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Loose   /lus/   Listen
Loose

adjective
(compar. looser; superl. loosest)
1.
Not compact or dense in structure or arrangement.
2.
(of a ball in sport) not in the possession or control of any player.
3.
Not tight; not closely constrained or constricted or constricting.  "The large shoes were very loose"
4.
Not officially recognized or controlled.  Synonym: informal.  "A loose organization of the local farmers"
5.
Not literal.  Synonyms: free, liberal.  "A free translation of the poem"
6.
Emptying easily or excessively.  Synonym: lax.
7.
Not affixed.  Synonym: unaffixed.
8.
Not tense or taut.  Synonym: slack.  "Slack and wrinkled skin" , "Slack sails" , "A slack rope"
9.
(of textures) full of small openings or gaps.  Synonym: open.  "A loose weave"
10.
Lacking a sense of restraint or responsibility.  Synonym: idle.  "A loose tongue"
11.
Not carefully arranged in a package.
12.
Having escaped, especially from confinement.  Synonyms: at large, escaped, on the loose.  "Searching for two escaped prisoners" , "Dogs loose on the streets" , "Criminals on the loose in the neighborhood"
13.
Casual and unrestrained in sexual behavior.  Synonyms: easy, light, promiscuous, sluttish, wanton.  "He was told to avoid loose (or light) women" , "Wanton behavior"



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"Loose" Quotes from Famous Books



... Stellato's pursy nature. Now it had come to pass that this acidulated lady, essaying fresh flurries of progression, discovering higher passional affinities and new duties of demolition, proving that in Church and State every brick was loose and every timber rotten, testifying ever to the existence of a certain harmonial mortar by which the rubbish of a demolished civilization could be rebuilt into unexceptionable forms,—it happened that this woman, having towered for one proud moment at the very apex of her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... more trouble now about cooking. Late in the afternoon we reached Uinta river, and, as my two-legged companion had grown very tired of the back of the four-legged one, we went into camp early. Our objective point was Fort Uinta, where we hoped to find military. We could not risk turning the mule loose at night, and the long strip of raw-hide was designed and used to secure him, and yet to afford him liberty to graze while we slept. As you will see a little further on, both girth and lariat were used for ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... indescribable air of refinement which marks a polished mind. In a very few minutes Henry became reconciled to his brother's arrival, and satisfied with him in all respects but one—his dress. This was of the finest cloth, but made into large, loose trowsers, and a species of hunting-shirt, trimmed with fur, belted around the waist, and descending to the knee, instead of the tight pantaloons and closely fitting body coat prescribed by fashion. The little party lingered ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... fit as a fiddle in no time at all," he said hurriedly. "See you tomorrow, Rosie,—or as soon as the blamed old doctor turns me loose. I've got to be on my way now. He's waiting for me up there. May have to put a stitch in my mug,—and yank my leg ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... find that bit o' rising graand withaat a mark, an prize it nooan the less. But its noa gooid freating abaght things we cannot help. Aw'll have another reek or two an' goa an' see awr Joa." So filling his little black clay pipe with the fragrant weed (which for convenience he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket), he puffed his cloud of incense in the air and hastened on to gain his journey's end. A walk of a few minutes brought him to the door of a low whitewashed farm-house, around which the cans were reared, ready to be filled with ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley

... this time to me rather than to Jackson,—who, indeed, regarded him no longer, but stood with the letter loose in his hand, looking at the floor of the room, as if in deep meditation,—I showed him into my own room, where I ordered his trunks to be brought. These, of course, were wet; but he found some things in the middle of them that were not ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various

... to a Horse for setting his head in due place, forming the Rein, and appearing Graceful and Comely; it Corrects the yerking out his Head, or Nose, and prevents his running away with his Rider. Observe therefore to place it right, that it be not buckled straight, but loose, and so low, that it rest on the tender Grizsle of his Nose, to make him the more sensible of his fault, and Correction; and so as you see you win his Head, bring him straighter by degrees; let him but gently feel it, till his Head be brought to ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett

... was quite outside my life. Now I made a nearer acquaintance with her. She changed her residence; so had I. She had brown ringlets; I too should have them. So one Friday night, my hair was put up in papers, and next morning, I let loose ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... its occurrence to permit us to doubt the truth of the narrative. It is well known that during the worst period of the French Revolution, in the massacres in the prisons on Sept. 2, 1792, some of the mob who had literally wearied their arms in hewing down the prisoners let loose from the jails, took a momentary fit of compunction, were seized with pity for some of the victims, and after saving them from their murderers, accompanied them home, and witnessed with tears of joy the meeting between them and their relations. ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... fascinating village of Curu, we began to ascend La Cuesta; and travelled slowly four leagues of mountain-road, apparently inaccessible; but the sure-footed horses, though stepping on loose and nearly precipitous rocks, rarely stumbled. The mountain of Curu is volcanic, a chaos of rent rocks, beetling precipices, and masses of lava that have been disgorged from the burning crater. Yet from every crag and crevice of the rock spring the most magnificent trees, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... out; the old woman Gudrun who was named before went with him, and there also came Magnus and some of the others. Just then a vessel of wash, which had been standing in the kitchen, was thrown at Gudrun's head. The minister then ran in, along with Magnus and the girls, and now everything that was loose was flying about, both doors and splinters of wood. The minister opened a room near the outer door intending to go in there, but just then a sledge hammer which lay at the door was thrown at him, but it only touched him on the side and hip, and did him no harm. From there the minister ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... with a bath sunk in the middle, and a fountain in the centre of the bath. The courtyard, formerly open to the sky, was now roofed in with dusty glass; the nymph that had once poured out the water of the fountain was barren and mutilated; and the bath was partly covered in with loose boards, the exposed part accommodating a heap of coals in one corner, a heap of potatoes in another, a beer barrel, some old carpets, a tarpaulin, and a broken canoe. The marble pavement extended to the outer walls of the house, and was roofed in at the sides by the upper stories which were ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... loose rock faded into gloom behind; in front on both hands ragged hillsides were beginning to close in; and the wind, whose home is in Allah's refuse heap, whistled as it searched busily among the black ravines. Then presently the shadow of the thousand-foot-high Khyber walls began ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... is very plain, namely, that where any possibility of the infection of drinking water occurs, that water ought either to be avoided or else to be thoroughly sterilized before using. This applies particularly to the old-fashioned well,—the kind with loose ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... evidence of his ideal, and his book, "Liber Studiorum," issued in Eighteen Hundred Eight, is modeled after the "Liber Veritatis." But the book surpasses Claude's, and Turner knew it, and this may have led him to burst his shackles and cast loose from his idol. For, in Eighteen Hundred Fifteen, we find him working according to his own ideas, showing an originality and audacity in conception and execution that made him the butt of the critics, and caused consternation to rage through the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard

... water, I once more had a fine rush, and hooked a big one. There were no rocks down stream, all was fair play and clear water, and away he went at racing pace straight for the middle of the river. To check the pace I grasped the line with the stuff of my loose trousers, and pressed it between my fingers so as to act as a brake and compel him to labor for every yard; but he pulled like a horse, and nearly cut through the thick cotton cloth, making straight running for at least a hundred yards without a halt. I now put so severe a strain upon him that ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... all hold," he said. Reaching suddenly, he caught her around the waist and pulled her from the saddle, just as Redcloud, scenting danger, plowed his front feet deeply into the loose ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... speeches delivered, and not one of them was average or ordinary. It was my first introduction to the American eagle screaming for all it was worth. The lieutenant's heroism served as a peg from which the silver-tongued ones turned themselves loose and kicked. ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling

... not contradictory, those two words," said Dolly. "It is deceitful; it gets hold of a man, and then he cannot get loose from it. You know, Mr. St. ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... heard, from far back, so much about the "Court") she herself, as after a fashion, in that event, a party to it, would not have had the cheek to make up—which was how she inwardly phrased what she was doing—to the long, lean, loose, slightly cadaverous gentleman who was a memory, for her, of the period from her twelfth to her seventeenth year. She had got on with him, perversely, much better than her mother had, and the bulging misfit of his duck waistcoat, ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... topographical observations in his journal. Hearing the skipper's warning, he looked up sharply; but both the call and the glance came too late to prevent a catastrophe. Just in that instant the boat caught against some obstacle, turned slowly around before the push of the current, swung loose with a jerk and floated on, the water bubbling through the flooring. A hole had been torn in the canvas, and the cockle-shell ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... Ashiepattle and his companion burned to cinders, he saw them huddling together and shivering with cold till their teeth chattered. The same instant Ashiepattle's companion with the fifteen winters in his body let loose the last one right in the king's face, which swelled ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... those cases in which a mechanism of the living body is set to work, as a machine may be, by directly causing the final movement (say the turning of a wheel), for the production of which a special train of apparatus, to be started by the letting loose of a spring or the turning of a steam-cock, is provided, and in ordinary circumstance is the regular mode in which the working of the mechanism is started. The apparatus of laughter is when due to "tickling" set at work by a short cut to the nerves and ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... continues this subject with an amusing accuracy of analysis:—"The mere substitution of trousers for their loose dress interferes seriously with their old habits; they all turn in their toes, in consequence of the Turkish manner of sitting, and they walk wide, and with a swing, from being habituated to the full drapery: this gait has become natural to them, and in their European ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... genital passage and thus cover the mouth of the womb and effectively prevent entrance of the spermatazoa. The rubber pessary must in the first instance be fitted by a doctor, because if it does not fit properly it will be ineffective. The seminal fluid may pass by its loose rim and impregnation may result. If the rubber pessary has been properly fitted, and it is not porous, the protection should be complete; but if, by any accident, spermatazoa should get beyond the rubber pessary, they will ...
— Safe Marriage - A Return to Sanity • Ettie A. Rout

