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Tread   Listen
noun
Tread  n.  
1.
A step or stepping; pressure with the foot; a footstep; as, a nimble tread; a cautious tread. "She is coming, my own, my sweet; Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat."
2.
Manner or style of stepping; action; gait; as, the horse has a good tread.
3.
Way; track; path. (R.)
4.
The act of copulation in birds.
5.
(Arch.) The upper horizontal part of a step, on which the foot is placed.
6.
(Fort.) The top of the banquette, on which soldiers stand to fire over the parapet.
7.
(Mach.)
(a)
The part of a wheel that bears upon the road or rail.
(b)
The part of a rail upon which car wheels bear.
8.
(Biol.) The chalaza of a bird's egg; the treadle.
9.
(Far.) A bruise or abrasion produced on the foot or ankle of a horse that interferes. See Interfere, 3.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tread" Quotes from Famous Books



... light showed through the crack. She had not quite closed the door on account of the noise of the latch. She tried again; again it rattled and she desisted. I heard her fluttered breathing and I heard something else—a rapid, heavy tread in the corridor without. Into the council-room came a man carrying a ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... awakened him. For a moment he heard nothing except the fall of the rain. Then came the hum of voices, followed by the soft tread of moccasined feet. He knew there was an Indian town ten miles across the country, and believed some warriors, belated on a hunting trip, had sought the cabin ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey

... deserted save for the presence of one small boy who was jogging on ahead, a dinner pail upon his arm. He was a slender little fellow of six or seven years who whistled shrilly as he went and kicked up clouds of dust with his bare feet. As Van watched the sway of his shoulders and the unhampered tread of his unshod feet he could not but recall the days when he, too, had gloried in going barefoot. He smiled at the memory which now seemed ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... himself, and that for us, has got a complete conquest over him; but the time is coming, and himself knows that it is but a little while to it, in which he shall forever be bruised under our feet. Be wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil, and the God of peace shall bruise, tread down Satan under your feet shortly (Rom 16:20). Some may think that this text will have a fulfilling in the ruin and downfall of Antichrist; and so it may; but yet it will never be wholly fulfilled, as long as Satan shall have any thing to do with one of the children ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... biggest and merriest man in the colony, came in and roared his appreciation of Isaac's return. He was a huge man, and when he stalked into the room he made the floor shake with his heavy tread. His honest face expressed his pleasure as he stood over Isaac and ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... the strong. Men recognized the dynamic force of his close-gripped jaw, the power of his quick, steady eye, the patience of his courage. The eyes of women followed him down the street, for there was some arresting quality in the firm, crisp tread that carried the lithe, smooth-muscled body. With the passage of years he had grown to a full measure of mental manhood. It was inevitable that when Washington County set itself to the task of combing the outlaws from ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine

... day when he was about to bang up a wet cod's skin! He was turned out at once, with all his fish. While in town on this errand, it occurred to him that a great deal of power was wasted in treading the streets of London! He conceived the idea of using the streets and roadways as a grand tread-mill, under which the waste power might be stored up by mechanical methods and turned to account. He had also an idea of storing up the power of the tides, and of running water, in the same way. The late Charles Babbage, F.R.S., entertained a similar idea ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... season as the summer,—dreary, unproductive, disappointing in every way; but there had been days in the latter autumn when the sun had shown his dim face, when the dank hedges had looked fresh, and the fallen leaves in the wood-paths had rustled under the tread of the squirrel; and Margaret would on such days have liked to spend the whole morning in rambles by herself. But there were reasons why she should not. Almost before the chilliness of the coming season began to be felt, hardship ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... the judicious Author's mind is enthralled by Etymology; he takes up the original word as his guide and escort, and too often does not perceive how soon he becomes its prisoner, without liberty to tread in any path but that to which it confines him. It is not easy to find out how imagination, thus explained, differs from distinct remembrance of images; or fancy from quick and vivid recollection of them: each is nothing more than a mode of memory. If the two words bear the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... they clubbed together in high dudgeon and joined the French Malcontents against their rulers. The French half-breeds made a flag for use on the plains called 'The Papineau Standard.' It is plain that rightly or wrongly, Recorder Thom has a thorny path to tread." ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce

... nets, and the long hollow wing bones as tobacco pipes," but the flesh is not good to eat. The albatross has been seen fully 1000 miles from any shore. Its power of wing must therefore be very great, but when tired it can walk on the water with its strong webbed feet, and the sound of its tread is said to be heard at a great distance. In the breeding season the albatross retires in company with other sea-birds, particularly the penguin, to some rocky shore to build its nest. The penguins' and albatrosses' nests are always found in company, but the penguin ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")

... make its presence known, for it stepped boldly out from behind its shelter. Its right eye was closed tight by an enormous swelling, and its nose was twice its natural size, but it strode forward with head up and dignity in its tread. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... boundless as the sea, nothing so patient. On its broad back it bears, like a good-natured elephant, the tiny mannikins which tread the earth; and in its vast cool depths it has place for all mortal woes. It is not true that the sea is faithless, for it has never promised anything; without claim, without obligation, free, pure, and genuine beats the mighty heart, the last sound one in an ailing world. And while ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... forward with pictorial harmony. They were like a few mellow figures blended skilfully into the deep tones of an ancient canvas. But now the turbulent spirit of the raging river itself pervades the new-comers who march imperiously upon the mighty stage with the heavy tread of the conqueror, out of tune with the soft old melody; temporising with nothing; with a heedless stroke, like the remorseless hand of Fate, obliterating all obstacles to their progress. Not theirs the desire to save natives from perdition; ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... passed the end of the Rue des Morts, when she fancied that she could hear the firm, heavy tread of a man walking behind her. Then it seemed to her that she had heard that sound before, and dismayed by the idea of being followed, she tried to walk faster toward a brightly lit shop window, in the hope of verifying ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac

... dire poverty; and he turned silently and cautiously to descend the stair. There was only just time enough to get away, for Edie was even then opening the door of the nursery. Noiselessly, with cat-like tread, he crept down the steps once more, and heard Edie descending, and singing as she came down to Dot. It was a plaintive little song, in a sad key—a plaintive little song of his own—but not wholly distressful, Arthur thought; she could still sing, then, to her baby! With the hot tears rising a second ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... slide, letting in a grey beam on their darkness. He then silently applied his eye to an augur-hole above the slide, and waited. Meantime the knock sounded once more and pair of heavy steps came up the stairs, and tramped towards them; and some indefinable recognition of the heavy tread came vaguely to Chrysler. The steps stopped, the note was withdrawn, the tread sank away down the stairs, and De Bleury, rollicking with suppressed laughter, ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... dressed in a gray suit, purchased a year since. Miss Bridget Flaherty, of Mott Street, was the belle of the occasion, and danced with such grace and energy that the floor came near giving away beneath her fairy tread. [Miss Flaherty, by the way, weighed one hundred and eighty pounds.] Mr. Mike Donovan, newspaper merchant, handed round refreshments with his usual graceful and elegant deportment. Miss Matilda Wiggins appeared in a magnificent print dress, imported ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... room, placed his light in the window-bench, and then—knelt down to pray. The contrast of the picture with her rebellious and agitated existence at this same time was too much for her to bear to look upon longer. It was not for her to make a truce with trouble by any such means. She must tread her giddy distracting measure to its last note, as she had begun it. With a swollen heart she went again up the lane, and ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... knows how, he finds himself following a trim-footed damsel, who, having shown him up a winding stair, worn by the tread of countless travellers, brings him to a smallish, dullish chamber, opening upon the lower gallery. Hereupon Barnabas bids her "good night," but, blinking in the sunlight, gravely changes it to "good morning." ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... Silence, fit companion of the Night, In drearier depths my being steeping, Like the felt presence of an unseen sprite, With muffled tread comes creeping, creeping. Before me close her smothering curtain swings, And o'er my life a shadeless shadow flings; Sinking with pitiless weight, and slow To shroud the last sweet glimpse of Earth and Man, And set my limits to the narrow span Of but an arm's ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... man stand, unless he have something sure under his feet. Can a man tread the unstable water all his life, and call that standing? Better give ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... accompanying this article, shows a class of children whose grandparents, direct from slavery, began with awkward, faltering steps to tread the "hidden paths of knowledge," and whose parents in their turn were graduated from the Normal department of Le ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 4, October, 1900 • Various

... returned with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject unto us in thy name. 18 And he said unto them, I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven. 19 Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall in any wise hurt you. 20 Nevertheless in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rejoice that your names are written ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman

... like a man in a dream during the singing, went eagerly to Katherine as soon as Joris spoke of dancing. "He felt strong enough," he said, "to tread a measure in the bride dance, and he hoped she would so far ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... brigade wheeled and marched into the mess hall—the air resounding with the quick, martial tread of eight hundred or more of the pick ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock

... bow of steel shall strike dwell on high; the lofty city, he him through. It is drawn, and layeth it low; he layeth it low, cometh out of the body; yea, the even to the ground; he bringeth it glittering sword cometh out of his: even to the dust. The foot shall gall: terrors are upon him. All tread it down, even the feet of the darkness shall be hid in his secret poor, and the steps of the needy. places: a fire not blown shall Ch. 26:5, 6. For I will contend consume him; it shall go ill with with him that contendeth with thee, him that is left in his tabernacle. ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... Him come to Jerusalem. Multitudes followed Him and accompanied Him, casting their mantles and palm-branches in the way that His mule might tread upon them." ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... orphan, so forlorn and friendless that none will care what becomes of you. But if you come with me, I will make you a noble lady. I am a powerful man in my own country. You shall be clad in silk and gold, and you shall tread a measure ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof

... institutions. Shall we, then, at the moment when the people of Europe are devoting all their energies in the attempt to assimilate their institutions to our own, peril all our blessings by despising the lessons of experience and refusing to tread in the footsteps which our fathers have trodden? And for what cause would we endanger our glorious Union? The Missouri compromise contains a prohibition of slavery throughout all that vast region extending ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... at the door which was still quivering under Gridley's outgoing slam. And when the master-mechanic's tread was no longer audible in the upper corridor, the young engineer turned to the man at the desk to say: "What tickled the boss ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... spectre or spirit of the wood, this stranger who wore the garments of a knight of high degree. He rode a white horse, which stepped softly, so that the flowers in the meadows lifted their delicate heads uninjured by his tread. ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... thou dost suggest; moreover, they would go away and babble to others of what they had seen, and much of the glory and splendour of thy first appearance in those magnificent garments would be wasted. Wait until to-morrow, O Elephant whose tread causes the earth to tremble with fear, and then—when the whole army is gathered together, and all can see thee at the same moment—thou shalt reveal thyself in all thy magnificent splendour, and—and—words fail me to predict ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... arc light flared over the wide doorway. Starr, feeling pretty well disgusted, was leaving when he saw a tire track alongside the red, gasoline filling-pump. He stopped and, under cover of lighting his cigarette, he studied the tread. Beyond all doubt the car he wanted had stopped there for gas. But the garage man was a Mexican, so Starr dared not risk a question or show any interest whatever in the car whose tires left those long-lined imprints to tell of its passing. He puffed at his cigarette ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... of Nicholas Udall in his plea that translators should be suitably recompensed or that of John Brende in his preface to the translation of Quintus Curtius that "in translation a man cannot always use his own vein, but shall be compelled to tread in the author's steps, which is a harder and more difficult thing to do, than to walk ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos

... Italian sky. One remembers all they have suffered, all they have achieved in spite of wrong. Brute races have flung themselves, one after another, upon this sweet and glorious land; conquest and slavery, from age to age, have been the people's lot. Tread where one will, the soil has been drenched with blood. An immemorial woe sounds even through the lilting notes of Italian gaiety. It is a country wearied and regretful, looking ever backward to the things of old; trivial in its latter life, and unable ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... because he had not the wherewithal to get it, while teaching the youth of Athens. The divine Dante was nothing better than a beggar, houseless, homeless, friendless, wandering through Italy while he composed his immortal cantos. Milton, who in his blindness "looked where angels fear to tread," was steeped in poverty while writing his sublime conception, "Paradise Lost." Shakespeare was glad to hold and water the horses of patrons outside the White Horse Theatre for a few pennies in order to buy bread. Burns burst ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... mothers, the dishonoured, deserted maidens who have lived on the earth and longed to leave it, passed and repassed before her eyes, and the interminable dim procession seemed to stretch out a myriad hands to her. She sat with them at their trembling vigils, listened for the tread, the voice, at which they grew pale and sick, walked with them by the dark waters that offered to wash away misery and shame, took with them, even, when the vision grew intense, the last shuddering leap. She had analysed to an extraordinary fineness their susceptibility, their softness; ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... hipocrita m. f. hypocrite. hipotesis f. hypothesis. hisopo holy water sprinkler. historia history, story; historieta (dim.) tale. hogar m. hearth, home. hoguera bonfire. hoja leaf. hola holla! hollar to trample, tread on. hombre man. hombro shoulder. hondo profound, deep. honesto honest. honrado honest, honorable. honrar to honor. honroso honorable. hora hour, o'clock. horca gallows. horizonte m. horizon. hormiga ant. hormigon m. fine plaster. hornilla stew hole (over hearth). ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

