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Switch   Listen
noun
Switch  n.  
1.
A small, flexible twig or rod. "Mauritania, on the fifth medal, leads a horse with something like a thread; in her other hand she holds a switch."
2.
(Railways) A movable part of a rail; or of opposite rails, for transferring cars from one track to another.
3.
A separate mass or trees of hair, or of some substance (at jute) made to resemble hair, worn on the head by women.
4.
(Elec.) A device for shifting an electric current to another circuit, or for making and breaking a circuit.
Safety switch (Railways), a form of switch contrived to prevent or lessen the danger of derailment of trains.
Switch back (Railways), an arrangement of tracks whereby elevations otherwise insurmountable are passed. The track ascends by a series of zigzags, the engine running alternately forward and back, until the summit is reached.
Switch board (Elec.), a collection of switches in one piece of apparatus, so arranged that a number of circuits may be connected or combined in any desired manner.
Switch grass. (Bot.) See under Grass.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Switch" Quotes from Famous Books



... Halford's Marryat edition of Dry Fly Fishing that pinned their attention to that work for at least two hours. They wondered not a little at the attitude of the dry-fly gentleman as he is photographed doing the overhand cast, downward cut, steeple cast, and dry-switch, and under the vicar's tuition fell in love with the Mayfly plate, not excluding the uncanny larvae likenesses. The reverend monitor, indeed, proposed that they should drive forthwith over to the Trilling, a ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... business himself well knew. The workers were a bad lot, forever getting drunk! They didn't take their work seriously. Sometimes they quit in the middle of a job and only returned when they needed something in their pockets. Then Lantier would switch his attack to the employers. They were nasty exploiters, regular cannibals. But he could sleep with a clear conscience as he had always acted as a friend to his employees. He didn't want to get rich ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... sat an old woman, grey and wrinkled; with a small switch in her hand, with which she occasionally touched the Sea-babies as they leaned too far from their shells, or as their laughter rose ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry

... confessions, to how many suicides has it led? Of how many reformed lives has it been the mainspring? The great lecturer, John B. Gough, used to tell a story of a railway employee whose mind was overthrown by his disastrous error in misplacing a switch, and who spent his days in the mad-house repeating the phrase: "If I only had, if I only had." His was not an intentional or wilful dereliction. But in the hearts of how many repentant sinners does there not echo through life a similar mournful refrain. ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... that she could never have quite forgiven me for the way I used to carry on. That anyone out of a daft house could have liked it, was clean beyond my understanding. I thought of how when she was reading by the door I would go up on the moor with a hazel switch and fix little clay balls at the end of it, and sling them at her until I made her cry. And then I thought of how I caught an eel in the Corriemuir burn and chivied her about with it, until she ran screaming under my mother's apron half mad with ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... club is too light, but I suppose it's the best you've got," he said. "It feels like a willow switch. Well, stand back and give me lots ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams

... was coiled some half-dozen yards from us. Upon the top coil was poised his hideous head; above it vibrated the bony, fleshless vertebrae of the tail. The little schoolmarm stared at the beast, fascinated by fear and horror. Ajax cut a switch from a ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... replied Joe, who was busily engaged with a long switch, that he occasionally thrust in the fire, and when the end was burnt to a coal, slyly applied it to the heel of the ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... chickens that eat all day long and don't lay an egg as far as I could see, besides a sow and a litter of six pigs that squeal worse than the the switch-engine down yonder in the ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... days matters went as smoothly as I could have hoped. I found it so easy, when desirable, to switch the colonel on to one of my carefully contrived side tracks that I began to be proud of my skill and to enjoy the exercise of it. But one evening, just as we were in the middle of the dessert, he suddenly broke out with, "We were conquered by mere ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... fifth man stopped after he opened the door and flipped a switch on the inside did the Nipe make any motion. Then he flexed his four pairs of limbs in anticipation—but it wasn't quite ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... upon the eager throng, and each grasped his stick more firmly with the resolve to have at least one good cut at that bald-headed white man as he ran or staggered past. The first one on the right, who happened to be the Zebra, lifted a switch and struck the paymaster a smart though not a cruel blow across the shoulders as an intimation that ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... gave an admirable aspect of finish and symmetry to the form of the world. The London map of 1578, issued with George Best's Discourse of the Late Voyages of Discoverie, barricaded the south pole with a Terra Australis not unlike the design of a switch-back railway. Molyneux' remarkable map, circa 1590, dropped the vast imaginary continent, and displayed a small tongue of land in about the region where the real Australia is; suggesting that some voyager had been blown ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... paper, wherein she was described as M. le Vicomte Felix de Vandeness, Master of Requests, and His Majesty's private secretary. "And do I not play my man's part well?" she added, running her fingers through her wig a la Titus, and twirling her riding switch. ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... gradually fading toward a better land, on account of the daily loss of sleep; so we finally had the expert up again, and he ran a wire to the outside of the door, and placed a switch there, whereby Thomas, the butler, always made one little mistake—he switched the alarm off at night when he went to bed, and switched it on again at daybreak in the morning, just in time for the cook to open the kitchen door, and enable that gong to slam us across ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... if you could tell me where my hotel is, officer?" Oliver began. "What hotel?" said the policeman uninterestedly. Oliver noticed with an inane distinctness that he had started to swirl his nightstick as a large blue cat might switch its tail. He wondered if it would be tactful to ask him if he had ever been a drum major. Then he realized that the policeman had asked him a question—courtesy demanded a ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet

... little boy of eight sat astride upon a farmyard gate, whistling and beating time with a hazel-switch. He had fastened his belt round the gate-post and was using it as a bridle, his bare knees gripped the wooden bar under him, and his little brass-tipped heels flashed in the sun like spurs. It was Saturday morning, which meant no lessons with Parson Boase at the vicarage, and a fine ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... Ind; Numidian nomads there And Nasamon's needy hordes; and those whose darts Equal the flying arrows of the Mede: Dark Garamantians leave their fervid home; And those whose coursers unrestrained by bit Or saddle, yet obey the rider's hand Which wields the guiding switch: the hunter, too, Who wanders forth, his home a fragile hut, And blinds with flowing robe (if spear should fail) The angry lion, ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... sir," said Bacchus; "like as not he'll never see old Aunt Peggy agin. She's failin, sir, you can see by de way she sets in de sun all day, wid a long switch in her hand, trying to hit de little niggers as dey go by. Sure sign she's gwine home. If she wasn't altogether wore out, she'd be at somefin better. She's sarved her time cookin and bakin, and she's gwine to a country whar there's ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... used to call the museum," she explained, her voice still shaking with agitation. "I left him there to examine some specimens of beetles. I thought that I would come back through the conservatory, which is the quickest way. I was about half-way across it when suddenly I heard the switch go behind me and all the electric lights were turned out. I couldn't imagine what had happened. While ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... on the stairs. The house was full of noises. She was glad when she reached the dining-room. It would be pleasant to switch on the light. She pushed open the door, and uttered a cry. The light was already switched on, and at the table, his back to ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse

... dressing-gown at once, by merely feeling your way? We will put out the light, and then you will be able to get out of the bath in the dark without the least fear." He was on the very point of turning off the switch of the lamp, when he stopped abruptly and came back to the bath. "I was forgetting that exasperating bell," he said. "A movement is so very easily made: suppose you were to ring, by mere inadvertence, ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... cam, O, and bent or crooked lever, M, with the shaft N, of the gear wheel, L, and with the arm, I, rigidly connected with the switch, F, substantially as herein shown and described and ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... Even in his alcohol, he was surprised at her words. He said gruffly, "Sure anybody might've done it. Pure luck. But why'd you change your mind about me, then? How come the switch of heart?" ...
— Medal of Honor • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... rascals were gentlemanly enough in their manner, and I could not help admiring their mixture of courtesy and cruelty, either of which they could switch on at a moment's notice ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... his hands rest upon the desk top—a surface covered with levers, electric switches, push buttons, and contrivances the nature of which Parker could not guess. The doctor leaned forward. He threw over a switch. The lights in the room became less bright. He pressed a button. The Danse Macabre of Saint-Saens floated weirdly upon the air, as though the music ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... this world so comforting to a woman as good feeling with her sisters, one and all," Mother Mayberry said as she watched the last switch of the widow's skirt. "Mother, wife and daughter love is a institution, but real sistering is a downright covenant. Me and Bettie have held one betwixt us these many a year. But you and me have both put a slight on the kitchen since Cindy ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... which time an unwonted supply of blood was drawn to his brain, that surprised organ proved its gratitude by giving birth to a timely and sensible idea. With an unaccustomed resourcefulness, by cutting off the supply of light at the electric switch, he put the entire ward in darkness. Secretly I admired the stratagem, but my words on that occasion probably conveyed no idea of the approbation ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... it was turned and ran up. I followed—it was dark—but as I turned the corner at the top a figure darted through this door and closed it. The bolt was on my side, and I pushed it forward. It is a closet, I think." We were in the upper hall now. "If you will show me the electric switch, Miss Innes, you would better ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... discretion, when he will show a kind of rational judgment with him, and if you set an expert rider on his back, you shall see how sensible they will talk together, as master and scholar. When he shall be no sooner mounted and planted in the seat, with the reins in one hand, a switch in the other, and speaking with his spurs in the horse's flanks, a language he well understands, but he shall prance, curvet, and dance the canaries half an hour together in compass of a bushel, and yet still, as he thinks, get some ground, shaking the ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... 10 a. m., September 4th, when the trip of box cars began to jolt and bang and back and switch over the rails, with the troops aboard making the best of the situation, reclining on straw that had been secured to partly cover the ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman

... switch, Ned turned the fly wheel over, there was a throbbing of the cylinders, and the Ripper was off on her long cruise after ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young

... code. Raising his hat to his fiancee and his prospective parents-in-law, Ayrault followed them up. To draw in and fold the ladder was but the work of a moment. As the clocks in the neighbouring steeples began to strike eleven, Ayrault touched the switch that would correspond to the throttle of an engine, and the motors began to work at rapidly increasing speed. Slowly the Callisto left her resting-place as a Galatea might her pedestal, only, instead of ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... puttering around the work table where Darcy used to do his jewel setting and his repair work, and Sallie was over near the showcase. I wanted more light on a certain piece of jewelry I had in my hand, and I thoughtlessly threw over a switch I saw on Darcy's table. It was a switch I hadn't noticed before—in fact, I accidentally uncovered it by moving a collection of his tools I hadn't ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele

... which was perhaps not habitual, his appearance might have been called prepossessing. In his figure there was the grace, in his step the elasticity which come from just proportions and muscular strength. In his hand he carried a supple switch-stick, slight and innocuous to appearance, but weighted at the handle after the fashion of a life-preserver. The tone of his voice was not displeasing to the ear, though there might be something artificial in the swell of it,—the sort of tone men assume when they desire to seem more frank ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... bleeding. In this matter I particularly admired the benevolence of the slave Suliman. Yesterday, after a sharp run across a field, perhaps in the vain hope of escaping the tormentors, he dismounted, and the mare followed him, walking like a lamb. He then sat down to switch away the flies, and rub her legs inwards and outwards. To-day he had taken off his Bedawi kefieh, or bright-coloured small shawl, from around his head, and suspended it between her legs, then, as he rode along, was continually switching between her ears ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... old wither'd witch, Or dread the scourge's echoing blow!" Then loud he sung and wav'd his switch, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... in for the tray and he asked her to switch off the light. He lay for hours, open-eyed, in the gloom, while wraithlike memories materialized and vanished as mysteriously. Somehow the incidents of his life nearest in point of time seemed the remotest. Only his youth lay within easy reach, ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... welcome," it announced—and shuddered at the prospect of again braving the elements. Across the street his unprotesting taxicab stood parked parallel to the curb; beyond it glowered the end of the station. To the right of the long, rambling structure he could see the occasional glare of switch engines and track-walkers' ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen

... hands. The native loves a stick, and as he is forbidden to carry either an assegai—which is a very formidable weapon indeed—or even a knobkerry, only one degree less dangerous, he consoles himself with a wand or switch in case of coming across a snake. You never see a Kafir without something of the sort in his hand: if he is not twirling a light stick, then he has a sort of rude reed pipe from which he extracts sharp and tuneless sounds. As ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... lean sorrel mare came jogging into view, switching her fly- bitten tail, and on the mare's back, urging him with a long, leafy switch, sat a woman. Behind her sagged the two loaded ends of a corn- sack. She rode like the mountain women, facing much to the side, yet unlike them. Her arms did not flap. She did not bump gawkily up and down in her saddle. Her blue calico dress ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... cause of it is, and, as discretion is always the better part of valor, and certainly is counted so among the denizens of the underworld, there were at least a dozen men in that room at the time who leaped for the switch to turn off the lights the instant that Madge ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter

... butter-colored skull as if he had suddenly received a stinging blow on it with a switch, and his red face became crimson-hued at the sight of Sulpice, his successor in office, standing before him, politely holding out to him his ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... set, and almost immediately the darkness descended, as though the light had been turned off at a switch. The earth shrunk to a pool of blackness, and the heavens expanded to a glory of tropical stars. All visible nature contracted to the light thrown by the flickering fires before the tiny white tents. The tatterdemalion crew had, after the curious habit of Africans, cast aside its ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... longer than, you are exercising the Christian act of trust, will you be experiencing the Christian blessedness of 'joy and peace.' Unscrew the pipe, and in an instant the water ceases to flow. Touch the button and switch off, and out goes the light. Some Christian people fancy they can live upon past faith. You will get no present joy and peace out of past faith. The rain of this day twelve months will not moisten the parched ground of to-day. Yesterday's ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... He didn't know. I reckon he was sort of guessing around in the dark, plumb puzzled; couldn't find the switch at all at first. Then it come to him, and he thought of the sheep to blind the trail. If I'd been half a hour later he would have got away with it too. No, if he had guessed that you were in the hold-up, him and Boone would have hiked ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... for the door but even as she moved she heard the click of the bolt shot back. He touched the electric switch and the room was suddenly in darkness. She heard him coming towards her, she felt his ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... pronounce more than two sentences; my heart palpitated, my voice faltered, and my sight failed. How well understood was the potent magic of the grandeur and dignity which ought to surround sovereigns! Marie Antoinette, dressed in white, with a plain straw hat, and a little switch in her hand, walking on foot, followed by a single servant, through the walks leading to the Petit Trianon, would never have thus disconcerted me; and I believe this extreme simplicity was the first and only real mistake of all those with which she ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... in allegorical form. The misty expanse of Futurity is radiated with divergent lines of rigid steel; and along one of these lines, with diminishing carbon and sighing exhaust, you travel at schedule speed. At each junction, you switch right or left, and on you go still, up or down the way of your own choosing. But there is no stopping or turning back; and until you have passed the current section there is no divergence, except by voluntary catastrophe. Another ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... a trot. Someone passed Ripley a switch, with which he dealt his animal a stinging blow. Away went pony and rider at ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock

... such nonsense as that," said his impatient master, grasping him by the baggy skin at the back of the neck and giving him several sharp blows with a switch. ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis

... rumbling by as the boy drew near the track, going faster every moment. By the light of a switch lamp Teddy could make out a ladder running up to the roof of one of the ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... hand down the slope—don't let him out at all at all, till you come to the turn: when you're fairly round the corner, just shake your reins the laste in life, and when you're halfway up the rise, when the lad begins to snort a bit, let him just see the end of the switch—just raise it till it catches his eye; and av' he don't show that he's disposed for running, I'm mistaken. We'll step across to the bushes, my lord, and ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... intermeddling bishop offered himself as a mediator, apologising for our artist by observing, "Of this proud humour are these painters made!" Julius turned to this pitiable mediator, and, as Vasari tells, used a switch on this occasion, observing, "You speak injuriously of him, while I am silent. It is you who are ignorant." Raising Michael Angelo, Julius II. embraced the ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... crunch of wheels on the red soorkee drive outside, and a switch past the bunch of sword-ferns that grew beside the door. The muffled crescendo of steps on the stair and the sound of an inquiry penetrated from beyond the portiere, and without further preliminary Duff ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... reserve all the surface for residence purposes; although, it is possible to live down here in comparative comfort, since we have plenty of electrical energy to spare." And she operated a switch, flooding the place with a brilliant glow. Thrown from concealed sources, this light was quite as strong as the subdued daylight which they had just left. "But unless we were free to fly about as much as we do, we should feel that life was a bore. Nobody stays below ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint

... of Danger and Daring, Moffett; David Maydole, Hammer-Maker, in Riverside Seventh Reader; Jack Farley's Flying Switch, in Warman, Short Rails; Histories of Two Boys, in Riverside Seventh Reader; History of Labor Day, in Stevenson, Days and Deeds (prose); The Arms of Aeneas, in Church, Stories from Virgil; The Blacksmith Boy and the Battle, in Marden, Winning ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... punished at home, either by scolding or by the rod. But at school the case was different. The rod was freely used there, and I was not exempt from its influence. I can see John D. White—the school teacher —now, with his long beech switch always in his hand. It was not always the same one, either. Switches were brought in bundles, from a beech wood near the school house, by the boys for whose benefit they were intended. Often a whole bundle would be used up in a single day. I never had any hard feelings against my teacher, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... of Diana, remembering that she, too, was in trouble. Well, tomorrow there would have to be a great clean-up of all these miserable pretences and deceits; tonight, at least, she would try and sleep. Her hand was on the switch to turn out the lights when there came a knocking at the door. It was such a strange, peremptory knocking—such a careless outraging of the small hours, that for a moment she stood rooted with astonishment and apprehension, staring at herself in the mirror ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... so deeply, Peggy wanted to respect and admire in the same way, but it was puzzling to understand just what it was that Georgina saw in that wooden figure to make her feel so. Accustomed to thinking of it in Bailey's way, as a sea-cook with a doughnut, it was hard to switch around to a point of view that showed it as Hope with a wreath, or to understand how it could help one to ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... picked ferns from under the waterfall and made wreaths and garlands, which they threw at the Phoenix's head like quoits. The Faun showed them a certain place to shout from if you wanted to hear an echo. The Phoenix shouted, "A stitch in time saves nine!" and the echo dolorously answered, "A switch ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd

... discretion, was pitched into the water with no more ceremony than if he had been a superfluous kitten. The fact was—I cannot disguise it—within five minutes the whole valiant band of the Sons of the Vikings were routed by that terrible switch, wielded by the intrepid Gunbjor. When the last of her foes had bitten the dust, she calmly remounted her pony, and with the Deacon's Maggie in her lap rode, at a ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... arrangement, with equal sides, never using multipliers except for some experimental purpose. In each multiplier wire I have 500 ohms resistance. When the bridge is balanced, one-half of the current flows through the cell and acts upon the selenium. Between the bridge and the cell is a reversing switch, so that the current can be reversed through the cell without changing its course through the bridge. A Bradley tangent galvanometer is used, employing the coil of 160 ohms resistance. The Leclanche battery is exclusively used in measurements ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various

... contained a battery of four dynamos, a small seepage-pump, and a crumbling marble switch-board with part of the wiring still ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... angry red, mottled white; four liters of wine, a half-bottle of cognac, and a few candle ends. We stick the candle ends into the neck of our flasks, which swing, hung by strings to the sides of the wagon. There was, thus, when the train jolted over a switch, a rain of hot grease which congealed almost instantly into great platters, but our coats ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans

... that she may be able to make the way train, and switch off at the Junction, then, if she is lucky, she may flag the shore train and get to this spot about midnight. But what would she do then? Better stay out in civilization ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose

... the parlour across the hall. When he put his hand on the electric switch, she objected, saying she preferred to be without the lights. He obeyed her. The glow from the hall was strong enough to show him the play of her features—which ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... Blackfish, who said sternly to Kenton in English, "You have been stealing horses." "Yes, sir." "Did Captain Boone tell you to steal our horses?" "No, sir, I did it on my own accord." Blackfish then lashed him over the naked back with a hickory switch till the blood ran, and with blows and taunts from all sides Kenton was marched forward ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... the electric switch leaving the cabin in total darkness, then drew her sister to the broad swell of windows looking out upon the forward deck. It was bare enough tonight. All the awnings were closely furled and the chairs stowed away in snug stacks, while not a figure could be seen ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... the fellows said, "Paulus, let me give you a switching with the birch twigs. It is fine; it brings the blood into circulation." One of the boys began to switch my back, and soon I cried, "Enough, enough, enough!" Soon all were switching one another, and the one who had switched me said, "Paulus, give me a good switching—harder than the one I gave you." I thought mine had been strong enough; my back must have been as red as a boiled lobster. ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu

... spoken, and in a moment the lights were turned on. This was done by Madame Parlato, at whose elbow the light switch was. ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells

... my mind," he went on glancing nervously about the room. "Actually tapping my thought-stream so as to switch off the usual current and inject her own. How mad that sounds! I know it, but it's true. It's the only way I can express it. Moreover, while the operation terrified me, the skill with which it was accomplished filled me afresh with laughter at the clumsiness of men by comparison. Our ignorant, ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... priest said with some excitement; "the poor beast would naturally lose flesh in the hands of the French, while as to the switch in the tail, it was a sign of welcome which she gave me when I took an apple or a piece of bread into her stable, and she would not be likely so to greet strangers. I will lose no time in writing to Ignacio to inquire further ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... was goin' to say," went on the official, exhibiting tokens of impatience and perturbation, "was that if we should make any switch this year, I guess you boys ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... switches, and make them behave," he replied. At the first tree he cut himself a long, slender switch from one of the branches, and shorter switches ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum

... "Switch off your lights," he said—"all of them. Then find a place where we can turn off and wait till Leon and ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... the art of cooking, loaded the table with good things to eat. Hugh ate until both the man and woman declared he would burst if he did not stop. Then when they were not looking he went into the station yard and crawling under a bush went to sleep. The station master came to look for him. He cut a switch from the bush and began to beat the boy's bare feet. Hugh awoke and was overcome with confusion. He got to his feet and stood trembling, half afraid he was to be driven away from his new home. The man and the confused ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... epidemic of the Ouija board shows how many persons there are who are able to switch off the conscious mind and let the subconscious control the muscles that are used in writing. The fact that the writer has no understanding of what he is doing and believes himself directed by some outside power, in no way interferes with ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... out, and climbed up upon a stump, by the side of the road. Jonas drove up to the stump, and Rollo clambered up behind him, with a switch in ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott

... animals don't reason, but they're a long ways from hittin' the bull's-eye. It warn't long afore thet painter had everythin' settled in his own mind, an' had decided thet I was helpless fer some reason an' would be easy pickin's fer him. He got up on all fours, and began to growl a little an' switch his tail. I knew then that it wouldn't be long before he came fer me, an' I took a fresh grip on the axe. I knew I didn't have a chance, but I figgered on puttin' my mark on the critter before ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield

... the door he came into the room, fumbling along the wall for the electric switch. The flood of light disclosed him trying to tear ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... daughter to espouse!" and Willoughby rose in the Rev. Doctor's esteem: he praised that sensibly minded gentleman, who could acquiesce in the turn of mood of a little maid, albeit Fortune had withheld from him a taste of the switch at school. The father of the little maid's appreciation of her volatility was exhibited in his exhortation to Vernon to be off to her at once with his authority to finish her moods and assure him of peace in the morning. Vernon hesitated. Dr. Middleton ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Josiah Allen before the glass and of all the sights I ever see his dress went ahead. He had got on a red woolen underskirt and his dressin' gown over it kinder floated back from it, and he had took out of my trunk a switch of hair that Tirzah Ann had put in, thinkin' mebby I would want to dress my head different in foreign countries; I hadn't wore it at all, and it wuz clear in the bottom of my trunk, but he had got at it somehow and had ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... the field. They raised cotton, corn, oats, and wheat. His mother washed and ironed and cooked. He was small but well remembers once when his mother had been sick and had just gotten out. George Strauter whipped her with a switch on her legs. Warren did not approve of it. Rocks were plentiful and he began throwing at him. He said Mr. George took out after him but didn't catch or ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... and the footstool, at which I had a hundred times been sentenced to kneel, to ask pardon for offences by me uncommitted. I looked into a certain corner near, half-expecting to see the slim outline of a once dreaded switch which used to lurk there, waiting to leap out imp-like and lace my quivering palm or shrinking neck. I approached the bed; I opened the curtains and leant ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... thanks I get for it. Well, I'll marry her in spite of him, if he doesn't leave me a dollar. I could starve in a garret with her, and if I got too dreadfully hungry I could eat her. Hi, ho! but, say, Mr. Whitney Barnes, you had better switch off some of these lights. This house isn't supposed ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... into movement, and catching the corners of the rug she threw it violently after the package and over the hand, at the same moment jumping from her seat and on to the footboard, to grope wildly for the switch. Her heart was leaping like a fish just flung into a basket, and every inch of her body winced from an expected grasp upon it. She flung herself over the side and into the seat of the car, found the switch and ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... of a muted bell interrupted Walters as he was about to reply. He opened the switch to the interoffice teleceiver behind his desk, then watched the image of his aide appear on ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell

... of wild confusion. Men jumped from their seats with shouts and execrations. One man leaped for the electric switch to turn out the light, but Frank reached him at a bound and felled him to the floor. Pistols were drawn, but the doughboys knocked them out of the conspirators' hands, and in a twinkling had the ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall

... her to the old castle, where, having cut a switch to the length represented to her in her dream, she measured the distances, and ascertained, as she supposed, the point on the floor beneath which the treasure lay. The same day she related her dream to ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu

... through the darkness. The lights of the fishing fleet flashed by them like the gleam of switch-lights, seen from an express train. Mascola's anger mounted. His men were waiting for orders and he had seen nothing of the enemy's formation. A plan formed quickly in his brain. It was dangerous of course. But the liquor gave him courage. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... permission, Holmes went into six banks and nailed up a telephone in each. Five bankers made no protest, but the sixth indignantly ordered "that playtoy" to be taken out. The other five telephones could be connected by a switch in Holmes's office, and thus was born the first tiny and crude Telephone Exchange. Here it ran for several weeks as a telephone system by day and a burglar-alarm by night. No money was paid by the bankers. The service was given to them as an exhibition ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... they not running away?—they have an action with the hind legs very like a donkey in a state of revolt. But they have none of the donkey's too numerous grievances. And if donkeys squealed at every switch, as pigs do, their undeserved sufferings would have cried loud enough for ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... no gentle treatment while in his pupilage. The grim centurion, or commander of his company, is a man of iron, who has risen from the ranks; his methods are sharp and summary, and he carries a tough switch of vine-wood, with which he promptly belabours the idle or the stupid. Any neglect of duty or act of disobedience is inevitably Punished, sometimes by hard labour in digging trenches, sometimes by a fine, sometimes by stripping ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... of Ned Newton's cry, Tom's finger pressed the switch-trigger of the electric rifle, for previous experience had taught him that it was sometimes the best thing to awe the natives in out-of-the-way corners of the earth. But the young inventor quickly elevated the muzzle, and the deadly missile went hissing through the air over the head ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton

... it from his packet He pressed the spring switch, and in an instant a brilliant shaft of radiance shot out, cutting the intense blackness like a knife. Mr. Damon flashed it ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton

... sparsely peopled through-trains from the north and east, and by such local travellers as wished to take trains not stopping at their own stations. These broke in upon the solitude of the joint station-master and baggage-man and switch-tender with just sufficient frequency to keep him in a state of uncharitable irritation and unrest. To-night Bartley was the sole intruder, and he sat by the stove wrapped in a cloud of rebellious memories, when one side of a colloquy without ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... and tapping his gaiters with a riding switch, explained in a few words that he did not want the hay and did not ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham

... maids then crowded about them and said: "Punica is so young and inexperienced! You must not bear her any ill-will! To-morrow she shall go to you switch in hand, and receive ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various

... the building, the line-men and labourers-they stayed. But the switch-boards must be operated-the telephone was vital.... Only half a dozen trained operators were available. Volunteers were called for; a hundred responded, sailors, soldiers, workers. The six girls scurried backward and forward, instructing, helping, scolding.... So, crippled, halting, ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... I spoke, whereat the hag Smiled with hideous irony, Seized a switch of mistletoe, Smote me over ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine

... replied Oliver. "They will get safe here now. Cannot we help them? I wish I had a rope! A long switch may do. I will get ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau

... the servant came, chatting and patting the horse; but as soon as Bold had disappeared through the front door, he stuck a switch under the animal's tail to make him ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... the post-office. After getting into the telephone-box he called a wrong number. As there was no such number, the switch-attendant did not answer him. Pat shouted again, but received ...
— Best Short Stories • Various

... wis nought of the inwards thereof," said Esdras, pulling a switch from the hedge. "Some saith one thing, and some another. But they saith she'll go to ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

... mind so much being whipped by the schoolmaster for not knowing how to read our lesson, but to have to go out ourselves and cut the hickory switch with which the chastisement was to be inflicted seemed to us then, as it does now, ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... could have waited and gained the same end. The rye is free to marry her, or to marry you, ma'am, but never to marry the angel, unless—" Mother Cockleshell adjusted the bundle carefully on the donkey, and then cut a long switch from the tree. ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... instead of juggling about the country, with an Australian larrikin; a "brumby," with as much breed as the boy; a brace of chumars in gold-laced caps; three or four ekka-ponies with hogged manes, and a switch- tailed demirep of a mare called Arab because she has a kink in her flag. Racing leads to the shroff quicker than anything else. But if you have no conscience and no sentiments, and good hands, and some knowledge of pace, and ten years' experience ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... his chum and the professor, had already donned their aeronautic uniforms, and he now strapped himself into the pilot's seat. The steering apparatus, the levers that controlled the planes, and the motor switch were all under his hand. While in flight the Snowbird need be under the control of but ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... I came home early, after a lonely dinner at a place which I'd chosen because there didn't seem any chance of meeting Motty there. The sitting-room was quite dark, and I was just moving to switch on the light, when there was a sort of explosion and something collared hold of my trouser-leg. Living with Motty had reduced me to such an extent that I was simply unable to cope with this thing. I jumped backward with a loud yell of anguish, and tumbled out into the ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... everything," said Marigold. He fussed methodically about the room, picked up an armful of clothes, and paused by the door, his hand on the switch. ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... ca!" cried he; and, throwing back his head, he laughed long and heartily. I watched him, half prepared to feel offended, until he had satisfied his mirth; and then, "You must have no pity on these animals," said he; and, plucking a switch out of a thicket, he began to lace Modestine about the stern-works, uttering a cry. The rogue pricked up her ears and broke into a good round pace, which she kept up without flagging, and without exhibiting the least symptom of distress, as long as the peasant kept ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his handkerchief around under the metal band which encircled the soldier's wrist and having thus formed a cushion to receive the pressure and protect the raw flesh, he closed his switch again and gently subjected the manacle to the revolving wheel, holding it upon the edge of the concave ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... up to the sky. Things look more and more what we call "foreign." Harvest is going on, of hay and grain; and men and women work together in the fields. The gentle sex has its rights here. We saw several women acting as switch-tenders. Perhaps the use of the switch comes natural to them. Justice, however, is still in the hands of the men. We saw a Dutch court in session in a little room in the town hall at Courtrai. The justice wore a little red cap, and sat informally behind a cheap table. I noticed ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... afternoon, and I had to switch him off, for I didn't care to own that it was news ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... Come in anyone!" Bill called urgently into the mouthpiece. He switched to the Coast Guard channel, then to the Miami Marine operators channel. Only static filled the cabin. No welcome voice acknowledged their distress call. Bill flipped the switch desperately to the two ship-to-ship channels. "May Day! Come in any boat!" Still static. Nothing ...
— The Day of the Dog • Anderson Horne