... putting an end to hostilities. [Footnote: Do., James Rinkin to Richard Butler, July 20, 1788.] The councils accomplished nothing towards averting a war; on the contrary, they tended to band all the northwestern Indians together in a loose confederacy, so that active hostilities against some were sure in ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... stood still. He felt, rather than heard, a figure limp by and steal across the gully. A slight sound of a little loose earth dribbling reached him a moment later from the opposite bank of the gully. Then, after a long pause, the arms about him relaxed. Charles Hannaford ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... country, are the Stone Mountain in Carolina, which may rank in antiquity with Stonehenge. It is remarkable for a circular wall of stone of great thickness, probably built by a people distinct from the present race of Indians, who are quite incapable of erecting any building except a wigwam, or a pile of loose stones over a grave. Next is the Kentucky Cavern, or as it is called, on account of its magnitude, the Mammoth Cave. I have an account before me of its being explored by a party in 1826, who penetrated ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various

... risks, nor suggestibility and imitation, are the whole of the story. We must not forget the superficiality of thinking, the uncritical, loose, and flabby use of the reasoning power which shows itself in so many spheres of American mass life. It is sufficient to see the triviality of argument and the cheapness of thought in those newspapers which seek and ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... of harmony with the colonies named. Connecticut, offensive to the Dutch, and exposed to hostilities from them, was the most earnest for the union, while at the same time the most conservative as to its form. It was a loose league, leaving each colony independent save as to war and peace, Indian affairs, alliances and boundaries. Questions pertaining to these were to be settled by a commission of two delegates from each of the four colonies, meeting ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... youth, clad in buckskin, his face transformed with anger and his eyes alight. Before the savage could reach his weapon he went down, slain by a single blow of a clubbed rifle, and the next moment Henry was cutting Paul loose with a few swift slashes of ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... not the stoop of the scholar, but that bend which ill-health, caused by debauch, often gives to a comparatively young man. His face was sallow, hollow beneath the eyes, emaciated between chin and cheek-bone. The brown eyes were feverishly bright and a trifle blood-shot. The well-shaven mouth had loose, sensual lips, and the teeth were large and discoloured. And yet one knew that this man, repulsive though he had become, must have been a youth of promise and some personal beauty; and his manner betokened the man of breeding, and one with knowledge of the ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... if on the one hand the game calls forth an immense amount of resource, skill, alertness, self-control, endurance, courage, and even tenderness, helpfulness, and fidelity; on the other hand, it is liable to let loose pretty bad passions of vindictiveness and cruelty, as well as to lead to an awful accumulation of mental and physical suffering and of actual material loss. To call war "The Great Game" may have been all very well in the more rudimentary wars of the past; but ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... the most impious, the most infamous of men, it is Valentinois! My lords, I beg you will not be offended if I speak thus of a man whose boast it is to be a member of your noble ranks and to enjoy your protection: it is not so; he lies, and his loose and criminal life has made him unworthy of such honours, even as he is unworthy of the life whereof my sword shall deprive him. In truth, his very birth was a sacrilege; he is a fratricide, an usurper of the goods of other men, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the earth and in pulling they open apart of their own weight to permit the concrete to pass them. This point, known as the alligator point, is pulled with the shell. It is suitable only for driving in firm, compact soil, in loose soil the pressure inward of the walls keeps the jaws partly closed and so contracts the diameter of the finished pile. The second style of point is a hollow cast iron point, 10 ins. deep and 16 ins. in diameter, having a neck over which the driving form slips ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... practically conversant with such positions as this, will readily call to mind what a safeguard from any nightly approach was afforded by the loose pebbles that surrounded us, upon which not even the unshod foot of a native could fall without so much of accompanying noise as would serve to put the watch with his ear to the ground upon the qui vive: this was proved ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... whole, could never be included in any real German union, for even in the western portion of her territory there were many Slavs, while in Hungary and the southern provinces there were practically no Germans at all. On the other hand, she felt that she might be the leader in a very loose union in which all the members should be left practically independent. Her ideal of an international union of sovereign princes under her own headship was almost completely realized in ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... with me, because there is a possibility that your hopes will not be fulfilled, and because, in such an eventuality, you would fear my enmity. You Prussians want to be the allies of every one; that is impossible, and you must decide for me or for the others. I demand sincerity, or shall break loose from you, for I prefer open enemies to false friends. Your king tolerates in Hanover a corps of thirty thousand men, which, through his states, keeps up a connection with the great Russian army; that is an act ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... sweet sleep, she could not venture to disturb her. Then they said, 'We come to the Queen on business of State, and even her sleep must give way to that.' It did; and, to prove that she did not keep them waiting, in a few minutes she came into the room in a loose white night-gown and shawl, her nightcap thrown off, and her hair falling upon her shoulders, her feet in slippers, tears in her eyes, but perfectly collected ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... the barrack-room and seized on the muskets and fusees in the racks. Their leader, Daaga, and a daring Yarraba named Ogston, instantly charged their pieces—the former of these had a quantity of ball cartridges, loose powder, and ounce and pistol balls, in a kind of gray worsted cap. He must have provided himself with these before the mutiny. How he became possessed of them, especially the pistol balls, I never could learn; probably he was supplied by his unmilitary ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis

... for want of training—and they were forced back across the brook, and there held our bank well, giving way no step further. The water kept them in an even front, against their will, as it were; and Alsi's men charged them in vain, knee deep in the stream that ran red. But that let loose the men who had been held back from us; and now we were overborne by numbers, and we began to go back. That was the worst part of the whole fight, and the hardest hour of all the battle, as may be supposed, for the wedge grew closer, as it was forced together by sheer weight. None ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler

... gone—forever gone—and unread! She smiled at it as she saw it standing there, but still she did not open it. She took off her dancing frock, braided her hair for the night in two heavy plaits, and slipped into a little loose gown of cambric, lace, and ribbon before at last ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond

... require great efforts to gather myself together; I always tend to scatter myself. That is why, dear adored master, I deprive myself of going to sit down to dream aloud in your house. But, in the summer or autumn of 1869, you shall see what a fine commercial traveller I am, once let loose to the open air. I am abject, I ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... by the walls and sheltered by the roof of a material house, in which, as it seems to me, we are likely to enjoy a good many of the comforts of civilisation. But come," as he settled himself into a loose white flannel jacket, "let us join our host, who, I have reason to believe, is awaiting our presence at his dinner-table. Heave ahead, Pedro, my lad; we're quite ready ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... equally unlikely to arise, considering the care Monseigneur had taken not to over-gorge himself since his recent danger; and we concluded more than dolefully, that henceforth we must make up our minds that the Prince would live and reign for a long time. In a word, we let ourselves loose in this rare conversation, although not without an occasional scruple of conscience which disturbed it. Madame de Saint- Simon all devoutly tried what she could to put a drag upon our tongues, but the drag broke, so to speak, and we continued our free discourse, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... to watch for an opportunity to demand a dismissal, which she thought would exempt her from all blame, but she was surprised and a little dismayed by being summoned to the King in the Queen's chamber. He was lying on a couch clad in a loose dressing-gown instead of his laced coat, and a red night-cap replacing his heavy peruke, and his face was as white and sallow as if he were recovering from ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... so, it's got to be, I reckon!' he growled; and Ned swung himself up behind, trying hard to make out, as the procession moved off slowly and ponderously at last, what sort of beasts were on the other side of the boards he was leaning against. Suppose they were lions, or suppose the boards got loose? The fisher-lad, whom storm and tempest on the deep could not dismay, felt a bit creepy. Setting his ear close to the wood, he could distinctly hear hideous growls, as if some savage creature, maddened by ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell

... loose stone and turned his foot," Halson explained. "It wasn't a sprain, luckily, but it hurt enough. He turned so white that she noticed it, and asked him what was the matter. Of course that shut his mouth the closer, but it morally doubled his motive, and he kept himself from crying out till the ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors

... received so many proofs of his various merit, made him tutor to his son Vicentio di Gonzaga, a prince of loose manners and turbulent disposition. On this occasion it was, that he composed the comedy in which he exhibited so many different characters with exact propriety. But his honour was of short continuance; for as he was one night in the time of Carnival rambling ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... their hearts, and spreading itself thence in every direction into all parts of the body, the delights of marriage are made sensible, whereby the minds of the parties are led to festive thoughts and also let loose to festivities so far as is allowable and becoming; to favor which, it is expedient that the festivities of their minds be indulged in company, and they themselves be thereby introduced into ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... the men dressing for the fray. They strip to the waist, put on a loose half-shirt half-jacket of cotton stuff, then a heavily padded half-jerkin that covers them completely from chin to knee. The throat is wrapped round and round with heavy silk bandages. The right arm and hand are guarded with a glove and a heavily padded leather sleeve; all these ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... addressed the House for a few moments. "That is Gladstone," whispered Lord Kinnaird. Mr. Gladstone had already won fame as a great financier in the role of Chancellor of the Exchequer; but was at this time out of office, occupying an independent position. He was already beginning to break loose from Toryism, and ere long became the most brilliant and powerful leader that the British Liberal party has ever followed. As an orator he is ranked next to Bright; as a party manager, he was always a match for Disraeli, and as a statesman ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... stood at raise pistol, as though on a target range. He was facing a big desk at twenty feet, across a thick-piled blue rug. There was a man seated at the desk, a white-haired man with a mustache and a small beard, who wore a loose coat of some glossy plum-brown fabric, and a vividly ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire

... re-establish, if she could, the old relation, cost what it might. She must take up her burden of obligation again in order that it might be mutual. Then she would have the right to beg Elfrida to stop playing fast and loose with her father, to act decisively. If Elfrida only knew, only realized, the difference it made, and how little right she had to control, at her whim, the happiness of any human being —and Janet brought a strong hand to bear upon her indignation, for she had resolved to go; ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... master of our ship to let them cut away the fore-mast, which he was very unwilling to do: but the boatswain protesting to him, that if he did not, the ship would founder, he consented; and when they had cut away the fore-mast, the main-mast stood so loose, and shook the ship so much, they were obliged to cut her away also, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... portion of his stolen goods. The realization of how easily he had been tricked angered him, his face darkening. She read the truth as quickly, and, before he found speech in explanation, had swept the little pile of loose bills into ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... friend?" asked Adone, and left off his work and listened. He heard voices by the waterside, and steps on the loose shingle of its shrunken summer bed. He went out of the wild growth round him and looked. There were four men standing and talking by the water. They were doubtless the same persons as Nerina had seen, for they were evidently men from a city and strangers. Disquietude ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... ugly brutes that won't get out of the way for you and that give no warning when they strike; and all quail hunters in the flat-woods know how their pointers and setters are killed, and every farmer knows that the best watchmen he can have is a flock of guinea-fowl or turkeys or a few hogs loose. The fact is that deadly snakes are not rare in many localities; the wonder is that scarcely a death is reported in a year. How many niggers die, I don't know; but I know enough, when I'm in the woods ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... bar that was lying loose on a table beside a machine, and advanced to the staircase in one corner of the shop. As he approached it, another ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... had jolted out of the gate. She and Jendrek had accompanied them so far, each carrying a lantern for fear they should fall into any of the dangerous holes in the unpaved yard made by the pigs and poultry, and now covered with loose snow. ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... coarse wit of worldly hate; But round the hostess scintillate Light sallies without coxcombry, Awhile sound conversation seems To banish far unworthy themes And platitudes and pedantry, And never was the ear affright By liberties or loose or light. ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... close in, block up the entrance, and whilst the women and children run round the outside to prevent them from breaking or leaping the fence, the men enter with their spears and bows, and speedily dispatch such as are caught in the snares or are running loose." [see "Hearne's Journey." ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... apparently just been run into the cleaning sheds, and her fires have not had time to cool. They say that Mrs Johnson was a "lady once," like many of her kind; that she is not a "bad woman"—that is, not a woman of loose character—but gets money sent to her from somewhere—from her "family," or her husband, perhaps. But when she lets herself loose—or, rather, when the beer lets her loose—she is a tornado and a terror in Red Rock Lane, and it is only her fierce, ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson

... appearance instantly, he would have said that she looked "tousled." She was fully dressed, of course, but there was about her a general appearance of having just gotten out of bed. Her hair, rather elaborately coiffured, had several loose strands sticking out here and there. She wore a gold pin—an oval brooch with a lock of hair in it—at her throat, but one end was unfastened. She wore cotton ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... one moment to drink in the remembrance of that lovely being,—eyes where heaven's own blue seemed concentrated were shaded by long, deep lashes of the darkest brown; a brow fair, noble, and expansive, at each side of which masses of dark-brown hair waved half in ringlets, half in loose falling bands, shadowing her pale and downy cheek, where one faint rosebud tinge seemed lingering; lips slightly parted, as though to speak, gave to the features all the play of animation which completed this ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... doubt about his having fallen from here!" he said. "Some of the masonry on the very edge of this parapet is loose. I could dislodge it ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher

... this they came together in greater numbers, and increased the size of their cities, and betook themselves to husbandry, first of all at the foot of the mountains, and made enclosures of loose walls and works of defence, in order to keep off wild beasts; thus creating a single large ...
— Laws • Plato

... Open up body cavity. Usually this is in a terrible mess in the fish supplied by dealers, through the post-mortem digestion of the stomach. Wash out all this under a stream of water from a tap or water-bottle. Frequently the testes are washed out of the male in this operation and ova from the loose ovaries in the female. Now compare with figure given in this book, allowing for the collapse of the stomach, if it has occurred. Cut through the oesophagus and rectum, and remove alimentary canal from body; cut open and wash out the intestine, and examine spiral valve. Now make a careful ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells

... assurance that I never saw surpassed, and fight, you say, on a pinch. The scoundrel does not want for good qualities; but he is vain, a spendthrift, and a bavard. As long as you have the regiment in terrorem over him, you can do as you like with him. Once let him loose, and the lad is likely to give you the slip. Keep on promising him; promise to make him a general, if you like. What the deuce do I care? There are spies enough to be had ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... wriggling down the surrounding slopes toward the willow thicket, keeping as close to the earth as possible, striving to close in before they made their open charge. Uncle Billy waited until he got a good shot, and "turned loose" for the first time. A spattering of bullets answered his, but he had the satisfaction of seeing one naked form lying ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt

... her state-room, and changing her dress for a loose wrapper lay down with the determination to forget everything in sleep. But thought was too busy in her brain; she was too much excited over the surprising offer made her that morning. She knew instinctively that Mr. Lilburn had not given up the hope of securing what he had asked ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley

... it along its length, beginning at the top (to get the advantage of the reduction of surface tension), and so on all down. It will then be possible to mop up a little more of the rinsing liquid. When the tube is nearly dry a loose plug of cotton wool may be inserted at the bottom. The wool must be put in so that the fibres lie on an even surface inside the tube, and the wool must be blown free from dust. Ordinary cotton wool is useless, from being dusty and the fibres short, and ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... at work once found a passage which ran, for some distance, by the side of some massive masonry of old time. One of the great stones was loose; and he prised it out, to see what might lie behind it. When he did so he heard the sound of running water and, passing through the hole, found himself in a great conduit. This he afterwards followed up; and found that it terminated, at the upper end ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty

... the way to choke a gibing spirit, Whose influence is begot of that loose grace, Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools; A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears, Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... well known that a loose and easy dress contributes much to give to both sexes those fine proportions of body that are observable in the Grecian statues, and which serve as models ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... the fame of the late lord, who lived as though he were a fiend let loose from hell to devastate mankind. The glory of the family! And how will he maintain it? At racecourses, in betting-clubs, among loose women, with luscious wines, never doing one stroke of work for man or God, consuming and never producing, either idle ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... struck on the nob of Jack's memory, to revive all the liquorly tricks of the cabin under Salvationism, and he began heaving, and at last he shook in a lazy way, and then from sputter to sputter got his laugh loose; and he sat up, and cried; 'That did it! Now to business!' for he was hungry. 'And when I catch the ring of this world's laugh from you, my friend . . . !' Simeon's application of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... was hoed for the first time about eight to ten days after planting, or to use a common expression, when the plants had "taken root." The tobacco was usually hoed once each week or as often as was deemed necessary to keep the soil "loose" and the weeds down. When the plants were about knee high they were "hilled up," as the Indian had done his corn, or the Englishman his cabbage, and considered "laid by." Frequently some of the plants died or were ...
— Tobacco in Colonial Virginia - "The Sovereign Remedy" • Melvin Herndon

... all. Did that devil that most delights in mischief direct every concurring circumstance, they could not all and each be more uniform, more coercive to the one great end. This poor dotterel, Sir Arthur, is playing fast and loose with me. He has been at his soundings—He!—Imbecile animal!—Could wish there were not so many difficulties—Is afraid they cannot be all removed—Has his doubts and his fears—Twenty thousand pounds is a large sum, and Mrs. Clifton is very positive—His own affairs much less promising than ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... trees are picking out their new gowns, in all the various self-colored delicate grays and greens—strange how beautiful they are, in the same old unchanging styles, isn't it?—give me seeds to watch as they find the light, plants to tend as they take hold in the fine, loose, rich soil, and you may have the other sports. And when you have grown tired of their monotony, come back in summer to even the smallest garden, and you will find in it, every day, a new problem to be solved, a new campaign ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell

... contact of peoples[438] and incidentally in building up our culture, but it has been the cause, directly or indirectly, of most of the warfare which has afflicted mankind. Yet these mighty forces were let loose upon the world as the result of the circumstance that early searchers for an elixir of life used the valueless metal to make imitations of their ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith

... sleeping heavily; she brought the candle near him for an instant, and gazed with an air of compassion, at his big face, across which slight twitches occasionally passed; then she sat down at the head of the bed, took off her cap, let her hair fall loose, assumed the appearance of one in despair, and ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... Captain!" answered Marjorie's voice. Verifying her words, she bounded lightly down the stairs, still in her dressing gown, her hair falling in long loose curls about her lovely face. "I knew who was here. I ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... Enough of shameless talk. I'm master, now: And I'll not have Ruth hear this radgy slack. If you've no shame yourself, I'll find a way To bridle your loose tongue: so mind yourself: I'll ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

... what they'd like to do to us For what they'd better wait till we have done. Let's all but bring to life this old volcano, If that is what the mountain ever was— And scare ourselves. Let wild fire loose we will...." ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost

... was in a strange disordered condition, and the State was ravaged by other condottieri. The Boyne was being fought and won, and lost—the bells rung in William's victory, in the very same tone with which they would have pealed for James's. Men were loose upon politics, and had to shift for themselves. They, as well as old beliefs and institutions, had lost their moorings and gone adrift in the storm. As in the South Sea Bubble almost everybody gambled; as in the Railway ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... white caps, loose black jackets, and blue blouses was swarming in the narrow paths between the various piles. The big baskets of the market porters passed along slowly, above the heads of the throng. Retail dealers, costermongers, and greengrocers were making their purchases ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... perception of that rumbling storm, ended by hearing nothing else; it had been let loose and was howling in his ears. It was the merriment of the crowd whose jeers and laughter swept hurricane-like past his picture. With a weary gesture ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... opinion," the naturalist calmly replied, complying literally with the opinion of the deriding Esther, by taking his seat, very coolly, by the side of an indigenous shrub; the examination of which he commenced, on the instant, in order that science might not loose any of its just and important dues. "I honour your excellent advice, Mistress Esther, as you may perceive. Go thou in quest of thy offspring; while I tarry here, in pursuit of that which is better; viz. an insight into the arcana of ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... reading successive articles on such subjects as Parrots, Parthians, Passion-flowers, Passover and Pastry, without any invidious preferences, all information being equally welcome, and equally fugitive. That something of all this loose stream of knowledge clung to odd cells of the back of my brain seems to be shown by the fact that to this day, I occasionally find myself aware of some stray useless fact about peonies or pemmican or pepper, which I can only trace back to the Penny ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... discourseth at large upon the loose living of Popish prelates," an historical trait of the new but cautious reformation of the Marian Church, under Elizabeth. Whether a courtier like Spenser could expect the world to believe in the motto with which he concludes the epilogue, "Merce non mercede," is doubtful, but ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... falling—never utterly dying away. After his death it was found to be true. He had a son—an overgrown man with the unexercised intellect of a child, whom he had kept up in that strange way, in order to save him from temptation and error. But, of course, when this great old child was turned loose into the world, every bad counsellor had power over him. He did not know good from evil. His father had made the blunder of bringing him up in ignorance and taking it for innocence; and after fourteen months of riotous living, the ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... the throbbing whiteness of her throat, the loose clusters of her hair. He laid his hot face against her neck, and held it so, not breathing. Her arms stretched upwards, clasping him. She was panting—panting as one ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... There's a big rock over here—I'll show you—you and Sarge can get under cover there. I'll lie up on the opposite side, so they'll have to come between us. Let them pack and get started. When they get nearly abreast, cut loose. Shoot their saddle-horses first, then we can fight it out. Come on, I'll show ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... found the moderator was just declaring the meeting to be dissolved, which caused another general shout out-doors and in, and three cheers. What with that and the consequent noise of breaking up the meeting, you'd thought the inhabitants of the infernal regions had broke loose. For my part, I went contentedly home and finished my tea, but was soon informed what was going forward. Not crediting it without ocular demonstration, I went and was satisfied. They mustered, I'm told, ...
— Tea Leaves • Various

