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Zigzag   Listen
adjective
Zigzag  adj.  Having short, sharp turns; running this way and that in an onward course.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Zigzag" Quotes from Famous Books



... stone, octagonal, having four different kinds of crosses on the alternate faces, a circular shaft ending in octagon, and on octagonal pediment. Within the south porch, over the outer and inner doorways are old fragments of massive zigzag pattern, all that remains of a whilom Norman structure. The modern doorway arch, externally, has a dog-tooth moulding, with floriated finials. The tower, over the porch, is square below, octagonal above, with small lancet windows in each face, and is surmounted by a low spire; it contains ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... an extremely rich collection of bottle-brush-flowered, zigzag-leaved, grey-tinted, odd-looking things, to most eyes rather strange than beautiful, notwithstanding that one of them is named Banksia speciosa. They are the 'Botany Bays' of old-fashioned gardeners, but are more in the ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... admirable person for the patroness and directress of a slightly self-willed child, with the lightning zigzag line of genius running like a glittering vein through the marble whiteness of her virgin nature! One of the lady-patroness's peculiar virtues was calmness. She was resolute and strenuous, but still. You could depend on her for every duty; she was as true as steel. She was kind-hearted and serviceable ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Universe, carrying their festoons of wild roses. They bring to the great festival joy and love of life - a telling addition to all that has been expressed in the court. They savor of old Greek days, these maidens of archaic hair and zigzag draperies. Paul Manship loves the classic which brings with it much of free expression, and he has adopted the archaic style that recalls the figures such as are seen on old Greek vases. No one is more joyous among the ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James

... this depression, and by a narrow ledge at the foot of the great cliff gain the other side, where another zigzag ascent brought them onto the rocky slope leading over a quarter of a mile of huge ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... detached himself from the window-sill, and set the lawnmower on another zigzag journey. His hat, his coat, and his trousers hung limper than ever. He moved wearily, and at the end of the garden he sat down under a cherry-tree to muse on the strange, sad fact that his new employer promised to be not one whit more companionable ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... a cowbell tingled in the distance, and now and then a fox barked in a covert of Dark Hollow, that almost impenetrable jungle that lies along the "Back Bone," a narrow, zigzag ridge stretching ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... and some forms of dementia shakiness is so excessive that it becomes dysgraphy, with zigzag letters. The handwriting of persons subject to apoplectic strokes has often the appearance of copper-plate. Monomaniacs intersperse their writings with illustrations and symbols. They write very closely in imitation of print, as do mattoids, hysterical persons, and megalomaniacs, ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... wing-covers on their backs and soft, fuzzy velvet underneath, flew out at dusk, twenty or thirty of them, as likely as not, would make a luncheon for Mis the clown. For he was lean and hungry, and he ate and ate and ate; but he never grew fat. He hunted zigzag through the twilight of the evening and the twilight of the dawn. When the nights were bright and game was plenty, he hunted zigzag through the moonlight. When the day was dull and insects were on the wing, he hunted, though it was high noon. And many a midnight ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch

... fervoro. Zealot fervorulo. Zealous fervora. Zebra zebro. Zenith zenito. Zephyr venteto. Zero nulo. Zest gusto. Zigzag zigzago. Zinc zinko. Zinc-worker zinkisto. Zodiac zodiako. Zone terzono. Zoology zoologio. Zoophyte ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... detect among the fossils the germs of numerous designs developed in almost every department of art; but merely to enumerate them would require a volume. One form of the old classic lamp was that of the nautilus; another, that of Gyphaea incurva; the zigzag mouldings of the Norman Gothic may be found in the carinated oysters of the Greensand; the more delicate frettings of similar form which roughened the pillars of a somewhat later age occur on Conularia and the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... the most comprehensive that we possess on this difficult branch of meteorology — the evolution of light (lightning) is of three kinds — zigzag, and sharply defined at the edges; in sheets of light, illuminating a whole cloud, which seems to open and refeal the light within it; and in ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... as if in obedience to a sovereign order, never goes backward. Like the traveller who by oblique windings rises from the depth of the valley to the mountain-top, it follows intrepidly its zigzag road, and marches to its goal with confident step, without repentance and without pause. Arriving at the angle of monopoly, the social genius casts backward a melancholy glance, and, in a moment of profound ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... storm was on them in earnest. This blast came with zigzag flashes of lightning that showed the heavens riotous with battalions of charging clouds; it came with deafening thunder and a torrential discharge of rain. One would have thought the power of the wind sufficient to set a steel battleship scudding before it like a wooden shoe. ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... Tolpatchery in this manner, but with much desertion, much dispiritment, in his main body,—the HOOPS upon him all loose, so to speak,—staggers zigzag back towards Budweis, and the Lobkowitz Party there; intending nothing more upon the Prussians;—capable now, think some NON-Prussians, of being well swept out of Budweis, and over the horizon altogether. If only his Prussian Majesty will co-operate! thinks Belleisle. "Your King of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... the road was between 'Ain 'Anoob and 'Ainab, and zigzag were the worn tracks of the way. Sometimes a musical jingle of bells announced the coming of travellers in front, who were however invisible till they pounced upon us from between two pinnacles of rocks. On the steepest ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... they were tormenting us. The artillerymen kept up a fire at us from the cannon, which consisted of light six-pounders, but owing to our movement they could not get the elevation. We slowly scaled the hill zigzag fashion to baffle their aim, until we got so close that the cannon could not possibly touch us, owing to a slight mound on the hill. We were then within a hundred yards of them, and I took their number, and found at the same time ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence

... blockhouses, strung on a chain of barbed-wire fencing. The blockhouses were of loop-holed stone or iron with iron roofs, and they were separated from each other by only a few hundred yards. The barbed-wire chain which strung together these zigzag lines was five strands wide, and it was edged with a five-foot trench and now and then with an additional length of stone wall. Beyond the fences were the railroad lines, and up and down over the tracks armored trains carrying search-lights were running to and fro, to shed all possible light upon ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... curiously twisted glass goblets, so common in the early graves of Kent, are shewn by their form to be of English workmanship. It is only in the English pottery, hand-made, and marked with coarse zigzag patterns, that we find ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... caterpillars when on the march never turn completely; to wheel round on their tight-rope is a method utterly unknown to them. In order therefore to regain the road already covered, they have to describe a zigzag whose windings and extent are determined by the leader's fancy. Hence come gropings and roamings which are sometimes prolonged to the point of causing the herd to spend the night out of doors. It is not a serious ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... train painfully climbed the narrow, rocky zigzag trail. The climate is favorable for agriculture. Wherever the sides of the canyon were not absolutely precipitous, stone-faced terraces and irrigation had transformed them long ago into arable fields. Four thousand feet above the valley floor we came to ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... After advancing up that valley, girt on both sides with lofty mountains and scored with numerous gulleys, the force descried the Peiwar Kotal Pass at its head—a precipitous slope furrowed only in one place where a narrow zigzag path ran upwards through pines and giant boulders. A reconnaissance proved that the Afghans held the upper part in force; and for some time Roberts felt the gravest misgivings. Hiding these feelings, especially from his native troops, he spent a few days in reconnoitring this formidable position. ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... other notch, to be held with the left thumb while the right hand is released to take up the baren (fig. 21). Beginning at the left, the baren is rubbed backwards and forwards, a full stroke each time, to the outside limits of the block, with a moderate, even pressure, moving the stroke in a zigzag towards the right end of the block (fig. 22). Once over should be enough. A second rub makes heavy printing of the finer lines. Then the paper is lifted from the block and placed on the board ...
— Wood-Block Printing - A Description of the Craft of Woodcutting and Colour Printing Based on the Japanese Practice • F. Morley Fletcher

... through the air. Thick mist engulfed the tank. Read stood up and ran forward. He crouched but didn't zigzag. Speed ...
— The Green Beret • Thomas Edward Purdom

... than frivolous, though I had no agency in choosing, I asked myself how I should be affected by the sight of certain things, like the common calamities reported every day in the papers which I had hitherto escaped seeing. By another zigzag I thought that I had never known a day so close and stifling and humid. I then reflected upon the comparative poverty of the French language, which I was told had only that one word for the condition we could call by half a dozen different names, as humid, moist, ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... themselves as heavily as before. If they flew on in the same direction it was evident that the bee tree was still ahead, and it was necessary to move the honey again. Then if the bees flew crooked and high and zigzag it was plain to the bee-hunters that they were in close proximity to the bee tree. When the hunters could get sight of the bees going back or up towards the tree tops it was an easy matter to find the bee tree, as that would be between ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin

... on the anvil while the other applied the point of the shank of a file—previously rounded—and struck the file with a hammer. The other figures were made with the sharpened point of a file, pushed forward with a zigzag motion of the hand. When the chasing was done the silver was blanched by the process before referred to, being occasionally taken from the boiling solution of almogen to be rubbed with ashes and sand. For about five hours both of the smiths worked ...
— Navajo Silversmiths • Washington Matthews