... terrified of them. They haunt the mountain-tops and slopes, and they can assume the semblance of a cat, a mouse, or any other animal; in fact they are said to frequently change their appearance. Where no man can tread, among rocks and precipices, or in the thick jungle, the spirits seek their retreat, but often they abandon their haunts to seek for men. The person who becomes possessed generally remains in a semi-conscious condition and ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... that of treading upon the flank of some immense beast, some Titanic mammoth lying prostrate in a swamp. The surface was black, it was dry and minutely wrinkled like an elephant's skin, it was blood-warm, it was soft and yielded to the tread precisely as one would suppose that an acre of solid flesh would yield. The general impression was heightened by certain surface creases, where the hide seemed to be turned in as in the folds behind an elephant's ears. These skin furrows were filled with ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... ye tread To this shrine of the royal dead! This Abbey's hallowed unto one, Daughter of Britain's ancient throne,— History names her one sole thing, The daughter of a ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt

... and so strong was party feeling at that period, that one day, walking together down Piccadilly, Mr. Pye, stopping at the door of Debrett, requested his companion to go in and purchase a particular pamphlet for him, adding that if he had the audacity to enter, more than one person would tread upon ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... down very carefully the broken toy he had been playing with. Peter's elephantine tread was so great that it had almost overstepped its victim. At all events Aymer gave no outward sign that he felt it except in his deepened colour and a faint straightening of ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... Anna out into the kitchen and the flute-player could hear the key turn in the lock behind them. Sure that, for the moment, his dear child was safe, he now went to the door, with measured, steady tread, and opened it. ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... stone's throw out on either hand From that well-ordered road we tread, And all the world is wild and strange; Churel and ghoul and Djinn and sprite Shall bear us company to-night, For we have reached the Oldest Land Wherein the ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... one of the commissioners from the colony of Virginia, to treat, in conjunction with commissioners from the eastern colonies, with the Six Nations, the Governor of New York remarked "that the earth seemed to tremble under his tread." ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... white-haired man and the girl advanced. It seemed to him that this lasted for a century, and that it was but a second. "What are they coming in this direction for?" he asked himself. "What! She will pass here? Her feet will tread this sand, this walk, two paces from me?" He was utterly upset, he would have liked to be very handsome, he would have liked to own the cross. He heard the soft and measured sound of their approaching footsteps. He imagined that M. Leblanc was darting angry glances ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... all put that glorious little achy feeling in my throat that you get when they start the fife and drum, or when a cavalry column wheels at the word of command, or when a regiment swings past with even tread, or when you stand on a dock and watch a liner dropping out into the fog. It's the feeling that you're a man and mighty proud of it. But somehow it always makes you just a ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

... lion cubs, Nero, Chet and Boo, had lived with their father and mother in the jungle cave. They learned how to tread softly on the leaves and twigs of the jungle path, so as to make no noise. They learned how to creep quietly down to the spring at night to get a drink, so that the hunters ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum

... has touched, this day, on the foul black-spot of its fair Convention Domain; has trodden on it, and yet not trodden it down. Alas, it is a well-spring, as we said, this black-spot; and will not tread down! ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... the cold, dank fog, and the sheriff offered to bring a brazier of coals; but the great man proudly drew around him the cloak, now somewhat threadbare, that he had once spread for good Queen Bess to tread upon, and said, "It is the ague I contracted in America—the crowd will think it fear—I will soon be cured of it," and he laid his proud head, gray in the service of his country, calmly on the block, as if ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... dread Debarr'd the spot to vulgar tread; For there, she said, did fays resort, And satyrs hold their sylvan court."— Lady ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... rivers or lagoons; and the heaps of these shells beside their old fireplaces, which are numerous along the banks, show that this shellfish is the daily food of at least the gins and children. In their attempts to steal from us their feet were much employed. They would tread softly on any article, seize it with the toes, pass it up the back, or between the arm and side, and so conceal it in the armpit, or between the ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... kind of dream act—quite natural. The child's curious, shadowy, indecent sex-knowledge is quite in the course of nature. And does nobody any harm at all. Adults had far better not notice it. But if a child sees a cockerel tread a hen, or two dogs coupling, well and good. It should see these things. Only, without comment. Let nothing be exaggeratedly hidden. By instinct, let us preserve the decent privacies. But if a child occasionally sees its ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... our sons might follow after by the bones on the way. Follow after—follow after! We have watered the root, And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for fruit! Follow after—we are waiting by the trails that we lost For the sound of many footsteps, for the tread of a host. Follow after—follow after—for the harvest is sown: By the bones about the wayside ye ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling

... be difficult for you to understand our weariness, when I confess that the ball was not quite of the usual sort; that we did not dance at all; and, what is worse, that we were not asked, either to tread a measure, or sit out a polka, or ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... who for a blinded world sought out The secret of escape from misery; The splendour of a royal court resigned, He found in poverty a higher realm! Yet greater far the victory, when he broke The chain of Fate and spurned the wheel of change. To suffering humanity he says, "Tread in my steps: You, ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... boy, however, was spared the pain of going any further, for, at that moment, a heavy tread was heard on the spiral staircase. Then Lieutenant Commander Mayhew, holding himself very erect, one hand resting against the scabbard of the sword that he wore at his ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham

... religious festivals, the Jewish chorus surrounded the high altar of their worship, gorgeously dressed, and with an harmonious tread; they mounted and remounted the steps; they offered sacrifices; they bore branches of trees in their hands; they scattered the lustral water; they burnt incense; they pealed the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... weary way we tread, And sorrow crown each lingering year, No path we shun, no darkness dread, Our hearts ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... smashing of the accumulator trade, had been abandoned. No human foot now trod its surface. Its mighty domes were empty. It went its way, as it had gone for billions of years, a little burned out, worthless planet, ignored and shunned. For a brief moment it had known the conquering tread of mankind, had played its part in the commerce of the worlds, but now it had reverted to its former state ... a lonely wanderer of the regions near the Sun, a pariah among the ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak

... accompanied us to the landing outside the flat door. After saying good-bye to Dale, who went down with his boyish tread, she detained me for a second or two, holding my hand, and again her clasp enveloped it like some clinging sea-plant. She looked at me ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... his ears he thought of their meaning. The drunkard with his lust for money; his moaning victim; the discordant piano; the man with the vacant laugh; the lost hope and youth in the woman's that echoed it; the stealing, slipping feet of those who must tread softly—all conveyed to Lane that he had awakened in another world, a ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... which, alas! many girls tread boldly, scattering much feather-bloom from the wings of poor Psyche, gathering for her hoards of unlovely memories, and sowing the seed of many a wish that they had done differently. They cannot pass over such ground and escape having their nature more or less vulgarized. I do not speak ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... anxious toil, each eager strife, And watch the busy scenes of crowded life; Then say, how hope and fear, desire and hate O'erspread with snares the clouded maze of fate, Where wav'ring man, betray'd by vent'rous pride To tread the dreary paths, without a guide, As treach'rous phantoms in the mist delude, Shuns fancied ills, or chases airy good; How rarely reason guides the stubborn choice, Rules the bold hand, or prompts the suppliant voice. How nations sink, by darling schemes oppress'd, When vengeance listens ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... the men about the fire hear the tread of the major's horse than a hoarse cry, the ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac

... had promised, the envious sisters bribed the nurse to put little dogs in the place of the queen's children, and sent word to the king that his wife had given birth to two puppies. He wrote back that she should be taken care of for two weeks, and then put into a tread-mill. ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs

... entered with Joan's tea. Joan took an instinctive dislike to her. She was a large, flashy woman, wearing a quantity of cheap jewellery. Her familiarity had about it something almost threatening. Joan waited till she heard the woman's heavy tread descending the stairs, ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... feeling a little forlorn at being so long left to themselves. It was very well for a time, but, as the day wore on, Edna missed Uncle Justus from his place in his easy chair, missed Aunt Elizabeth's heavy tread, and ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard

... helpless she was,—scarcely more important than one of the wild-flowers she had used to tread on when she was n't being hurried through space by the means of—she knew not what. To be sure, she was pretty; but then they had been pretty too, and she had stepped on them, and they had died, and she had gone away and no ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann

... nevertheless no proof that the bulk of English opinion had greatly wavered in its faith in Southern powers of resistance. The Government, it is true, was better informed and was exceedingly anxious to tread gently in relations with the North, the more so as there was now being voiced by the public in America a sentiment of extreme friendship for Russia as the "true friend" in opposition to the "unfriendly neutrality" of Great Britain and France[1208]. It was a ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... horses being never shod, the gravel would soon whet away their hoofs, so as to render them unserviceable; whereas the rocks and moor-stones, though together they make a rough way, yet, considered separately, they are generally pretty smooth on the surface where they tread, and the heath is always easy ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson

... not venture far into the forest, for fear of losing our way; besides which, it was necessary to proceed very cautiously, lest we should be surprised by a jaguar or tread on any venomous serpent. We neither of us at that time, it must be remembered, had any experience of tropical forests, or we ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston

... pregnant, The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it, Because we see it; but what we do not see, We tread upon, ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... favourable wise—for these infidel emperors handle oftentimes the princes that they take more villainously than they do the poorest men, as the great Tamberlane kept the great Turk, when he had taken him, to tread on his back always when he leapt on horseback. But, as I began to say, by the example of a prince taken prisoner, were the imprisonment never so favourable, yet it would be, to my mind, no little grief in itself for a man to be penned up, though not ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... compliment: "Sir, of the graces by which Your Royal Highness has won and firmly retains the affectionate attachment of Englishmen none has operated more strongly than the width of your sympathies; for there is no honourable sphere in which Englishmen move, no path of life in which they tread, wherein Your Royal Highness has not, at some time, by graceful word or deed, evinced an enlightened interest." In 1881, the central subject of toast and speech was Sir Frederick Roberts, who had come fresh from the fields of Cabul and ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... zeal to disclose to his master what had happened at the entrance to the cavern, the Imp dared not tread within that circle of enchantment. He cast himself upon his knees without it, bowed low his head, and cried aloud, "Sir Wizard, oh, Sir ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield

... in the paths of death I tread, With gloomy horrors overspread, My steadfast heart shall fear no ill, For thou, O Lord, art with me still; Thy friendly crook shall give me aid, And guide ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... Milburn hates the ground I tread on. If he know'd I was in love with little Roxy he'd ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... his friend's prayer. He thought no more of the excuses which he had been building in his mind; of all the practical suggestions which he had been prepared to make. Common-sense died away within him. The matter-of-fact man of thirty was ready to tread in the footsteps of this great predecessor, and play the modern knight-errant with the whole-heartedness of Don Quixote himself. He fancied himself by her side, and his heart leaped with joy of it. He thought no more of abandoned cricket ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... "Tread lightly on his ashes, ye men of genius, for he was your kinsman! Weed clean his grave, ye men of goodness, for he ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... children; for these plans were shorn of all romance in his mind, and the pleasure he derived from thinking of them was checked directly it passed a very sober limit. So a sensible man who has lost his chance of some beautiful inheritance might tread out the narrow bounds of his actual dwelling-place, and assure himself that life is supportable within its demesne, only one must grow turnips and cabbages, not melons and pomegranates. Certainly Ralph took some pride ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... boyhood thronging back on him, before his people had moved from Monrovia and the "booms." The man ran erratically, but with an accurate purpose. Behind him the big logs bent in dignified reminiscence of his tread, and slowly rolled over; the little logs bobbed frantically in a turmoil of white water, disappearing and reappearing again and again, sleek and wet as seals. To these the man paid no attention, but leaped easily on, pausing on the timbers ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... and their execution on the will of the sovereign. The constitution of India is therefore like a house without a foundation and without a roof. It is a principle of Hindoo religion not to kill a worm, not even to tread on a blade of grass, for fear of injuring life; but the torments, cruelties, and bloodshed inflicted by Indian tyrants would shock a Nero or a Borgia. Half the best informed writers on India will tell you that the ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... ready to charge, if need be, though too lazy from heat, apparently, to begin the 'fray, and willing to act on the principle of "let be for let be." Still farther on, a native was observed keeping at a respectful distance. He had seen the travellers from afar, and come with noiseless tread to ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... be said of the obstacles placed in the way of religious progress by the crude and dogmatic prepossessions of ignorant women, who will rush in with confident assertion where angels might fear to tread: but this is neither the time nor the place for such remarks. It is enough to remind you that in no part of your life do you more need the width and modesty and courage of thought, and the delicacy of insight given by culture, than when ...
— Three Addresses to Girls at School • James Maurice Wilson