... the girl. She was on the point of tears now, but she held them back and her mouth tightened—she would give them one more round anyhow. When the battling pair rose Pleasant lost his head. He let loose a fox-hunting yell. He forgot his duty and the rules; he forgot the girl—he forgot all ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox

... following provision speaks for itself—"For the restrayning that pernicious and abominable sinne of perjury too much used in these licentious times, every myner convicted by a jury of 48 miners in the said Court shall for ever loose and totally forfeite his freedome as touching the mines, and bee utterly expelled out of the same, and all his working tooles and habitt be burnt before his face, and he never afterwards to be a witness or to be believed in any matter whatsoever." Of the forty-eight jurymen whose names ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... I said, and, concluding that it was the proper thing to do, we replaced the shavings and saw-dust in the chest, shut down the lid, put the loose screws in a piece of paper, and tied them to one of the clamps before pushing the chest aside and making ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn

... amongst judges and juries, and perhaps a more lenient system of criticism is adopted by reviewers, I am not sure that any public advantage is gained by having Ticket of Leave men, who ought to be in New South Wales, let loose upon the English world by the unchecked appearance of a vast deal of spurious literature, which ought to have withered under the severe ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... Mayor cried, looking bigger: And in did come the strangest figure. His queer long coat from heel to head Was half of yellow and half of red; And he himself was tall and thin, With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin, And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin, No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin, But lips where smiles went out and in; There was no guessing his kith and kin: And nobody could enough admire The tall man and his quaint attire. Quoth one: "It's as my great grandsire, Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone, Had ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... me for five years and he hasn't caught up with me yet. Every time he's had a chance he's tossed a few sneers in my direction, so I made up my mind the other day I'd coax him down to the foundry and throw the anvil at him. If ever I do cut loose on that Birmingham gent he'll think he has swallowed one of his own harpoons. He's a case of Perpetual Grouch because it gets the ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh

... beneath the clouds, sometimes out of sight in the mist, the American flying men attacked the enemy. Now there was no time for the Huns to loose their bombs. They must look to their own safety. No longer did they have all the odds on ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates

... the night you and Professor Derrick dined with us? When I say dined, I use the word in a loose sense." ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse

... And then, when all these armed millions Unknot with zest the military noose, Will the whole world be full of wroth civilians, Each one exulting in a tongue let loose? And who shall picture or what bard shall pen The crowning horror which awaits us then— That civil warfare of uncivil men In ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various