... invaluable, and their feet more sure than those of men would be. I have seen them put both their fore feet out together, and let them slip, then drag their hind feet up to them, and repeat this process on descending the vitrified, and almost perpendicular roads of Madeira, taking a zigzag direction across the road each time. Mules do the same, and perhaps derive the faculty ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... her? Aimee had a despairing sense of distance and desolation as the carriage turned again—Abdullah, the coachman, having traversed unnecessary miles to gratify his pride before the house of his parents—and made a zigzag way towards the river, where old palaces rose from the backwaters, their faces hidden by high walls or covered with heavy ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... usual school reference-books. Recently we have added quite a number of books especially adapted to interest and instruct children, such as The Boy Travellers, Miss Yonge's Histories, Butterworth's Zigzag Journeys, Forbes's Fairy Geography, etc. The children are not permitted to take these books away from the building. Pupils are invited to bring such additional facts in geography, or history, as they may obtain by reading. Topics are ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... to the axis of the spike, raceme and panicle, whether the axis is the main one or of the branch. The rachis of the inflorescence is usually cylindrical. In some grasses it is zigzag as in Pennisetum cenchroides. It is very much flattened in Paspalum scrobiculatum, but somewhat trigonous in Digitaria sanguinalis. In very many grasses the rachis is continuous, but in a few cases it consists ...
— A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses • Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar

... beams of the meridian sun. He placed one of these shining gems in the other end of each rope, and then blew upon them until they exhibited signs of life. When the ropes began to move, their strange and zigzag motions, and the rattling of their tails, excited the mirth of the Great Being, who laughed loud and long at the oddity he had formed. That portion of them to which he had given rattles and the shining ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... It was hard, rough work, and risky because it could not be accomplished slowly. Brush and rocks, loose shale and weathered slope, long, dusty inclines of yellow earth, and jumbles of stone—these made bad going for miles of slow, zigzag trail down out of the cedars. Then the trail entered what appeared to be ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... required; but as the particular action might be supposed to be exerted only at the moments of making and breaking contact, the induction was produced in another way. Several feet of copper wire were stretched in wide zigzag forms, representing the letter W, on one surface of a broad board; a second wire was stretched in precisely similar forms on a second board, so that when brought near the first, the wires should everywhere touch, except that a sheet of thick paper was interposed. ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... shouts and a mad gallop. All the batteries were in their possession; they looked to see an army in rout. Suddenly they beheld the double line of British squares—or, rather, "oblongs"—with their fringe of steady steel points; and from end to end of the line ran the zigzag of fire—a fire that never slackened, still less intermitted. The torrent and tumult of the horsemen never checked; but as they rode at the squares, the leading squadron—men and horses—smitten by the spray of lead, tumbled dead or dying to the ground. The following squadrons parted, ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett

... wrenched from him. There came a zigzag flash of lightning searing his brain, a crash that filled the world for him—and ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... talking whimsically to the three horses stringing behind him, Dick Kincaid picked his way down the zigzag, sidling trail which led from the saddleback between two peaks of the Bitter Root Mountains into the valley which still lay ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... this way; you have danced with him but once, and he is a very desirable partner; so, pray, accept, if he asks you," said Mrs. Carroll, watching a far-off individual who seemed steering his zigzag course toward them. ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott

... question respecting his fate to the whole body of the people. Defeated in this attempt to rescue him, they reluctantly, and with ill-suppressed shame and concern, voted for the capital sentence. Then they made a last attempt in his favour, and voted for respiting the execution. These zigzag politics produced the effect which any man conversant with public affairs might have foreseen. The Girondists, instead of attaining both their ends, failed of both. The Mountain justly charged them with having attempted to save the King by underhand means. Their ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... to the door of the room from which the sounds of approach had been heard. The apartment was dark and still, save for the whipping of the wind at the open casement. While the boys stood there, expecting every instant to hear the voice of one of their chums, rain began to fall, and a sharp zigzag of lightning cut across ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson

... what was apparently a ravine, and then came a flat bit with long grass at the sides and more flowers. They felt the grass flicking wet against their stockings, and the invisible flowers were everywhere. Then up again through trees, along a zigzag path with the smell all the way of the flowers they could not see. The warm rain was bringing out all the sweetness. Higher and higher they went in this sweet darkness, and the red light on the jetty dropped ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... still addressing these sentences to me, we had crossed the rivulet that gurgled through the valley, and commenced our ascending zigzag way. The skins and bones of sheep destroyed by the wolves that infest these mountains were scattered on every hand, and the foot-marks of these furious brutes and bears were plainly distinguishable on those parts of the soil moistened by the snow-water, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... his companions rode up to the chief gateway, a grand circular archway, with all the noble though grotesque mouldings, zigzag and cable, dog-tooth and parrot-beak, visages human and diabolic, wherewith the Norman builders loved to surround their doorways. The doors were of solid oak, heavily guarded with iron, and from a little wicket in the midst peered out a ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... is 8 stitches wide, and is worked in zigzag lines of point de feston, with a border of point d'esprit and point de toile; a four-point star occupies the centre of the triangle left by the zigzag line. This pattern is so easy to work that it hardly needs description, ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton

... Romana, I walked for some distance along the city wall, and then, turning to the left, toiled up the hill of Bellosguardo, through narrow zigzag lanes between high walls of stone or plastered brick, where the sun had the fairest chance to frizzle me. There were scattered villas and houses, here and there concentrating into a little bit of a street, paved with flag-stones from side to side, as in the city, and shadowed ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... slates and tiles; and holding by people I met, at angry corners. Coming near the beach, I saw, not only the boatmen, but half the people of the town, lurking behind buildings; some, now and then braving the fury of the storm to look away to sea, and blown sheer out of their course in trying to get zigzag back. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... taken as the symbol of married love, so faithful are the male and female, being continually to be seen in each other's company. While they search for their food in pools of water along the coast, they nearly always bear each other company, swimming in zigzag, so that every now and then they brush past each other. If one of them is shot, the other flies away only for a short time until it observes that its mate is left behind. It then flies back, swims with evident distress round ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... empty rivers of rain. Then the lightning was uninterrupted, and you could have read a book, or counted the trees, or viewed the lake by its constant blaze; while now and anon a wilder volley exploded, and a more furious flash flew its zigzag flight from the ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... them with a smooth rapidity which seemed to hush the tumult of its swift current far underneath the rippling surface. The old stone light-house—the town's traditionary godfather—stood sturdily for its rights out in mid-stream, and helped support the quaint zigzag of that most charming relic of the past, the longest wooden foot-bridge of Lucerne. A never-ending crowd of all ages and sexes and conditions of natives and strangers were mounting and descending its steps, hurrying along its crooked passage, or craning ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner

... remorsefully familiar, with the fact that romance is likely to run a certain course in the individual and then to disappear. Looking back upon it afterward, it resembles the upward and downward zigzag of a fever chart. It has in fact often been described as a measles, a disease of which no one can be particularly proud, although he may have no reason to blush for it. Southey said that he was no more ashamed of having been a republican than of having been a boy. ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry

... come to us zigzag as quick as lightning, yet it does not flash conviction upon me," ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... to see that man and horse, surrounded by an eager crowd of helpers, scrambling down the rough zigzag, cut and worn in the very face of the cliff. They stumbled, and slipped; pebbles and broken rock fell away under their feet. Alone close to the bonfire stood Stephen, following every movement with racing blood and beating ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... valleys of the rivers Tokuno-yama, Neo, Mugi, and Itatori, indicated by broken lines in Fig. 42, have probably been excavated along a series of transverse fractures running from north-west to south-east; while fractures which are parallel to the line of strike may be responsible for the zigzag course ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison

... with its zigzag fence, its girdled trees, and white dead-woods! It is no longer recognisable. The log-hut is replaced by a pretentious frame-dwelling with portico and verandahs— almost a mansion. The little maize patch, scarcely an acre in ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... with the course taken by the animal. Presently the rabbit sees the second Indian, and dashes off at a tangent. By this time the third hunter has come up and gives the quarry another turn. After the third or fourth zigzag, the rabbit is surrounded, and the hunters quickly close in ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... as well. The Frieslanders are stiff in their motions; they throw their bodies forward, and hold themselves very straight, looking as though they were starched, and keeping their eyes fixed on the goal. The Dutch skate with a zigzag movement, swaying from left to right and from right to left with an undulating motion of the body. The Frieslander is an arrow, ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... which, starting from a point halfway up the rock, joined the hill behind it. Along this shoulder were walls and gateways. An enemy attacking these would be exposed to the fire from the summit of the rock. From the point where the shoulder joined the rock, a zigzag road had been cut, with enormous labour, in the face of the rock, to ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... this passage down to the cliffs, and the zigzag character of it, it may be well supposed that it was of considerable extent. Indeed, Mr. Leek asserted that it was half a mile in actual ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... properly pared, cored and sliced, yet retaining as near as practicable its original shape. Peel, quarter and remove the seeds from four sweet oranges; arrange them in a border around the pineapple. Select four fine bananas, peel and cut into slices lengthwise; arrange these zigzag-fence fashion around the border of the dish. In the V-shaped spaces around the dish put tiny mounds of grapes of mixed colors. When complete, the dish should look very appetizing. To half a pint of clear sugar syrup add half an ounce of ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... starlit sky; and upon the spaces in between lay the soft glow from the tens of thousands of torches that the crowds carried beneath. Above the grotto the precipitous face of the cliff showed black and sombre, except where the zigzag paths shone out in liquid wandering lines, where the folks stood packed together, unseeing, yet content to be present. In front, at the foot, over the lake of fire where the main body of worshippers ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

