we would weigh them. But we know that he understood and tasted the bitterness of this chalice,[96] without drawing back, without failing to drain ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... wise one!' he murmured, gazing rapturously at her. 'Oh, Emily, think what our life will be! Shall we not drain the world of its wisdom, youth of its delight! Hand in hand, one heart, one brain—what shall escape us? It was you I needed to give completeness to ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... and night. I found that it was now absolutely necessary to prepare hot milk for all hands during the night, in order to sustain life till dawn. This meant lighting the Primus lamp in the darkness and involved an increased drain on our small store of matches. It was the rule that one match must serve when the Primus was being lit. We had no lamp for the compass and during the early days of the voyage we would strike a match when the steersman wanted to see the course at night; ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... hillside back of a carefully constructed stone wall. The space back of the walls was first filled in with coarse rocks, clay, and rubble; then followed smaller rocks, pebbles, and gravel, which would serve to drain the subsoil. Finally, on top of all this, and to a depth of eighteen inches or so, was laid the finest soil they could procure. The result was the best possible field for intensive cultivation. It ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... was at once appropriated as an advertisement by stock jobbing disinfectant companies in a manner which raises a suspicion that the investigation was made in their interest. He described tersely the essentials of good plumbing, the necessity of a trap on the house drain, the ventilation of the soil-pipe, and the ventilation of the trap against siphonage. Of the first, he said that it offered protection to each householder against the entrance into his house of the germs of a contagious disease which passed into the common sewer from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various

... would begin early the next morning, and on Saturday a new, fruitful life in the service of the only true word, Art, divine Art, would commence for him. He would enjoy this one more evening of pleasure, this night of joy; drain it to the dregs. He fancied he had won a right that day to taste every bliss ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... For the first time, she saw something pathetic and beautiful in the permanence of a love that, starved and thwarted and blasted by ridicule, could survive the years and make two faded, middle-aged people like Aunt Enid and Mr. Chester eager to drain the dregs of life together, when they had been denied the good ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... of it! A total loss each year to only three fruits of over $8,500,000. This amount is a heavy drain upon the fruit growing industry of this country. During the past twenty-five or thirty years the total damage caused by this insect, to the various fruits which it attacks, would, on a conservative estimate, probably be ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... stronger and stronger. The Tin Soldier could see the bright daylight where the arch ended; but he heard a roaring noise, which might well frighten a bolder man. Only think—just where the tunnel ended, the drain ran into a great canal; and for him that would have been as dangerous as for us to be carried ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... NEPTUNE. The discoveries made in 1878 in the Piazza di Pietra, on the site of the Temple of Neptune, rank next in importance to those just described. In repairing a drain which runs through the Via de' Bergamaschi to the Piazza di Pietra, the foundations of an early mediaeval church, dedicated to S. Stephen (Santo Stefano del Trullo) were unearthed, together with historical inscriptions, ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... mistake, then, was it, to be temperate and industrious? It was more honorable to ride at races, to play high stakes, and drain three bottles at dinner, than to study and to do one's duty? To be a gentleman was a matter of silk breeches and perukes and late hours? Out upon the blundering playwright who made Bassanio win with the leaden ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... much furniture in the laboratory. The table in the centre, a stone slab with a drain in one corner, the two armchairs on which Raymond and Clarke were sitting; that was all, except an odd-looking chair at the furthest end of the room. Clarke looked at it, ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... mongo from a jar of sand, and fetch a ring from the sea. The first task imposed by the king has analogies in a number of European tales. In Groome's No. 34 the Devil says to the hero, "Here is one more task for you: drain the marsh, and plough it, and sow it, and to-morrow bring me roasted maize" (p. 106). In Groome's No. 7 the king says to the old man, "See this great forest! Fell it all, and make it a level field; and plough it for me, and break up ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... all idea of climbing by means of the drain-pipe, and crawled along the wall to get back into ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... He had been perfectly right to be angry with me and with all of us. And I had been a hypocrite and a Pharisee, and had thanked God that I was not as other people, when the fact was that I was worse than the worst. And although it wasn't dignified to think of him going down the drain pipe, still—no one could blame him for wanting to get away from us, and he was quite muscular ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... poker. It was this small group, led by Mrs. Hunter, that in common with several wealthy and clever Jewish women, with intellectual members of old families that had long since dropped out of a society that gave them too little to be worth the drain on their limited means, and with one or two presidents of women's clubs, made up the small attendance at the lectures on literary and political subjects, delivered either by some local light, or European specialist in the art of ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... seen. There were, as I remember it, two levels or "benches" in it, and in the little bluff or slope from one to the other were still to be seen the holes the poor prisoners had dug to make a little cave in the earth that would drain itself and give some shelter from the winter weather. I talked to women of the place who with tears upon their faces told of the efforts some of them had made to have the worst of the treatment corrected, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... you, I have more calls for my money now than I can meet. Take the church expenses for example. Why, we are called upon to give to some cause or other every week, besides our regular pledges for current expenses. It's a constant drain. I shall have to cut down on my pledge. We can't be giving to everything all the time, and have ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon

... OF EXCESSES.—Dr. Dio Lewis says: "Some of the most common effects of sexual excess are backache, lassitude, giddiness, dimness of sight, noises in the ears, numbness of the fingers, and paralysis. The drain is universal, but the more sensitive organs and tissues suffer {411} most. So the nervous system gives way and continues the principal sufferer throughout. A large part of the premature loss of sight and hearing, dizziness, numbness and pricking in the hands and feet, and other kindred developments, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... years millions of men have laboured to clear the forests, to drain the marshes, and to open up highways by land and water. Every rood of soil we cultivate in Europe has been watered by the sweat of several races of men. Every acre has its story of enforced labour, of intolerable toil, of the people's ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... your spinach, and let it thoroughly drain in a cullender; then press it through a hair-sieve with a spoon, as for food. Take the pulp that has been pressed through the sieve, and mix it with cream, or very good milk, and two additional yolks of eggs. Pass the yolks of six eggs ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various

... eyeing the gamin, who pretended to snivel. Then he tossed him a franc, laughing. The child caught it, and thrusting it into his mouth wheeled about to the sewer-hole. For a second he crouched, motionless, alert, his eyes on the bars of the drain, then leaping forward he hurled a stone into the gutter, and Trent left him to finish a fierce grey rat that writhed squealing at ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... over the figs and dates, let boil up once, then drain as dry as possible; remove stones from the dates, the stem ends from the figs; chop the fruit and nut meats (almonds should be blanched) in a food chopper; add the salt; and the sugar and work the whole to a smooth paste; add the chocolate, ...
— Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes and Home Made Candy Recipes • Miss Parloa

... so expensive a metal. The present cost of sodium is 10 frs. per kilogramme; but M. Jablochkoff thinks that on the large scale the metal might be obtained at a very low figure. The elements are grouped in sets of ten, hung upon rods in such a manner that the solution as formed may drain off. Such a battery continues in action as long as the air contains moisture; the only means of stopping it is to shut it up in an air-tight case. The electro-motive force depends on the degree of humidity in the air, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various

... carried by all GPP Ships as a means of protection against physical attack. When activated, an energy screen was virtually impregnable, but it could only be used briefly; the power it required placed an enormous drain on a ship's energy resources, and a year's nuclear fuel could be consumed in ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse

... by using a land turtle. Cut off his head and drain the blood into a cup. Then take a lump of sugar and dip in the blood, eat the sugar and the coughing was supposed to stop. If it did ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various

... is a dark winding recess, about 6 feet from front to back, taken out of the solid castle walls. It leads to a hole going down to the bottom of the building, which is always inaccessible for cleaning, but which till six years ago had a drain from it into the moat; the air draws up through it into the passage and room. There is no water within the prisoners' liberty, and they are therefore obliged to get some person to fetch it for them. The Courtroom is ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... model candidate had been found. The Duke of Savoy having just finished for a second time his chronic war with Spain, in which the United Provinces, notwithstanding the heavy drain on their resources, had allowed him 50,000 florins a month besides the soldiers under Count Ernest of Nassau, had sent Mansfeld with 4000 men to aid the revolted estates in Bohemia. Geographically, hereditarily, necessarily the deadly enemy of the House of Austria, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... been made by Alway. Cylinders of galvanized iron, 6 feet long, were filled with soil as nearly as possible in its natural position and condition Water was added until seepage began, after which the excess was allowed to drain away. When the seepage had closed, the cylinders were entirely closed except at the surface. Sprouted grains of spring wheat were placed in the moist surface soil, and 1 inch of dry soil added to the surface to prevent ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe

... mixed foursomes; the "new toun o' Fairloch" (which looked centuries old) was delightful, but we could not find apartments there; Pinkie Leith was nice, but they were tearing up the "fore street" and laying drain-pipes in it. Strathdee had been highly recommended, but it rained when we were in Strathdee, and nobody can deliberately settle in a place where it rains during the process of deliberation. No train ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... farmer, that the manufacturer who makes our cloth, should make it from our farmers' wool, flax, hemp, etc., and be fed by our farmers' provisions. Draw forth our iron from our own mountains, and we shall not drain our country in the purchase of the foreign. . . . . We propose, sir, to supply our own wants from our own resources, by the means which God and Nature have placed in our hands. . . . . But here is a question ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... not prevail upon herself to fold the paper. But at length she sank gradually to her knees—a sinless Magdalen; her brown hair fell about her bending face, and she said, although her lips did not move, "To each, in his degree, the cup is given. Oh, Father! strengthen each to drain it and believe!" ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... Mankind is dying in strife and despair; the torrent of human activity is everywhere seething and foaming. Here ignorance buries its victims in a noisome den of slime and filth; there, the strong and ruthless, veritable vampires, batten on the labour and drain away the very life of the weak and helpless; farther away, science stumbles against the wall of the Unknown; philosophy takes up its stand on the cold barren glacier of intellectualism; religions are stifled and struggle for existence beneath the age-long accumulations of the "letter that killeth." ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal

... now traversing varied considerably. In some places it consisted of parched and sandy plains, almost free of vegetation. In others, where the rains were less able to drain quickly away, were districts of extraordinary fertility. Here grew the cocoa, vanilla, indigo and aromatic shrubs innumerable, forming thick and tangled jungles, impervious to the foot of man. Flowers of gorgeous colors bordered these groves, and lofty trees of foliage, altogether strange to ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... further progress west was quite impracticable by vans, I returned to the new main road from Larnaca, and carefully avoiding it, we kept upon the natural surface by the side drain, and travelled towards ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... 10-15 cgm., produces abundant evacuations with violent colicky pains in doses of 30-50 cgm., and is an irritant poison in large doses. In other words it is a highly energetic hydragogue cathartic, especially indicated when we wish to drain off the fluid element of the blood, as in dropsy, asthma, pulmonary and cerebral congestion. It is also ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera

... securities, which in that day returned four and five per cent. As he did not pay one shilling for the use of the capital, he pocketed the whole interest. A small part of the aggregate balance was not invested, but remained in the bank coffers as a reserve to meet any accidental drain. It was a point of honor with the squires and rectors, who shared their incomes with him in a grateful spirit, never to draw their balances down too low; and more than once in this banker's career a gentleman has actually borrowed money for a month ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... his hands closed on the copper drain. The muscles of his wiry arms flexed, and the lean figure raised himself foot by foot to the eaves, where a pull and press up brought him over the edge. Stooping, he padded to the side which faced on the clearing ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore

... tasteless and tainted, every sense stopped, the smallest reason why it should have been overlooked. It was immense, but it was simple—it was simple, but it was immense, and the final knowledge of it was an experience quite apart. He intimated that the charm of such an experience, the desire to drain it, in its freshness, to the last drop, was what kept him there close to the source. Gwendolen, frankly radiant as she tossed me these fragments, showed the elation of a prospect more assured than my own. That brought me back to the question of her marriage, ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... would at once set to work to drain, to purchase artificial manure, and set up steam power, and thereby to provide themselves with the means of stemming the tide of depression. By these means they could maintain a head of stock that would be more ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... rage is in its force; But give it way awhile, and let it waste. The rising deluge is not stopt with dams; Those it o'erbears, and drowns the hope of harvest. But, wisely manag'd, its divided strength Is sluic'd in channels, and securely drain'd: And when its force is spent, and unsupply'd, The residue with mounds may be restrain'd, And dry-shod we may pass the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... was now almost as bare as the palm of a hand. Only one object relieved the impression of desolation, and that was a tree. It stood carefully fenced about in the drain from the big artesian well,—a vivid blot of green against the dun background. The first year after he came, Rankin had imported it,—a goodly sized soft maple; and in the pathway of constantly trickling water, it had grown and prospered. It was the only tree for miles and miles about, except ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... his handwriting on the envelope—but tortuous, labored, as if it were the product of a painful effort. She felt all her blood rush back upon her heart. Madly she tore the letter open, and read with the haste of a person anxious to drain the cup of bitterness at a single draught, skipping a line here and a line there, taking in only ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... for our full-handed American farming men to see those poor, hard Asiatic hands trying, by main strength, to break the tough straw or pull it by the roots. This state of things could not continue, and their sorrow and pity gave place to joy when they were able to drain the cities of Harpoot and Diarbekir of harvest tools, and turned the work of all the village blacksmiths on to the manufacture of sickles and scythes, and of flint workers ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton

... pains, nor tears, nor prayers divine Will win thee back; my efforts are in vain! Adieu, adieu, poor box of mine; Adieu, my sweet crowns'-worth of bane; Could I with money buy thee back once more, The treasury of Plutus I would drain. But ah! not he the god I must implore; To have thee back, I need Apollo's vein. . . 'Twixt thee and me how hard a barrier-line, To ask for verse! Ah! this is all my strain! Adieu, adieu, poor box of mine; Adieu; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... goodly measure in his hand, and decapitating its "spuma" with his pipe, from which he flings it into Mr. Simpson's face, indulges in a prolonged drain, and commences his narrative—most ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... would," replied Huish. "I like Attwater. 'E's all right; we got on like one o'clock when you were gone. And ain't his sherry in it, rather? It's like Spiers and Pond's Amontillado! I wish I 'ad a drain of it now." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his depriving himself of a glass of gin or brandy; the other guests, who were never in any way intemperate, could permit themselves this infraction of their rule; so, by the doctor's command, each one was able to drain a glass at the end of the merry meal. When a toast was drunk to the United States, Hatteras was simply silent. It was then that the doctor brought forward an ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... stature and great personal beauty, but also to the purity, delicacy and refinement of his manners. He contemptuously asks the audience who had given him the nickname whether the name of manhood was to be confined to those who could drain great tankards of ale or to peasants whose hands were hard with holding the plough. He disdains the implied charge of prudery, and indeed his language is what could not have been used by an effeminate or a coward. No braver man ever held a pen. Wood says {32} that "his deportment was ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... to our great Creator must teach us an absolute submission to his will. Not only religion, but common sense, must teach us this; for oh! my dear children,' cries he, 'how vain is all resistance, all repining! could tears wash back again my angel from the grave, I should drain all the juices of my body through my eyes; but oh, could we fill up that cursed well with our tears, how fruitless would be all our sorrow!'—I think I repeat you his very words; for the impression they made ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... [they will draw you] Draw has here a cluster of senses. As it refers to the tapster, it signifies to drain, to empty; as it is related to hang, it means to be conveyed to execution on a hurdle. In Froth's answer, it is the same as to bring along by some ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... olden days were wont to put slates or large stones below their trees before planting, to prevent the tap-root running into bad soil. In modern gardens a concrete bottom two or three inches thick, sloping towards a drain in front, is sometimes made. Methods must depend on soil and means. A concrete bottom is better than a stratum of stones or brick rubbish. Persons content with a few small trees may lift them frequently or root-prune annually, in which case ...
— The Book of Pears and Plums • Edward Bartrum