... they call upon me to perform that which they, prevented by circumstances, could not accomplish; the hour which my ancestors designated has arrived—the hour of retribution! The time has come when the old political system must undergo an entire change. The stone has broken loose which is to roll upon Nebuchadnezzar's image and crush it. It is time to open the eyes of the Austrians, and to show them that the little Marquis of Brandenburg, whose duty they said it was to hand the emperor after meals the napkin and finger-bowl, ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... just where a side path turned into the broad highway, there rode a knight, and a sorrier man than he never sat a horse on summer day. One foot only was in the stirrup, the other hung carelessly by his side; his head was bowed, the reins dropped loose, and his horse went on as he would. At so sad a sight the hearts of the outlaws were filled with pity, and Little John fell on his knees and bade the knight welcome in the ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... next feeling was one of joy, at the new and strange companionship, which might yet prove of service to her. Laying the candle down upon the floor, she drew the animal towards her and began to examine him. He was a large, well-built, glossy-haired fellow, with earnest eyes and a long, loose tongue, that hung a great way out of his mouth. Around his shaggy neck was a silver collar, on which was engraved "Sailor," and the two large initials, "N.B.," and after further scrutiny, she deciphered on the margin of the band, "I. Kennedy, Engraver, St. Paul St, Montreal." She threw her arms ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... abroad, would have consummated all that was necessary to render the claim available. But, in spite of good Mr. Higginson's congratulatory eloquence, this appeared to be the one thing which Colonel Pyncheon, provident and sagacious as he was, had allowed to go at loose ends. So far as the prospective territory was concerned, he unquestionably died too soon. His son lacked not merely the father's eminent position, but the talent and force of character to achieve it: he could, therefore, effect ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... their finesse of breeding, and ease of manner, have had a most desperate roue air about them. Their very laugh, at times, has seemed replete with a bold levity, that was as disgusting as it was unfeminine. I have never, in any other part of the world, seen loose sentiments affiches with more effrontery. These women are the complete antipodes of the quiet, elegant Princesse de ——, who was at Lady —— ——'s, this evening; though some of them write Princesses on ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... feeling—almost a conviction—that the dream was not a web self-wove in the loom of my brain, but that from somewhere, beyond my soul even, an influence had mingled with its longings to in-form the vision of that night—to be as it were a creative soul to what would otherwise have been but loose, chaotic, and shapeless vagaries of the unguided imagination. The events of that night were as the sudden opening of a door through which I caught a glimpse of that region of the supernal in which, whatever might be her theories concerning her experiences therein, Mary ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... his shoulders. Then bounding away like a goat, dropping a shower of flowers behind her, she disappeared. The slam of a door was heard, and from behind the house came bursts of laughter, which died away in the distance like the scampering rush of some mad animal let loose among the grass. ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... within the Inn Called loudly out after this sort, "Draw no more water, cease the din, Pile the loose fodder, and begin To turn the mules out of ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott

... a certain Washerman at Benares, whose name was Carpurapataka, and he had an Ass and a Dog in his courtyard; the first tethered, and the last roaming loose. Once on a time, when he had been spending his morning in the society of his wife, whom he had just married, and had fallen to sleep in her arms, a robber entered the house, and began to carry off his goods. The Ass observed ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... reason in fetters. Novelties, introduced by such a nation, are stripped of the objections which had been preconceived against them, and long-settled opinions yield to the overwhelming weight of such dazzling authority. It wears the semblance of being the sense of mankind, breaking loose from the shackles which had been imposed by artifice, and asserting the freedom and ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... man and, as the chair he sat in was a low one and the heels of his large shoes were hooked over its lower rounds, his knees and shoulders were close together when he bent over his work. He was a thin man and his trousers hung about his ankles like a loose sail on a yard. His hair was thick and plentiful, a brown sprinkled with gray at the temples. His face was smooth-shaven, with wrinkles at the corners of the eyes and mouth. He wore spectacles perched at the ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... up, and when the clock in yonder steeple strikes twelve, I'se gwine to quit preachin', close this blessed Bible, go down from this pulpit, and then, Brethren, Judgment day and hell is gwine to break loose on some of you." Now, that old colored minister had an ideal nervous system. There had not been one single response all that week long, and not one single stimulus which had come in from the outside had been lost either, but it was all waiting ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall

... the hollow, so damp and so cold, Where oaks are by ivy o'ergrown, The gray moss and lichen creep over the mould, Lying loose on a ponderous stone. Now within this huge stone, like a king on his throne, A toad has been sitting more years than is known; And, strange as it seems, yet he constantly deems The world standing still while he's dreaming his dreams,— Does this wonderful toad in his cheerful abode In the ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... naturally violent animal spirits, and Thwackum, resenting his speeches, only the doctor's interposition prevented wrath kindling. After which, Jones gave loose to mirth, sang two or three amorous songs, and fell into every frantic disorder which unbridled joy is apt to inspire; but so far was he from any disposition to quarrel that he was ten times better-humoured, if possible, than when ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... Lavender was peculiar rather than attractive. She was nearly, if not quite fifty years of age, rather tall, and a little stoop-shouldered. Her face, at first sight, suggested that of a horse, with its long, ridged nose, loose lips and short chin. Her eyes were dull gray, set near together, and much sharper in their operation than a stranger would suppose. Over a high, narrow forehead she wore thin bands of tan-colored hair, somewhat grizzled, and forming a coil at the back ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... length of the horse, and so should be the length of the rein. The horse is at his greatest length when standing still, and if you force him to collect himself then, he will be uneasy and fidget.[16-*] But the reins must never be loose. The bearing on the mouth, however lightly, must still be felt; and if the horse, in attempting to stare about, as colts and ill-ridden horses will, should throw his head to the right, it must be stopped by the feeling ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood

... and not from their virtues. The unanimity and valor which will effect an honorable peace can render a future contest for our liberties unnecessary. He who has strength to chain down the wolf is a madman if he let him loose without drawing his teeth ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... sharp between them and the blue of the distant forests. It would snow, tonight. If it stopped at daybreak, he would have good tracking, and in any case, it would be easier to get the carcasses home over snow. He wrenched loose the ice-staff and started forward again, following the path that wound between and among and over the irregular mounds and hillocks. It was still an hour's walk to Keeper's House, and the daylight ...
— The Keeper • Henry Beam Piper



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