... intense stillness. At last the child, whose ears were even keener than Henderson's, caught her breath with a little indrawing gasp and looked up at her companion's face. Henderson understood; and every muscle stiffened. A moment later and he, too, heard the oncoming tread of hurried footsteps. Then Pichot went by at a swinging stride, with Mitchell ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... Troy! no more The city of the unsack'd shalt be, So thick from dark Achaia's shore The cloud of war hath covered thee. Ah! not again I tread thy plain— The spear—the spear hath rent thy pride; The flame hath scarr'd thee deep and wide; Thy coronal of towers is shorn, And thou most piteous art—most ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... one great factor in the reclamation of the desert that Oxley could not take into his calculations—for he did not know its power—the sure, if gradual change wrought by stocking. Under the ceaseless tread of myriad hoofs, the loose, open soil was to become firm and hard, whilst fresh growths of herb and grass followed the footsteps of the invading herds. The shaking bogs and morasses were to become solidified, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... Venus can such charms disclose As those sweet lips of blushing rose And ivory bosom show; Not Thetis' nimble foot can tread More lightly o'er her coral bed Than thy ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... only a temporary relief, for when he went down Bella and June Bowman were whispering together; he passed the door with his silent tread and saw their heads close. Bella was ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... events which rendered the week of its opening incidents so memorable among its actors, must now be imagined. Time had advanced with its usual unfaltering tread, and the greater part of a generation had been gathered to their fathers. George III. had been on the throne not less than three lustrums, and most of the important actors of the period of '45, were dead;—many of them, in a degree, forgotten. ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... is kidnapped!. I am sure of it, Andrew as sure as that I tread upon earth! She has stolen him—and I will never stir from this place till I have tidings ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... captain? Three days after I arrived I heard above me, for the first time, the tread of his military boots. Now again my courage began to fail. I should have preferred to leave Archie's letter lying in my desk and know my neighbor only by his tread above me. I felt that perhaps I had ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers

... balmy and clear. Most of the good citizens of the town were at their homes; many of them doubtless in their beds; for early hours were kept in those early days of our country's history. Yet many were abroad, and from certain streets of the town arose unwonted sounds, the steady tread of marching feet, the occasional click of steel, the rattle of accoutrements. Those who were within view of Boston Common at a late hour of that evening of April 18, 1775, beheld an unusual sight, that of serried ranks of armed men, who ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... official staff a man like Chichikov could not fail to attract attention and remark, since in everything—in cheerfulness of demeanour, in suavity of voice, and in complete neglect of the use of strong potions—he was the absolute antithesis of his companions. Yet his path was not an easy one to tread, for over him he had the misfortune to have placed in authority a Chief Clerk who was a graven image of elderly insensibility and inertia. Always the same, always unapproachable, this functionary could never in ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... as needful as popular, you'll admit. And what more have we done in the letter than to be guilty of that? And people declare it's rarer: as if we were to be shut up in families to tread on one another's corns! Dear me! and after a time we should be having rank jesuitry advertised as the specific balsam for an unhappy domesticated population treading with hard heels from desperate habit and not the slightest ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... inactivity. Indeed it may well be called the party of political evasion. It was a huge, loose confederacy of differing political groups, embracing paupers and millionaires, moderate anti-slavery men and slave barons, all of whom were held together by the unreliable bond of an agreement not to tread on each other's toes. ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... had happened. He no longer desired her. The woman who had haunted his thoughts for over two years, for whom he had made quixotic sacrifices, for whom he had made a mat of his great body so that she should tread stony paths without hurt to her delicate feet, was his now for the taking—nobly self-offered—and with all the world as an apanage he could not have taken her. The phenomenon of sex he could not explain. Once he had desired her passionately. The ivory-white of her daintiness had fired his blood. ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke



Words linked to "Tread" :   crush, pneumatic tire, trample, pace, caterpillar tread, go, locomote, tread-softly, squelch, contact, stair, squash, treadle, couple, tread-wheel, move, stride, step, walking, structural member, tread down



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