... looking about the Holt the other day,' said Mervyn, 'and agreeing how much more could be made of it. Clear away some of those hedgerows—grub up a bit of copse or two—try chemical manures—drain that terrible old marsh beyond the plantation—and have up a good engine-house where you have those old ramshackle buildings at the Home Farm! Why, the place will bring in as much again, and you've hit on the very man to carry it ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... did over the floor. for she held it up still. And still it kept slowly oscillating. Round and round the cavern they went thus, ever lessening the circuit, till, at last, the snake made a sudden dart, and clung fast to the roof with its mouth. 'That's right, my beauty?' cried the princess; 'drain it dry.' ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various

... loose and so lets the water drain down through it too rapidly. How shall we improve a sandy soil? Just add something to bind the loose sand particles together. Humus is ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw

... time—i.e., 112 feet. In December this depth was doubled, and tripled in January. During February the workmen had to contend against a sheet of water which sprang from the ground. They were obliged to employ powerful pumps and apparatus of compressed air to drain it off, so as to close up the orifice from which it issued, just as leaks are caulked on board ship. At last they got the better of these unwelcome springs, only in consequence of the loosening of the soil the wheel partially gave way, and there was a landslip. The ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... the faint warble of waters, till we come to the boiling rapids, where the stream comes hurrying down, and with sudden pique flies apart, on one side going to form the Ellis, on the other the Peabody River, and where in five minutes a stalwart arm could drain the one and double the other. Indeed, the existence of these two rivers seems to be a question of balance and coincidence and hairbreadth escapes. Our driver pointed out to us a tree whose root divides ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... present nuisance without additional expense. The few modern buildings should be compulsorily purchased by the Government, and entirely swept away, so that the area inclosed by the fortification walls should represent a perfectly clean succession of levels in the form of broad terraces, which would drain uniformly towards the sea. Upon these purified and well-drained plateaux the new town could be erected, upon a special plan suitable to the locality, and in harmony with the military requirements of a fortified position. The value of the land thus recovered from the existing ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... know it! I doubt whether that must not be one of the bitterest drops in the cup which a girl in such circumstances is made to drain. Lily perceived early in the day that the parlour-maid well knew that she had been jilted. The girl's manner was intended to convey sympathy; but it did convey pity; and Lily for a moment felt angry. But she remembered that it must be so, and smiled upon the girl, and spoke kindly ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... from an exquisite Louis Quinze box that rests at his elbow, and leaning back languidly in his chair. "Life is made up of hopes false as the ignis-fatuus. When with the greatest sense of security and promise of enjoyment we raise and seek to drain the cup of pleasure, while yet we gaze with longing eyes upon its sparkling bubbles, and, stooping thirstily, suffer our expectant lips at length to touch it, lo! it is then, just as we have attained to the summit of our ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... tree we should cut into the trunk of it to the very heart, and then leave it standing so that the sap may drain out drop by drop throughout the whole of it. In this way the useless liquid which is within will run out through the sapwood instead of having to die in a mass of decay, thus spoiling the quality of the timber. Then and not till then, the tree being drained dry and the ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... wings a good deal in the Imperial limelight, which, although our audience complained of the darkness on the stage, was the most serious drain on my purse. But a few provincial tours did something towards restoring some of the money that I had lost ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... Still he chid his fair wife for an exertion which he feared might injure her health, and evinced the strongest desire to succeed in rescuing the people of L—— from the power of a party to which he was opposed; hinting, at the same time, that the contest would drain his purse and many ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... household luxuries, and even necessities, were derived from Asia in the Middle Ages. The Arabs had practically the monopoly of this trade, and as Europe had scarcely anything to offer in exchange except its gold and silver coins, there was a continuous drain of the precious metals from West to East, rendering the Sultans and Caliphs continuously richer, and culminating in the splendours of Solomon the Magnificent. Alexandria was practically the centre of all this trade, and most of the nations of Europe found it ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs

... which the grade is to be raised should be protected, so that the soil will not come within some distance of the trunk. A rough piling of stones about the tree, or a circle of drain pipe about it will give the needed protection. Trees play such a vital part in the adornment of a piece of land, whether large or small, that none that is needed should be sacrificed until every effort to save it ...
— Making a Lawn • Luke Joseph Doogue