... sound. This bird's breeding range extends from the plains to the timber-line; and he dwells on both sides of the mountains, for I met with him at Glenwood. About a half mile above Malta a western nighthawk was seen, hurtling in his eccentric, zigzag flight overhead, uttering his strident call, and "hawking for flies," as White of Selborne would phrase it. A western grassfinch flew over to some bushes with a morsel in its bill, but I could not discover its nest or young, search as I would. Afterwards ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... needle-like peaks, which even the chamois can not scale, and where scarcely a flake of snow can find a place of rest. Around and among these peaks and summits, and through these frightful defiles and chasms, the roads twist and turn, in a zigzag and constantly ascending course, creeping along the most frightful precipices, sometimes beneath them and sometimes on the brink, penetrating the darkest and gloomiest defiles, skirting the most impetuous and foaming torrents, and at last, ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... chasms (as we often select for minute examination a single painting out of an entire picture gallery) we made the descent to the Colorado by means of a crooked scratch upon a mountain side, which one might fancy had been blazed by a zigzag flash of lightning. As it requires four hours to wriggle down this path, and an equal amount of time to wriggle up, I spent the greater part of a day on what a comrade humorously styled the "quarter-deck of a ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard

... with the hope that the dogs when put on their scent would be unable to follow them through the water. The dogs soon took to the swamp, which lies between the highlands, which was now covered with water, waist deep: here these faithful animals, swimming nearly all the time, followed the zigzag course, the tortuous twistings and windings of these two fugitives, who, it was afterwards discovered, were lost; sometimes scenting the tree wherein they had found a temporary refuge from the mud and water; at other places ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown

... will, the actions will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost sight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks.[195] See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... the question of his reasoning which pursues a devious and zigzag course, varying according to the way the wind blows—and he is not alone in this peculiarity in Kansas, as I say—Jonathan steadily toiled against the wind, he stopped altogether, and taking out his lunch basket, he removed a pie and sat down on a log to eat it, while ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris

... to be heard!... I have several remarks to make ... especially in respect of the zigzag footprints!... It all lies in that!... Mathias had ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... What endless undulations in the various declivities and ascents,—here a slant, there a zigzag! With what majestic disdain yon roof rises up to the left! Doubtless a palace of Genii, or Gin (which last is the proper Arabic word for those builders of halls out of nothing, employed by Aladdin). Seeing only the roof of that palace boldly breaking ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... breeding season. Nests very abundantly in the marshes of Minnesota and northward. Nest made of grasses and placed in the marsh grass barely above the surface of the water. Eggs same color as the last but the markings more inclined to zigzag lines. Size 2.10 x 1.40. Data.—Heron Lake, Minn., May 26, 1885. Nest of wet sedge stalks and rubbish placed in a bunch of standing sedge in shallow water; at least five thousand birds in rookery. ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed

... sleepy little village of Dresden, Yates County, New York, seven miles from Penn Yan, where Robert Ingersoll was born, to his niche in the Temple of Fame, was a zigzag journey. But that is Nature's plan—we make head by tacking. And as the years go by, more and more we see the line of Ingersoll's life stretching itself straight. Every change to him meant progress. Success is a question of temperament—it is all a matter of the red corpuscle. Ingersoll was a success; ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... fronting the sea to the southward; but on the western side, its height was decreased to about fifteen feet, which was surmounted by a ladder removed at pleasure. To this means of access to the cave there was a zigzag path, used only by the smugglers, leading from the small cove, and another much more tedious, by which they could transport their goods to the summit of this apparently inaccessible mass of rocks. The cave itself was large, and with several diverging galleries, most of which were dry; but in ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... sunset light The gray day darkened into night, A night made hoary with the swarm And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, A zigzag wavering to and fro Crossed and recrossed the winged snow: And ere the early bed-time came The white drift piled the window-frame, And, through the glass, the clothes-line posts Looked in like ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... window of leaded glass Mistress Yordas and her widowed sister sat for an hour, without many words, watching the zigzag of shale and rock which formed their chief communication with the peopled world. They did not care to improve their access, or increase their traffic; not through cold morosity, or even proud indifference, but because they had been so ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... was walking along the edge of the green mound on which the Montmartre telegraph stands. Below me, along one of the zigzag paths which wind up the hill, a man and a girl were coming up, and arrested my attention. The man wore a shaggy coat, which gave him some resemblance to a wild beast; and he held a thick stick in his ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre

... had the mark of a ripe durian on each shoulder in front and an immature one above each nipple. On the lower part of the upper arm was a tatu of an edible root, in Penihing called rayong. Over the back of his right hand, toward the knuckles, he had a zigzag mark representing the excrescences of the durian fruit. In regard to the presence of spirits, number of souls, blians, disease, and its cure, restrictions for pregnant women, the child's cradle—the ideas of the Bukats are identical with those of the Penihings, ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... the most entertaining, restful, and real talk which is the most roving. You may begin in Portland and end in San Francisco. You may start talking about preserving peaches, and halt on the latest sensation. It is often very amusing to trace the line of such converse: it moves in a zigzag course, and terminates many miles out of the original direction. By this discursiveness I do not mean gossip. Of course talk of that kind has no good part in conversation: it is the slave of ignorance and bad character. ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder

... and pouring on the night The roar of breakers, while the blinding spray O'erleaps the barrier, and comes drifting on In lines as level as the window-bars. What curious visions, in a night like this, Will the eye conjure from the rocks and trees And zigzag fences! I was almost sure I saw a man staggering along the road A moment since; but instantly the shape Dropped from my sight. Hark! Was not that a call— A human voice? There's a conspiracy Between my eyes and ears to play me tricks, Else wanders there abroad ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland

... to view the nearby mammoth again just as the gun spoke. I saw a hideous, crimson zigzag gash on the broad side of the whale, I heard the rumbling roar of the time-bomb at the point of the harpoon exploding in ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster

... steeply in a zigzag down one side of the quarry cliff, where Abel had told Hazel of the cow falling, and where she had felt drodsome. Once more as she came down with a more and more lagging step, the same ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... the ship ploughed remorselessly on. It was steered a bewildering zigzag course to outwit the submarines. The second day of the voyage saw us in the Bay of Biscay, a hundred miles off Cape Finisterre. The sun got steadily hotter, ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... them contained, inspired me with new courage, and, releasing my grip upon the rein, I allowed my patient horse to proceed. Shortly after this I passed the divide—that is where the water sheds both ways—then the descent began. It was zigzag, just as the climb had been, but I preferred the climb. I did not have the unfathomable spaces so constantly before me, nor was my imagination so active. It was fixed on heights to be attained rather than on valleys to roll into. However, I ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... fire until they are needed in the firing trench to repel a serious assault or to take part in a counter attack. Passages consisting of deep communicating trenches facilitate passage from the cover trenches to the firing trenches when under fire. These communicating trenches are usually zigzag or traversed to prevent their being ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... left arm while Holman was making the examination of the passage, and we had not proceeded more than twenty yards when he intimated that he wished to turn to the right. We allowed him to do so, and for fully twenty minutes he followed a zigzag course that left us completely nonplussed as to the way we had come. We could hardly count the number of the turnings. First to the right, then to the left, then back again toward the mouth of the place, he trotted ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer

... God coming over the narrow zigzag path that led across a Shetland peat moss. Swiftly and surely he stepped. Bottomless bogs of black peat-water were on each side of him, but he had neither fear nor hesitation. He walked like one who knew his way was ordered, and when the moss was passed, he pursued his ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... Juanita paused on the threshold for a moment. Then she went into the room and scribbled a hurried note—not innocent of blots—which she addressed to Marcos. She left it on the writing-table and carrying her cloak over her arm she hurried down a zigzag path concealed in a thicket of scrub-oak to ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... one, I believe, in the country) passes through it, but it would prove indifferent, I should think, to any but the pedestrian; and there is also the mountain-path, of three hours' ascent, which leads into Montenegro, and issues up from the gates of the town in a zigzag form, till it appears lost in the clouds. Any one wishing to quit Cattaro, has indeed, like the country waiter in England, but "three desperate alternatives." He must wait for the next steamer, a whole ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... of the Notch is the Flume, a brook that goes leaping through its curious zigzag channel of rock on the side of Mount Webster, hastening on its way to join the deeper current of the Saco. Then here is "Silver Cascade," which is above the Flume, a series of leaping, dashing, turning waterfalls, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various

