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Mast   Listen
noun
Mast  n.  
1.
(Naut.) A pole, or long, strong, round piece of timber, or spar, set upright in a boat or vessel, to sustain the sails, yards, rigging, etc. A mast may also consist of several pieces of timber united by iron bands, or of a hollow pillar of iron or steel. "The tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great ammiral." Note: The most common general names of masts are foremast, mainmast, and mizzenmast, each of which may be made of separate spars.
2.
(Mach.) The vertical post of a derrick or crane.
3.
(Aeronautics) A spar or strut to which tie wires or guys are attached for stiffening purposes.
Afore the mast, Before the mast. See under Afore, and Before.
Mast coat. See under Coat.
Mast hoop, one of a number of hoops attached to the fore edge of a boom sail, which slip on the mast as the sail is raised or lowered; also, one of the iron hoops used in making a made mast. See Made.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mast" Quotes from Famous Books



... clinging close he raised it from the ground deep-rooted though it was, together with clods of earth. And as when unexpectedly, just at the time of the stormy setting of baleful Orion, a swift gust of wind strikes down from above, and wrenches a ship's mast from its stays, wedges and all; so did Heracles lift the pine. And at the same time he took up his bow and arrows, his lion skin and club, and started on ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... tracks of the havilinas. Supposing they were either antelope or deer tracks, they followed them into the grove, where they discovered the herd of hogs, quietly feeding upon the mast with which the ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

... yelled Larry, "av it isn't the owld ship! Don't I know the mizzen-mast as well as ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne

... flag of the United States flew at half-mast from this Capitol and from American installations and ships all over the world, in mourning ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... are but half-mast high, my Lord," returned Richard in an awe-struck voice; "the lilies of France are hung ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... above, and the angry waters, lashed into fury beneath, boiling and eddying up, on every side. There was another vessel before them, toiling and labouring in the howling storm; her canvas fluttering in ribbons from the mast, and her deck thronged with figures who were lashed to the sides, over which huge waves every instant burst, sweeping away some devoted creatures into the foaming sea. Onward they bore, amidst the roaring mass of water, with a speed and force which nothing could resist; and striking the stem of the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... wind from the westward came on that I ever saw. Fortunately it was steady and did not veer about, and having good ground—tackle down, we rode it out well enough. The effect was very uncommon; the wind was howling over our mast—heads, and amongst the cedar bushes on the cliffs above, while on deck it was nearly calm, and there was very little swell, being a weather shore; but half a mile out at sea all was white foam, and the tumbling ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... shape?—a spirit of earth, air, fire, water? ... or a Thought of Beauty embodied into human sweetness and made perfect? ... Clothed in gold attire, and girdled with gems, she stood, leaning indolently against the middle mast of the vessel, her great, sombre, dusky eyes resting drowsily on the swarming masses of people, whose frenzied roar of rapture and admiration sounded like the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... things, a brief trial will dispel the illusion, as is mist by the sunshine. True, his life is one of more or less excitement or adventures, and much of it is spent in the saddle, yet it is a hard life, and his daily fare will never give the gout. Corn bread, mast-fed bacon, and coffee, constitute nine-tenths of their diet; occasionally they have fresh beef, and less often they have vegetables of any description. They do their own cooking in the rudest and fewest possible vessels, often not having a single plate or knife and fork, other ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... and some sticks Russ had made a nice little boat, fastening to the mast a bit of cloth, which looked like a sail. Followed by his smaller brothers and sisters Russ took his boat to a place in the inlet where the water was not deep, and there he let the wind blow it about, to the ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope

... arrival of a ship in port after a long voyage. From the outmost end of the longest wharf the relatives and friends of the sailors eagerly watch the approaching vessel, striving to find in her appearance some token of the safety of the loved ones on board. If a flag hangs at half-mast in the rigging, bitter is the suspense, and fearful the dread, of each anxious waiter, lest her husband or lover or son be the unfortunate one whose death is mourned. And on the deck of the ship the excitement is no less great. Even the hardened breast of the sailor swells ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... stout old lifeboat, passing its last declining years on the smooth fresh water, after the stormy days of its youth time on the wild salt sea. A comfortable little cabin for the use of fowlers in the winter season had been built amidships, and a mast and sail adapted for inland navigation had been fitted forward. There was room enough and to spare for the guests, the dinner, and the three men in charge. Allan clapped his faithful lieutenant approvingly on the shoulder; and even Mrs. Pentecost, when the whole party ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... do his desires avail? For He must never handle sail; Nor mount the mast, nor row, nor float In sailor's ship, or fisher's boat, Upon ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... published the "Dial." Other notable publications in American letters were Poe's "Tales of the Arabesque and Grotesque," Willis's "Loiterings of Travel," Cooper's "Pathfinder," and Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast." ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... after which we remained there two days. We then continued our voyage; and when twenty days more had passed, we found ourselves in strange waters, unknown to the captain, and desired the watch to look out from the mast head: so he went aloft, and when he had come down he said to the captain: "I saw, on my right hand, fish floating upon the surface of the water; and looking toward the midst of the sea, I perceived something looming ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... they could not well strengthen their mast; they could not spread the sail: then is the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame take ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... to the bottom if our mast and rigging are not carried away," answered the man at the helm. The crew of the big ship were rushing out to the bowsprit end to try and clear the sloop, but that ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston

... broad Pacific to get close to the bluffs ere they break, and the thundering shock shakes the rocks to their foundations. No calm comes to these shores. Even in the finest weather, when the ships off shore are becalmed and their sails hang loose against the mast, there is always a wreath of foam at the base of these bluffs. The breakers are ever in bloom and crystal brine is ever ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir

... Boys never do, but the harm comes. Now I'm going to march you two lads right up before the mast; and you're going to apologize to the widow. If you don't, why, I reckon a cat-o'-nine-tails will fit the case ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster

... marshes in early spring, sitting still a long time on a log in their midst, trying to spy out and catch them in the act of peeping. And this I succeeded in doing, discovering one piping from the top of a bulrush, to which he clung like a sailor to a mast; I finally allayed the fears of one I had captured till he sat in the palm of my hand and piped—a feat I have never been ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... haven't. I think I could have found out the way to my mouth as soon as any other baby, that's all. But this is a lucky hit. I am going to have it patented. It's a first-rate thing. This is the way you lash it to the mast when you want to; and when you want to move about you let down the rollers and fasten them with this hook, and go where you please. Twenty-seven changes of position. Why, you can read, eat, sleep, ride, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... the intense cold is almost unendurable. No hitch is to occur this time. The toughest and stoutest bamboo hawsers are dexterously brought out, their inboard ends bound in a flash firmly round the mast close down to the deck, washed by the great waves of the rapid, just in front of the 'midships pole through which I breathlessly watch proceedings. I want to feel again the sensation. The captain, in essentially the Chinese way, is engaging a crew of demon-faced trackers to haul her over. Pouring ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... boar of the forest, this snow-white, sawed-off, pug-nose little porker of mine—ages and ages ago. But he still remembers the smell of the forest leaves; he still knows the taste of the acorn-mast; he is still wild pig somewhere deep ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... strong and steady. Almost immediately the good steamer felt the canvas, leaning gently over to leeward, adding another mile to her great speed. The sea was black, and the air seemed to be full of the sounds of waves breaking and hissing. Ahead the mast-head and the side-lights shone down on the face of the waters and lighted up an occasional white-capped wave. In the air, brisk and masterful, there was a sense of purpose and tension which sailors understand, while mere printed ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... houses, are ornamental "literary poles," and these are always in pairs and generally show respectable decay. When newly erected they are painted in colors according to the rank of the family—white for a private citizen, red for a civil functionary, and blue for the army. A mast having a single row of brackets a few feet from the top means the degree of Ku Yan, equivalent to our M. A., and called in China the degree of Promoted Men; the degree of Entered Scholar, nearly equivalent to our LL.D., called ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... that overhung some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the dark-gray and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast, and as the reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water it seemed as if the vessel was suspended ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... will allow you your freedom during the day-time, on certain conditions. Three of you must remain forward, and never come abaft the foremast unless I call you; and two must never go before the mizzen-mast; at night we must shut you all up. I warn you, also, that as surely as any one of you attempts to infringe these regulations, I will shoot him. We are very good friends; I do not bear you the slightest enmity, but our own ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... None, I believe, ever thought that before. But the same wood, I suppose, that makes the gibbet could make the mast of a man-of-war. I tell you, however, why you have taken this fancy to me,—the strong sympathize with the strong. ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... he went before the mast for about three years. In 1750 he was in the Baltic trade on the Maria, owned by Mr. John Wilkinson of Whitby, and commanded by Mr. Gaskin, a relative of the Walkers. The following year he was in a Stockton ship, and in 1752 he was appointed mate of Messrs. Walker's new ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... who signed his name as "A. Taydhill, Birmingham," suggested that floor carpets should be utilized as maps where with to teach children geography. The same individual proposed that the inhabitants of each street should join together to buy a long pole, or mast, with a rope and pulley, for use as a fireescape, and recommended them to convey their furniture in or out of the windows with it, as "good practice."—A patent was taken out by Eliezer Edwards, in 1853, for a bedstead fitted with a wheel and handle, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... have one mast, and some two; they are made of a single stick, and when the length of the canoe is thirty feet, that of the mast is somewhat less than five-and-twenty; it is fixed to a frame that is above the canoe, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... hour, while he went about his work. And the other mates—Varde, the sullen; and Hooper, who was old and losing his grip; and Dick Morrell, who was young and finding his—paid her the respect that was her due. Young Morrell—he was not even as old as she was—helped her on her first climb to the mast head. He was only a boy.... The girl, when the first homesick pangs were ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams

... reason of their clinging to a mast, Upon a desert island were eventually cast. They hunted for their meals, as Alexander Selkirk used, But they couldn't chat together—they had not ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... garments, but some of them were gifts dropped into the boat—Lady Mary's tarpaulin coat and hat, for instance, and Catherine's blue jersey and red cap, which certify that the two ladies were lately before the mast. Agatha is too gay in Ernest's dressing-gown, and clutches it to her person with both hands as if afraid that it may be claimed by its rightful owner. There are two pairs of bath slippers between the three of ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie

... sea on bark logs, made of several logs fastened side to side, that have one or two masts with sails to them. There are two men in each bark log, one at either end, having small low benches, raised a little above the logs, to sit and fish on, and two baskets hanging up at the mast or masts; one to put their provisions in, the other for their fish. Many of these were a-fishing now, and 2 of them came aboard, of whom I bought some fish. In the afternoon we sailed by one very remarkable piece of land where, on a small pleasant hill, there was a church dedicated to the Virgin ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier

... President died on Saturday morning, the rain began to pour in torrents. The flags that flew from a thousand gilt-tipped peaks in celebration of victory drooped to half-mast and hung weeping around their staffs. The litter of burnt fireworks, limp and crumbling, strewed the streets, and the tri-coloured lanterns and balloons, hanging pathetically from their wires, began ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... yourself, which is to go for a soldier; take the shilling and live in a barracks for a year; then buy yourself out. You will never despise the public again. And perhaps a better way still is to go round the Horn before the mast. But take care that your friends shall send you enough money to Valparaiso for your return journey to be made in some comfort; I would not wish my worst enemy to go ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc

... pointed to the parallel of latitude that ran across it. "Dunton gave it me. He was up there late last season well over on the western side. A north-easterly gale fell on them, and took most of the foremast out of her. I understand they tried to lash on a boom or something as a jury mast, but it hadn't height enough to set much forward canvas, and that being the case she wouldn't bear more than a three-reefed mainsail. Anyway, they couldn't do anything with her on the wind, and as it kept heading them ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... "Land, ho!" was cried out by the man who was at the mast-head in the morning watch, and soon afterward, the flat top of Table Mountain was distinctly visible from the deck. The Surprise, running before a fresh breeze, soon neared the land, so that the objects on it might be perceived with a glass. ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... of wharf. All this was black in the falling dusk, and I could just distinguish the whitish ruts of a cart- track stretching over the marsh towards the higher land, far away. Not a sound was to be heard. Against the low streak of light in the sky I could see the mast of Powell's cutter moored to the bank some twenty yards, no more, beyond that black barn or whatever it was. I hailed him with a loud shout. Got no answer. After making fast my boat just astern, I walked along the bank to have a look at Powell's. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... had assured him the Princess Maida was prepared. He hesitated, with his finger upon the switch-button of the weapon. But he knew that in a moment he would be too late. A searchlight from an aerial mast high overhead swung down upon him, bathing him in ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... its elements was full and tasteful. The scene on the avenue will be alway remembered as the only occasion on which that great thoroughfare was a real adornment to the seat of government. In the tree tops, on the house tops, at all the windows, the silent and affected crowds clustered beneath half-mast banners and waving crape, to reverentially uncover as the dark vehicle, bearing its rich silver-mounted coffin, swept along; mottoes of respect and homage were on many edifices, and singularly some of them were taken from the play of Richard III., which was ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... hacking and hewing the bamboo, through which they are making a clearing between the ladies and the shore; and by and by, owing to their efforts, we shall have an unrestricted outlook on to a sullen sea that is at present hidden. Then we shall also be able to note a mast standing out of the water—all that is left, saving floating wreckage, of the ill-fated yacht the Bluebell. The beginnings of a hut will also be seen, with Crichton driving its walls into the ground or astride its roof of saplings, for at present he is doing more ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie

... tempting him by the worldly suggestion of fitting out his desultory, miraculous trough with mast, sail, and rudder for swifter progression (the idea of haste has sprung from the pride of Satan), the simple old saint lent his ear to the subtle arguments of the progressive ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... the water rushing in drew the gigantic hull into the depths. The Royal Arthur sank with awe-inspiring rapidity. Now only her three funnels were seen above the surface of the water; a few minutes later nothing was visible save the top of the mast and the top-pennants hoisted for battle. Then a mighty, foaming billow rose on high, and only the breaking of the waves marked the spot where the proud ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... us no good fortune. The very day after we left Kamtschatka, one of our best sailors fell from the mast-head into the scuttle, and immediately expired. He had climbed thither in safety in the most violent storms, and executed the most difficult tasks with ease; now, in fine weather, on a tranquil ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... da Gama, who has fitted out a vessel at his own expense, overtakes Don Pedro in mid-ocean, and generously warns his rival of the treachery of Nelusko, who is steering the vessel upon the rocks of his native shore. Don Pedro's only reply is to order Vasco to be tied to the mast and shot, but before the sentence can be carried out, the vessel strikes upon the rocks, and the aborigines swarm over the sides. Selika, once more a queen, saves the lives of Vasco and Inez from the angry ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands

... had struck before I got into the air, that was scented, not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the long-shore boat-builders, and mast, oar, and block makers. All that water-side region of the upper and lower Pool below Bridge was unknown ground to me; and when I struck down by the river, I found that the spot I wanted was not where I had supposed it to be, and was anything but easy to find. It was called Mill Pond ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... admiral's flag at the mainmast," said Roger, but the match that he set up for a mast caught fire almost as soon as the candles were lighted in the miniature fleet. His flag fell overboard, however, and ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... Further aft, one military mast protruded at a slight angle from the perpendicular, while the poop afforded a resting-place for ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis

... books is one, very singular, called "Innocent Amusement" ("Unschuldiges Zeitvertreib"), in a number of volumes (I saw the fifth). It is a collection of verses, making pious applications of many odd subjects. Among the headings I found Cooking, Rain, Milk, The Ocean, Temperance, Salve, Dinner, A Mast, Fog, A Net, Pitch, A Rainbow, A Kitchen, etc., etc. It is a mass of pious doggerel, founded on Scripture and with ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... gold and silver, and the Franks walked round about her, till they brought her forth the city by the sea-gate,[FN504] where they took boat with her and rowing out to a great ship in harbor embarked therein. Then the monocular Wazir cried out to the sailors, saying, "Up with the mast!" So they set it up forthright and spreading the newly bent sails and the colours manned the sweeps and put out to sea. Meanwhile Miriam continued to gaze upon Alexandria, till it disappeared from her eyes, when she fell a-weeping in her privacy with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... took a leather bag and put into it all the unruly Winds. He tied the end of the bag with a silver string. Giving the bag to the captain, he said, "Fasten the bag to the mast of your ship. Do not open it, or trouble ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie

... between the Islands and the West, has the seaman seen anything but a little circle of sea. The Ancient Mariner, when he was alone, did but drift through a thousand narrow solitudes. The sailor has nothing but his mast, indeed. And but for his mast he would be isolated in as small a world as that of ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... her warm in his seaman's coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar, And bound her to the mast. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... Night was something lightish, and one of the Sailors was got into the Skuttle (so I think they call it) at the Main-Top-Mast, looking out if he could see any Land; a certain Ball of Fire began to stand by him, which is the worst Sign in the World to Sailors, if it be single; but a very good one, if double. The Antients believed these to ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... safely home, and in forest stretches where fallen leaves lay crisp and thick under foot the razor-backs were fattening on persimmons and mast. Along the horizon slept an ashen mist of violet. "Sugar trees" blazed in rustling torches of crimson and in the sweet-gums awoke colour flashes like those which glint ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... wrenching it off, having swarmed up the pole to the delight of the spectators, and sliding down with the rapidity of a fall of water. But it was for the glory's sake merely. The boy gave the sausage to a peasant, who had very nearly seized it, and stood at the foot of the mast, blubbering, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... forward lights gleam every moment larger and brighter, and the mast-head lantern sways slowly from side to side, as if winking mysteriously at the night. The distance is filled with the noise of the troubled water, and the heavy ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... his own cabin, in which, in the haste of his exit, he had imprisoned Joey. The dog received him with delight, for Joey knew a real gale from a sham one, as well as any man before the mast. Courtenay patted his head, opened a drawer in the writing-table, and drew forth two photographs, which he kissed. He replaced them, locked the drawer, and went out, letting the dog come with him. That was his farewell ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... succeeded. The survivors erected their mast again, which had been wantonly cut down in the battle of the night; and endeavored to catch some fish, but in vain. They were reduced to feed on the dead bodies of their companions. A third night followed, broken by ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... round-bellied, high-boarded craft with one mast, and flew the pennant of their home port. They were comparatively broad and built of heavy planks, and could easily be transformed into war vessels by furnishing them with a superstructure known as the castell ("castle") ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... if the foot to slavish lips to bring; The Normans scowl; he tilts the throne and backward falls the king. Loud laugh the joyous Norman men.—pale stare the Franks aghast; And Rou lifts up his head as from the wind springs up the mast: "I said I would adore a God, but not a mortal too; The foot that fled before a foe ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... billows, Now smooths them low, now lashes high. Now they are storming up like lions, And now like serpents sleek they lie; And wave on wave is ever pressing, They hiss, they whisper, soft of tone. Alack! was that the vessel splitting? Are sail and mast and rudder gone? Here, screams of fright, there, silent weeping, The bravest feels his courage fail. What stead our prudence or our wisdom? The soul itself can naught avail. And each one to his God is crying, Soar up, my soul, to Him aspire, Who wrought ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... salambao is a raft of reeds or bamboo; on which is erected an apparatus not unlike the mast and yard of a square-rigged ship. To one end of the yard is attached a net which may be raised from and lowered into the water. This contrivance is called by the natives timba. See full description of the salambao, and of other ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair

... it, lad! you'd better follow the fife and drum, or go before the mast, than give up your life to a ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... shifting as the sky over it shifted. The slaver was in high good humor. His crew seemed to be under perfect control and went about their work mostly in silence. They rarely sang, as sailors sing, but Robert, watching them on spar or mast, although he knew little about ships, knew that they were good sailors. He realized, too, that the crew was very large for a vessel of its size, and he believed that he understood ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... experience in blackbirding before I went pearling in the Paumotus. Otoo and I were on the beach in Samoa—we really were on the beach and hard aground—when my chance came to go as recruiter on a blackbird brig. Otoo signed on before the mast; and for the next half-dozen years, in as many ships, we knocked about the wildest portions of Melanesia. Otoo saw to it that he always pulled stroke-oar in my boat. Our custom in recruiting labor was to land the ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... their curiosity and indulgence, and embarked on a second voyage; but on his entrance into the Adriatic, the ship was assailed by a tempest, and the unfortunate teacher, who like Ulysses had fastened himself to the mast, was struck dead by a flash of lightning. The humane Petrarch dropped a tear on his disaster; but he was most anxious to learn whether some copy of Euripides or Sophocles might not be saved from the hands ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... and dark in Limehouse Hole, among the riggers, and the mast, oar and block makers, and the boat-builders, and the sail-lofts, as in a kind of ship's hold stored full of waterside characters, some no better than himself, some very much better, and none much worse. The Hole, albeit in a general way not over ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... wind, and all sail set. At daylight saw the island of Sall, bearing E.S.E. 15 miles. At half-past 5 in the afternoon saw the island of St. Jago,[7] when I went to the fore top-mast head, for exercise and amusement, while others went to see the land. At 11 brought the ship to the wind, and stood off the land at a convenient distance for going into Porto Praya on the ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... of our treasury. Forts ceded by the State of South Carolina to the United States were used to expel a vessel of the United States in the pursuit of its lawful commerce. WHen the 'star-spangled banner' was hoisted to her mast-head, as a sign of nationality, appealing to all the patriotic recollections which cluster around it—your flag, my flag, the flag of Virginia, of Ohio, of Kentucky, of Massachusetts, the flag of every state and of the whole Union, the rustle of whose folds has so often excited the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... been destroyed; yet it was so paralysed by the shock that its utter defeat seemed easy to Lord Cochrane. To the mast of the Imperieuse, between six o'clock in the morning of the 12th and one in the afternoon, he hoisted signal after signal, urging Lord Gambier, who was with the main body of the fleet about fourteen miles off, to make an attack. ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... poor country ... is now reduced to a very miserable condition by a continual course of misfortune," wrote Thomas Ludwell in 1667. "In April ... we had a most prodigious storm of hail, many of them as big as turkey eggs, which destroyed most of our young mast and cattle. On the fifth of June following came the Dutch upon us.... They were not gone before it fell to raining and continued for forty days together.... But on the 27th of August followed the most dreadful hurricane that ever the colony groaned under.... The nearest computation ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

... you have raised with your own venerable hands on the shore of their island. Time is pressing. Do you not think that your stone trough would carry you more quickly towards them if it were rigged like a boat and furnished with a rudder, a mast, and a sail, for then you would be driven by the wind? Your arms are still strong and able to steer a small craft. It would be a good thing, too, to put a sharp stem in front of your apostolic trough. You are much too clear-sighted ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... ballad occurs in the Roxburgh Collection I, 42 (the chorus being almost identical), under the title of "The Cunning Northern Beggar". The complete title is A Description of Love. With certain Epigrams, Elegies, and Sonnets. And also Mast. Iohnson's Answere to Mast. Withers. With the Crie of Ludgate, and the Song of the Begger. The sixth Edition. London, Printed by M. F. for FRANCIS COULES at the Upper end of the ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... that the ocean had been drawing him all the time. He walked straight to his little boat, lying dead on the sands of the harbour, launched it alive on the smooth water within the piers, rove his halliard, stepped his mast, hoisted a few inches of sail, pulled beyond the sheltering sea walls, and was tossing amidst the torn waters whose jagged edges were twisted in the loose flying threads of the northern gale. A moment more, and he was sitting on the ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... ship of the third rank shall bear a like flag upon his mizen[5] mast top, and every of the said wings shall have in their tops a flag of ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett

... and bellying with the wind Drop suddenly collapsed, if the mast split, So to the ground down dropp'd the ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... to succeed, represented the younger brethren; Lacroix, Micaiah Hill, and Gogerly, the London Missionary Society. Corrie and Dealtry do not seem to have reached the spot in time. The Danish Governor, his wife, and the members of council were there, and the flag drooped half-mast high as on the occasion of a Governor's death. The road was lined by the poor, Hindoo and Mohammedan, for whom he had done so much. When all, walking in the rain, had reached the open grave, the sun shone out, and Leechman led them in the joyous resurrection ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... wretched maiden! Did not he who won thy youthful heart, while yet it was little and fluttering, so pronounce the loved word "Mekaia?" Was not that the tone and accent which oft rang through the hollow beech woods, when together ye went to gather the ripened mast, and chanced to separate till the cry recalled? And look—see, one stands upon the beetling rock above thee, amidst the crash and thunder of the eddy into which thou art cast, his arms stretched towards thee, beautiful flower of the wilderness, and his look one of unutterable agony ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... more upon the waters! yet once more! And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider. Welcome to their roar! Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead! Though the strained mast should quiver as a reed, And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale, Still must I on; for I am as a weed, Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail Where'er the surge may ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... were talking, he spied on a sudden a boat in the lake, made of red sandal wood. It had a mast of fine amber, and a blue satin flag: there was only one boatman in it, whose head was like an elephant's, and his body like that of a tiger. When the boat was come up to the prince and Mobarec, the monstrous boatman took them up one after ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.

... happen in this world occasionally, good as well as bad. There came up a heavy storm, and the next morning, walking with my father on the beach, strewn with deep-sea flotsam and jetsam, we came upon the mast of a ship, water-logged till it had the weight of iron; it might have been, as my father remarked, a relic of the Spanish Armada. And it was covered from end to end with the rarest and most ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... an erratic officer, had lost half a year's pay. The magnitude of the disaster was almost national, he felt, and sadly, shyly, he said: "Will you have the flag at half-mast, Colonel?" ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Baltimore. Educated in a Jesuit school. Shipped before the mast at the age of 18. Tramped over Brazil as a day laborer, and through the West Indies. Returned to America and read law in his father's office. Wandered without money over Europe, and was a sandwichman in London. On the staff of the Paris Herald for a few months. Travelled over ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... The siren boomed intermittently, and Gibraltar, invisible, flashed Morse messages in long and short shafts of light on the thick, moist atmosphere. To add to the eerie effect of it all, a ship's light was hung upon the mast, and cast yellow rays ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... my dearest Brother, Who dost well to me intend, Thou mine Anchor, Mast, and Rudder, And my truest Bosom-Friend. To Thee, ere was earth or heaven, Had the race of man been given; Thou, e'en me, poor guest of earth, Chosen ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... Considering the calms which prevail, even if there were many ships they could not aid one another, whatever injury the galleys were inflicting upon them—the least being to dismantle them, so that they cannot sail, for there is nothing there with which to make a mast or rudder. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair

... Conkerer to Ireland, where they picked up a deal o' their good manners, after which they settled at last on their own estates in Yorkshire. Though they have comed down in the world, and the last of the Bumpuses—that's me—is takin' a pleasure-trip round the world before the mast, I won't stand by and hear my name made game of, d'ye see: and I'd have ye to know, further, my buck, that the Bumpuses has a pecooliar gift for fightin'; and although you are a strappin' young feller, you'd better not cause me for to prove that ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... the mast-head and sail right along. You and Dick get a nap, by and by, if you can. I wont try to sleep ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... 'My lord,' says he, 'if you have chosen me Of a hundred gunners to be the head, Hang me at your main-mast tree If I miss my ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick

... slanting, diminished in appearance till it looks like a sombre rent in the mass of large green mountains; and farther still, quite low on the black and stagnant waters, are the men-of-war, the steamboats and the junks, with flags flying from every mast. Against the dark green, which is the dominant shade everywhere, stand out these thousand scraps of bunting, emblems of the different nationalities, all displayed, all flying in honor of far-distant France. The colors most prevailing ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti

... employ a mobile apparatus which is very similar, but in this instance the mast is telescopic. When closed it occupies but little space. By turning the winch handle the mast is extended, and can be carried to any height up to a maximum of about 100 feet. The capacity of these mobile stations varies within wide limits, the range of the largest and most powerful installations ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot

... sunny; sea and sky Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves. 310 Following his eager soul, the wanderer Leaped in the boat, he spread his cloak aloft On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat, And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea Like a torn ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... station, less than a mile away, would have been very busy, and she herself must surely have heard some of the disturbance. No, there had been no wreck, yet all about her lay the wave-sodden flotsam and jetsam of many past disasters. A broken mast stump was imbedded upright in the sand at one spot. In another, a ladder-like pair of stairs, suggesting a ship's companionway, lay half out of the water. Sundry casks and barrels dotted the beach, some empty, some still untouched. ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman

... for'ard an' find a comf'table place an' set down an' do all the swearin' fer the hull ship from now on. You'll git yer pay jest the same as if ye done the cookin'. It's a big job but I guess ye're ekal to it. I'll agree that they won't nobody try to grab it. Ye may have a little help afore the mast ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... rustle of leaves, stopped me instantly as I climbed the beech ridge, one late afternoon, to see what wood folk I might surprise feeding on the rich mast. Pr-r-r-r-ush, pr-r-r-r-ush! a curious combination of the rustling of squirrels' feet and the soft, crackling purr of an eagle's wings, growing nearer, clearer every instant. I slipped quietly behind the nearest ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... against the tide, for the number of its passengers encumbered the oarsmen. After a while a light off land breeze sprang up, as here it often does towards morning; and the officer, Thompson, determined to risk hoisting the sail. Accordingly this was done—with some difficulty, for the mast had to be drawn out and shipped—although the women screamed as the weight of the air bent their frail craft over till the gunwale was ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... views At Ev'ning from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new Lands, 290 Rivers or Mountains in her spotty Globe. His Spear, to equal which the tallest Pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the Mast Of some great Ammiral, were but a wand, He walkt with to support uneasie steps Over the burning Marle, not like those steps On Heavens Azure, and the torrid Clime Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with Fire; Knotholes he so endur'd, till on ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... not knowing what to fear, wept for fashion, because they saw their mother weep, filled me with terror for them, though I did not for myself fear death; and all my thoughts were bent to contrive means for their safety. I tied my youngest son to the end of a small spare mast, such as seafaring men provide against storms; at the other end I bound the youngest of the twin-slaves, and at the same time I directed my wife how to fasten the other children in like manner to ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... the chain, and a sharp, musical rattle rang out as it ran below, for the hollow hull flung back the metallic clinking like a sounding-board. When the cable was short-up, they grasped the halyards and the big gaff-mainsail rose flapping up the mast. They set it and turned to the head-sails, for though, strictly speaking, a sloop carries only one, the term is loosely applied in places, and as Vane had changed her rig, there were two ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss



Words linked to "Mast" :   mainmast, mizen, topgallant mast, spar, topmast, mizenmast, nut, pole, feed, sailing ship, royal mast, mizzenmast, mooring mast, provender, foremast, masthead, mast cell, jigger, mizzen, jury mast, sailing vessel, half-mast, jiggermast



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