... of the cord? The cord was made in England: A rough cord, a tough cord, A cord that bowmen love; So we'll drain our jacks To the English flax And the land where the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... from his lady dear A splendid pearl that glittered in her ear, Then melted it in vinegar, and quaffed (Such was his boast) a thousand at a draught: How say you? had the act been more insane To fling it in a river or a drain? ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... that they look upon the present settlement of Europe as one only ad interim, and to be remodelled whenever an opportunity shall present itself. They are satisfied at present with damming and dyking out the waters of Liberalism, but they hope to drain the lands in which they are collected, and to place themselves for ever out of the danger of an inundation. The war of opinions is in fact declared; it may languish, there may be truces, but there will be no peace in ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... has said, Every jolly fellow, When a century has sped, Still is fit and mellow. No more following of a lass With the palsy in your legs? —While your hand can hold a glass, You can drain it to the dregs, With an undiminished zest. Let us laugh, And quaff, And a fig for ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... order. Mr. Schultz, a victim of habit, desired the look-out to go to the galley and bring up some hot coffee for him and the helmsman. It was the custom aboard the Narcissus, as it is in most Pacific Coast boats, for the cook, just before retiring, to brew a pot of coffee, drain off the grounds and leave it to simmer on the galley range where, at intervals of two hours during the night, the watch could ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... the youth, 'and again I pledge you in the rosy wine.' As he speaks he fills the cup of gold studded with diamonds, swallows the contents, and passes it to the nearest guest. But the heavy palm of the castle's lord rests upon his shoulder. Seizing another brimming cup, he says: 'I drain this to thy health, father, and our guests will surely pledge it ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... romance she was eager to understand his hobbies. She shivered in the garage while he spent half an hour in deciding whether to put alcohol or patent non-freezing liquid into the radiator, or to drain out the water entirely. "Or no, then I wouldn't want to take her out if it turned warm—still, of course, I could fill the radiator again—wouldn't take so awful long—just take a few pails of water—still, if it turned ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... the tub at the drain, then started again on her face and ears, which he washed thoroughly. He pinned a sheet around her neck, then she divested herself of the rags. Mickey lifted her into the tub, draped the sheet over the edge, poured in the water, and handed ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... water, and then having spread it on a perfectly clean table, remove the soap lightly with a hog's hair brush or a fine sponge; all the mud will disappear at the same time. Put the sheet into the clear water again, to get rid of the last trace of soap. Let it drain a little, press it lightly between two sheets of blotting-paper, and finish by letting it dry slowly in a ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell

... and bramble. The sea had once come right up that valley to just below my uncle's house; but that was many years before—long before anybody could remember. Just after I went to live there, one of the farmers dug a drain, or "rhine," in the valley, to clear a boggy patch. He dug up the wreck of a large fishing-boat, with her anchor and a few rusty hoops lying beside her under the ooze about a foot below the surface. ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield

... and do such deeds that AEgeus shall be proud of me, though he had fifty other sons! Did not Heracles win himself honor though he was opprest, and the slave of Eurystheus? Did he not kill all robbers and evil beasts, and drain great lakes and marshes, breaking the hills through with his club? Therefore it was that all men honored him, because he rid them of their miseries, and made life pleasant to them and their children after them. Where can I go, to do as Heracles has done? Where can ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... illusion left. His understanding was now a very full one. His dear friend and kinsman had played him false throughout, intending first to drain him of his resources before finally flinging the empty husk to the executioner. Manourie had been in the plot; he had run with the hare and hunted with the hounds; and Sir Walter's own servant Cotterell had done ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... gobbets of blood on the leaves, he came upon his prey dead. It became necessary to transport the animal to camp. Thorpe stuck his hunting knife deep into the front of the deer's chest, where the neck joins, which allowed most of the blood to drain away. Then he fastened wild grape vines about the antlers, and, with a little exertion drew the body after him as though it had ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... their laziness. There are many ample stretches of meadow-land at a short distance from the coast, completely covered with bog, and passable only with great precautions, which the construction of a few ditches would thoroughly drain. Capital grass would then spring up in abundant crops. It is well known that such will grow in Iceland, for the hillocks which rise above the swamps are luxuriantly overgrown with herbage and wild clover. The best soil is ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous

... of constitution, lactation will often produce the worst effects. Many young ladies, on becoming mothers, are incapable of supporting the constant drain to which the wants of their infants subject them—they lose their good looks, become gradually weaker, and as their strength declines, their milk is simultaneously lessened in quantity, and altered in ...
— Remarks on the Subject of Lactation • Edward Morton

... much new construction. Practically all warehouses, supply depots and regulating stations must be provided by fresh constructions. While France offered us such material as she had to spare after a drain of three years, enormous quantities of material had to be ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... no! They are small affairs, suitable only to spend a few hours in on summer afternoons. There are some beautiful ones on the southern end of the Haarlem Lake—now that they've commenced to drain it into polders, it will spoil THAT fun. By the way, we've passed some red-roofed ones since we left home. You noticed them, I suppose, with their little bridges and ponds and gardens, and their ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... banished woman then realise the woes of exile—how hard it is to climb and descend the stranger's stair, experience the hollowness of his promise, and the arrogance of his commiseration. And, finally, as though fated to drain her cup of bitterness to the last drop, to learn that she, her long-loved bosom friend and royal mistress, who owed her, at the very least, a silent fidelity, had openly ranged herself on the side of ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... heating apparatus is the best, but often one can use a brick furnace or an iron heating stove, connected with a flue of sewer or drain-pipe that will answer very well and cost much less. It requires but 6 to 10 square feet of bench to start plants enough for an acre, and a house costing only from $25 to $50 will enable one to grow plants enough for 20 ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy

... are narrow, those of Djulfa, the Armenian settlement, can only be described as almost impassable, for, although the widest are barely ten feet across, quite a third of this space is taken up by the deep ditch, or drain, lined with trees, by which all are divided. But the town, or settlement, is as clean and well-kept as Ispahan itself is the reverse, which is ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt

... said Utgard-Loki; "thou must not spare thyself; if thou meanest to drain the horn at the third draught thou must pull deeply; and I must needs say that thou wilt not be called so mighty a man here as thou art at home if thou showest no greater prowess in other feats than methinks will ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... dependence on the charcoal dealers of the Yonne. Have you ever thought of the risk we run of dying of cold, if the proprietors of these foreign forests should take it into their heads not to bring any more wood to Paris? Let us, therefore, prohibit wood. By this means we shall stop the drain of specie, we shall start the wood-chopping business, and open to our workmen a new source of ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... unique test for sanity. When any of the inmates exhibit evidence of returning reason, they submit them to the following tests. Out in the courtyard there are a number of water taps for filling troughs, and to each of the candidates for liberty a small pail is given, and they are told to drain out the troughs, the taps running full force. Some of the poor fellows bail away and bail away, but of course the trough remains full in spite of them. The wise ones turn ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung

... that I would not sell myself to the devil of the flesh and of this present world. What! Barter my birthright of immortality for the mess of pottage of a few brief years of union? Pay out my high hopes to their last bright coin for this dinner of mingled herbs? Drain the well of faith dug with so many prayers and labours, that its waters may suffice to nourish a rose planted in the sand, whose blooms must die at the first ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... stone house, and that spare rooms were not as plenty as blackberries, but so long as he was not incommoded it was no business of his to inquire into matters; nor could he understand that an extra fire even for a day was a heavy drain on Bessie's purse. But Grey's quick ear caught Bessie's whispered words, and before he entered the warm, pretty room at the head of the stairs he knew it belonged to her, and guessed why she had given it to him. Under any circumstances he would have known by certain unmistakable ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... through the centre of the otherwise exhausted river. The bed was much obstructed by rocks, and the inclination was so rapid that I could readily conceive the impossibility of crossing it during the rains. It formed the great drain of the country, all its waters flowing to the Nile, but during the dry months it was most insignificant. The country between Farajoke and the Asua, although lovely, was very thinly populated, and the only villages that I saw were built upon low ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... for these half-breeds that you've allowed to starve in this fever-bed than I have for you. You have treated them worse than they'd treat a dog, and if any of them die, it's on your heads. You have put them in a fever-camp which you have not even taken the trouble to drain. Your commissariat is rotten, and you have let them drink all the rum they wanted. There is not ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis



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