... made certain that he was not observed he unlocked and opened the window, and removed the wire screen. There was a red fire-exit lamp in the ceiling nearby, but he could not reach it, nor could he find any wall switch. Nevertheless he knew by that time that through the window lay Dick's only chance of escape. He cleared the grating of a broken box and an empty flower pot, stood the screen outside the wall, and then, still unobserved, ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... large as the horse, and as to his tail he was much more decorative. About two inches after this member left his body it was closely shaved for some six inches or more, and for that space it presented the effect of a rather large size of garden-hose; below, it swept his thighs in a lordly switch. If anything could have added distinction to our turnout it would have been the stiff side-whiskers of our driver: the only pair I saw in real life after seeing them so long in pictures on boxes of raisins and cigars. There they were associated with the look and dress of a torrero, ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... ought to be punished?" He nodded. "Very well," I answered, "I'll punish you myself. Go and cut me a nice, straight switch," and I handed him my open penknife. Round-eyed, the Imp obeyed, and for a space there was a prodigious cracking and snapping of sticks. In a little while he returned with three, also the blade of my knife was broken, for which ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... Look at those peaks down there! Like great knives. I don't seem to be falling as fast as I expected though. Almost seem to be floating. Let's switch on the radio and tell the world hello. Hello, earth ... hello, again ... ...
— Accidental Death • Peter Baily

... see from the cut in the catalogue that the platen roller is easily removed without a long mechanical operation. All you do is to slip two pins back and off comes the roller. There is also another point worth mentioning—the ribbon switch. By using this ribbon switch you can write in either red or blue ink while you are using only one ribbon. By throwing the switch on this side, you can use thirteen yards on the upper edge of the ribbon, by reversing it, you use thirteen yards on the lower edge—thus getting practically ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Trans-Asia-Europe fiber-optic cable through Iran; additional international service is available by microwave radio relay and landline connections to the other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States and through the Moscow international switch and by satellite to the rest of the world; satellite earth stations - ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... tree Grandfather King had planted when he returned one evening from ploughing in the brook field and stuck the willow switch he had used all day in the soft soil by ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the shades down and the hangings drawn at both windows; and since these had not been disturbed, something nearly approaching complete darkness reigned in the room. But though promptly on entering his fingers closed upon the wall-switch near the door, he refrained from turning up the lights immediately, with a fancy of impish inspiration that it would be amusing to learn what move Roddy would make when the tension became too much ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... of paper. Then, getting up stiffly, he took the portrait and moved woodenly across the room to a furnace. As though enshrining it he placed the plastic block upon a refractory between the electrodes and threw a switch. After the flaming arc had done its work he turned and handed the paper to a tall man, dressed in plain gray leather, who had been watching him with quiet, understanding eyes. Significant enough to the initiated of the importance of this laboratory ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith

... dough. Snow was falling and had begun to drift in the hollows, but the trains flew on; bridges shook as they thundered across them; wind screamed in the ears of the passengers; the suspected bridge was reached; Edwards's heart was in his throat, but he seemed to clear the chasm by a bound. Now the switch was in sight, but No. 19 was not there, and as the brakes were freed the train shot by like a flash. Suddenly a red light appeared ahead, swinging to and fro on the track. As well be run into behind as to crash into an obstacle ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... at circle 1, and saw to a depth of 3/4". Saw the entire length of the cylinder leaving about 1-1/2" at the ends. Do not follow the line here, but switch off gradually and follow circles 1 and 15, so as to allow the spiral to begin and ...
— A Course In Wood Turning • Archie S. Milton and Otto K. Wohlers

... Gregory cried; and, as he settled by his daughter, "For every minute you're there, father, you must sit here. Guess what I have with me." Lee Randon had no idea, and Gregory produced a willow switch. "That's for anybody ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... mules passed down the street, dragging their double-trees reluctantly, and took their cursing meekly as they made the turn at the tracks. A switch engine bumped along the sidings, snaking ore-cars down to the bins and bunting them up to the chutes, but except for its bangings and clamor the town was still. An aged Mexican, armed with a long bunch of willow brush, swept idly at the sprinkled street and Old Hassayamp Hicks, the ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... to forget. I remember getting an awful rise out of Estelle by remarking that her switch didn't match her hair. She came up like a human yeast cake. Johnny sided with the dame, and said I might at least try to act like a gentleman, even if I weren't one. Perhaps the grape wasn't getting to Johnny by this time. He was nobby and boss. He was dropping his r's like ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.



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