... I had glimpses of some one coming slowly down the zigzag path. Presently, at one of the turnings half-way up the hill, appeared Mowbray Langdon. "What is he doing here," thought I, scarcely able to believe my eyes. "Here of all places!" And then I forgot the strangeness of his being at Dawn ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... curve in the road, I saw just before me a negro standing, with a hoe and a watering-pot in his hand. He had evidently just gotten over the "worm-fence" into the road, out of the path which led zigzag across the "old field" and was lost to sight in the dense growth of sassafras. When I rode up, he was looking anxiously back down this path for his dog. So engrossed was he that he did not even hear my horse, and I reined in to wait until he should turn around and satisfy ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... which have been heretofore described. The principal features of the Admiralty advices were (1) to give the headlands a wide berth; (2) to steer a midchannel course; (3) to maintain as high a speed as practicable; (4) to zigzag, and (5) to make ports, if possible, at dawn, thus running the last part of the voyage ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... thunderstorm burst he paused and went to the window. His narrow face was blanched, and his agile limbs moved restlessly. Suddenly remarking, "My master will need me," he held out his hand to Katterle in farewell. But as the zigzag flash of lightning had just been followed by the peal of thunder, she clung to him, earnestly beseeching him not to leave her. He yielded, but went out to learn whether Herr Casper was still in the office, and in a short time returned, exclaiming angrily: "The old Eysvogel seems to be building ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... humanity to experience a mood of high exaltation with the surmounting of any serious obstacle, we now worked our way with minds light and cheery, and with all thoughts of anything like fatigue completely forgotten. Though our course was on the whole a zigzag one, and though we certainly met with one or two serious rebuffs, we were constantly gaining headway, and in something over an hour forced the last line of the breakers, and stemmed what on ordinary occasions would have been simply the blue body of the Atlantic. But ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... were alone behind me. The radiance was that; of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now shone vividly through that once barely discernible fissure of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed this fissure rapidly widened; there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind—the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight—my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder—there was a long, tumultuous, shouting sound ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... possible; but where windfall or precipice drives back from the bed of the river over the mountain spurs, the pathfinder takes his bearings from countless signs. Moss is on the north side of tree-trunks. A steep slope compels a zigzag, corkscrew ascent, but the slope of the ground guides the climber as to the way to go; for slope means valley; and in valleys are streams; and in the stream is the 'float,' which is to the prospector the one shining signal to be followed. Timber-line is passed till the forests below look ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut

... a high hill, or promontory, from whence its bell may be heard at a distance by the mariner at night. It is said to have given the name to the port of Havre-de-Grace, which lies directly opposite, on the other side of the Seine. The road up to the chapel went in a zigzag course, along the brow of the steep coast; it was shaded by trees, from between which I had beautiful peeps at the ancient towers of Honfleur below, the varied scenery of the opposite shore, the white buildings ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... low brush fence running zigzag through the woods, with snares set every few yards in the partridge and rabbit runs. At the third opening a fine cock partridge swung limp and lifeless from a twitch-up. The cruel wire had torn his neck under his beautiful ruff; the broken wing ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long

... Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was born in the year Eighteen Hundred Nine, at Hamburg, and died at Leipzig in the year Eighteen Hundred Forty-seven. His career was a triumphal march. The road to success with him was no zigzag journey—from the first he went straight to the front. Whether as a baby he crowed in key, and cried to a one-two-three melody, as his old nurse used to aver, is a little doubtful, possibly. But all agree that he was the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... and made him feel of his own right hand. The thumb and fingers were closed except the forefinger, which was extended. When Mika'pi's hand was on the stranger's hand the person moved his hand forward with a zigzag motion, ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell

... and should have done so if the great streaks of lightning which now and then shot zigzag through the sky had taken the shape of words and bid us all beware. I was not one to be daunted, and knew no other course than that of advance when once a stroke of justice had been planned, and the direction for its fulfilment marked out. I went ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... side of the leaf are brought into some sort of connection. Near the circumference of the larger leaves the bifurcating branches also come into close union, and then separate again, forming a continuous zigzag line of vessels round the whole circumference. But the union of the vessels in this zigzag line seems to be much less intimate than at the main inosculation. It should be added that the course of the vessels differs somewhat in different ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... its own, it made its zigzag way between birches, and alders, maples, and elderblow, carrying on its shining surface stray leaves, and water spiders that struggled to see which first should reach the sunlit meadow ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks

... an odd chap. When he was still he liked to hang by his feet, upside down. And when he was flying he sailed about in a zigzag, helter-skelter fashion. He went in so many different directions, turning this way and that, one could never tell where he was going. One might say that his life was just one continual dodge—when he wasn't resting with his heels where his head ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey

... the hill where our battery was making things so lively, they stopped firing to let us pass. We saw General Leggett, our Division Commander, come riding toward us. He was outside of our line of works, too. You know how we build breastworks—sort of zigzag like, you know, so they cannot be enfiladed. Well, that's just the way the works were along there, and you never saw such a curious shape as we formed our Division in. Why, part of them were on one side of the works, and go along a little further and here ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... would be congratulating us upon our notable capture; and just about then the merchant steamer must have sighted us, for she veered suddenly toward the north, and a moment later dense volumes of smoke issued from her funnels. Then, steering a zigzag course, she fled from us as though we had been the bubonic plague. I altered the course of the submarine and set off in chase; but the steamer was faster than we, and soon left ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... forget hunger and grievances of all kinds; something which, after one horrified look to make sure, led him to dart into the light chamber, spring at a reckless gait down the winding stair, out of the tower, rush to the edge of the bluff, and plunge headlong down the zigzag path ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln

... ear, the chief receptacle of language, be maintained in its dominance, that the fine sense of sound, rhythm, cadence, pronunciation, and speech-music generally be not atrophied, that the eye which normally ranges freely from far to near be not injured by the confined treadmill and zigzag of the ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... and zigzag roads, at every alarming angle of declivity, intercept the labyrinth of houses, which stand on each other's heads, or peep over each other's shoulders, and settle down on the ledges of the ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath

... in darkness. On the starboard, the heaving waters, black as night, were covered with pure white ice-cakes, striking and battering together with heavy grindings. The lightnings played against the inky clouds, forked, zigzag, and dazzling to the eye. The thunder-echoes, unmuffled by vegetation, were reverberated from bare granitic mountains and naked ice-fields with a hollow rattle that deafened and appalled us; and, in the intervals of thunder, the hoarse bark of bears, and ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens

... semi-darkness of the kitchen, watching with lynx-like closeness the man who sat so quietly under the shaded light. He felt behind him for the outer door-knob and turned it to let in a white sheet of rain, then vanished like a storm wraith, leaving a parched-lipped man and a zigzag trail of water, which gleamed in the lamplight like a pool ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... the edge of the precipice, on the slippery height, over a depth of 2000 cubits, full of rocks and boulders. Thou takest thy way back in a zigzag, thou bearest thy bow, thou takest the iron in thy left hand. Thou lettest the old men see, if their eyes are good, how, worn-out with fatigue, thou supportest thyself with thy hand. Il est perdu, le chameau, le Mohar! ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... The zigzag path to descend to the lake was so steep and dangerous that we were forced to leave our oxen with a guide, who was to take them to Magungo and wait for our arrival. We commenced the descent of the steep ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... square tower, an impression of quiet dignity is imparted; but a broadside view is disappointing by reason of the high deforming roof, giving an impression as of a hunched back. (One sees the same effect at Udimore, in the east of Sussex.) Within are two rows of superb circular arches, with zigzag mouldings, on ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... discovered who was called, for at the sound the white cat sprung quickly to one side, and, curling her tail, climbed zigzag up a gnarled pear-tree, through whose thick foliage Timar saw something like a white dress glimmering. He had no time for further research, for Almira gave a few deep sounds which, in quadruped's language, probably meant, "What business have you to ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... in his tracks, threw open the door and stepped outside as though to face an enemy. The storm was majestic and his soul went into the mighty conflict of earth and air, whose beginning and end were in eternity. The very mountain tops were rimmed with zigzag fire, which shot upward, splitting a sky that was as black as a nether world, and under it the great trees swayed like willows under rolling clouds of gray rain. One fiery streak lit up for an instant the big Pine and seemed to dart straight down upon its ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... into a fight. So that, in the whole man, a sensitive observer would have felt a peculiar pathos, as though nature had given him a desire to be, and no power to become, and had then sent him on his zigzag way, never to dream wherein his ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.

... figure on the cap pictures Ndidilhkizn, Lightning Maker, with lightning, hadilhkih, in zigzag lines above his head and beneath his feet. The broad arch indicates clouds with rifts in them, out of which the evil came and into which it may return. The cross of abalone, the small white bead, and the eagle feather are media through which Tu Ntelh (Wide Water), Yolkai Nali{COMBINING ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... Michelangelo expected to find in the palace of the Pope. Later he came to know that life is unrest, and its passage at best a zigzag course, that only straightens to a direct line when viewed across the years. If a man does better work than his fellows he must pay the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... it took me such a devil of a time to write. It was good of you to keep things to yourself although I laid down no conditions of secrecy. I might have known it." He stared at the hill-side opposite, with its zigzag path through the vines marked by the figures of zealous pedestrians, and then he said suddenly: "If I asked you not to come and see our show you would set me down as a ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... said—even when she was most rude to her grandmother—she was never offensive. No one could have helped feeling all the time that she was a little lady.—I thought I would venture a question with her. I stood still at a turn of the zigzag, and looked down into the hollow, still a good way below us, where I could now distinguish the form, on the opposite side of the pond, of a woman seated at the foot of a tree, and stooping ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald



Words linked to "Zigzag" :   zag, crank, angular shape, move, zig-zag, zig, zigzag goldenrod, locomote, angularity



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