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Absorbent   Listen
adjective
absorbent  adj.  Absorbing; swallowing; absorptive.
Absorbent ground (Paint.), a ground prepared for a picture, chiefly with distemper, or water colors, by which the oil is absorbed, and a brilliancy is imparted to the colors.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Absorbent" Quotes from Famous Books



... leaf surface is hairy, we know that the plant is protected in this way from perspiring too freely. Doubtless these leaves of the steeple bush, like those of other plants that choose a similar habitat, have woolly hairs beneath as an absorbent to protect their pores from clogging with the vapors that must rise from the damp ground where the plant grows. If these pores were filled with moisture from without, how could they possibly throw off the waste of the plant? All plants are largely dependent ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... highly-absorbent character of the snaring-thread has its drawbacks, it also has compensating advantages. Both Epeirae, when hunting by day, affect those hot places, exposed to the fierce rays of the sun, wherein the Crickets delight. In the torrid heats of the dog- days, therefore, the lime-threads, ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... notion they had conceived of making bar iron without wood charcoal. I told them, consistent with the notion I had adopted in common with all others I had conversed with, that I thought it impossible, because the vegetable salts in the charcoal being an alkali acted as an absorbent to the sulphur of the iron, which occasions the red-short quality of the iron, and pit coal abounding with sulphur would increase it. This specious answer, which would probably have appeared conclusive to most, and which indeed was what I really thought, was not so ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... you couldn't! You are too intensely absorbent, you are too rigidly individual. The flame in you would never consent, even for an instant, to be the flame in anybody else—any of those people who, for the purpose of the stage, ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... chimes in by infusing one of the tones of its day—Godwinian theories of life. The space between was the palmy time of that now almost legendary "Minerva Press" which, as has been said, flooded the ever-absorbent market with stuff of which The Libertine, masterpiece of Mrs. Byrne, alias Charlotte Dacre, alias "Rosa Matilda," is perhaps best worth singling out from its companions, Hours of Solitude, The Nun of St. Omers, Zofloya, etc., because it specially shocked the censor of the style ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... evidently simply a coiled tube— coiled for the sake of packing— with occasional dilatations, and with one side-shunt, the caecum (cae.), into which the food enters, and is returned to the main line, after probably absorbent action, imperfectly understood at present. A spiral fold in this cul-de-sac {bottom-of-sack}, which is marked externally by constrictions, has a directive influence on the circulation of its contents. The student should sketch Figure 1 once or twice, and make himself familiar ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells

... that he saw the twins, by doubts. They didn't look as though they would easily be put to school. His idea still seemed to him magnificent, a great solution, but would the Annas be able to see it? They might turn out impervious to it; not rejecting it, but simply non-absorbent. As they slowly and contentedly ate their grape-fruit, gazing out between the spoonfuls at the sea shining across the road through palm trees, and looking unruffled itself, he felt it was going to be rather like suggesting to two cherubs to leave their serene occupation of ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... for other abrasive purposes. Chert or flint constitutes grinding pebbles and tube-mill linings, and is also ground up for abrasives. Diatomaceous (infusorial) earth is used as a polishing agent and also as a filtering medium, an absorbent, and for heat insulation. Tripoli (and rottenstone) are used in polishing powders and scouring soaps as well as for filter blocks and many ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... pounds of absorbent cotton. One large package of sterile gauze (25 yards). Four rolls of cotton batting. Two yards of stout muslin for abdominal binders. Two old sheets. Twelve old towels or diapers. One yard of strong narrow tape for tying the cord. Three short obstetrical gowns ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... small specimen clay was used next the skin in places to perfect the modelling, but such amounts would be required for a large animal as to affect the durability of the skin. Clay and plaster being in a dry state very absorbent, will eventually rob of all oily matter any skin in contact with them. Such skins will crack, split and finally disintegrate as thoroughly as those having an excess of fat ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham

... "Do I look as bad as that? No," growing suddenly quite grave, "you will have to guess again. I'll give you a cue—absorbent cotton." ...
— Gloria and Treeless Street • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... which attracted the acid to itself: and this last method he recommends as the best. He likewise makes an inquiry into the nature and virtues of the powder thus prepared; and observes, that it is an absorbent earth which joins readily with all acids, and must necessarily destroy any acidity it meets in the stomach; but that its purgative power is uncertain, for sometimes it has not the least effect of that kind. ...
— Experiments upon magnesia alba, Quicklime, and some other Alcaline Substances • Joseph Black

... germs from five to ten times as much as usually occurs in nature. It is now known that the bacteria thus grown upon nitrogen free media retain high activity if carefully dried and then revived in liquid media at the end of the varying lengths of time. Some absorbent is used to soak up the tubercle-forming organisms. The cultures are then allowed to dry, and when in that condition they can be safely sent to any part of the country without losing their efficacy. It is necessary to revive the dry germs by immersing them in water. ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw

... gilding boards on each side (see fig. No. 25), and screwed up tightly. Very little scraping will be necessary, and usually if well rubbed with fine sand-paper, to remove any chance finger-marks or loose fragments of paper, the edge will be smooth enough to gild. If the paper is very absorbent, the edges must be washed over with vellum ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell

... The absorbent properties of bricks vary considerably with the kind of brick. The ordinary London stock of good quality should [Sidenote: Varieties of bricks.] not have absorbed, after twenty-four hours' soaking, more than one-fifth of its bulk. Inferior bricks will absorb as much as a third. The ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... one small thorn Shall needless any pilgrim's garments tear; And but to say I had suffered I would scorn Save for the marvellous thing that next befell: Sudden I grew aware I was new-born; All pain had vanished in the absorbent swell Of some exalting peace that was my own; As the moon dwelt in heaven did calmness dwell At home in me, essential. The earth's moan Lay all behind. Had I then lost my part In human griefs, dear part with them ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... fermented and spirituous liquors, and to use wine very moderately; carefully to avoid all fat, rancid, and salted provisions, and high seasoned dishes of every description. The constant use of barley bread is recommended, with large doses of powdered ginger boiled in milk for breakfast. Absorbent powders of two scruples of magnesia, and three or four grains each of rhubarb and purified kali, should be taken during the intervals of gouty fits, and repeated every other morning for several weeks. The feet should be kept warm, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... entirely relative, that is to say it depends upon its immediate surroundings for what it appears to be. Also it has effects varying with the material which it dyes; wool is of an absorbent nature, whereas silk has powers of reflection. It is a safe plan to use true colours, real blue, red or green, not slate, terra cotta, and olive. Gold, silver, white and black, are valuable additions to the colour palette; it should be remembered about the former that precious things ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie

... pulled his torn shirt over the spot on his broad shoulder where a wad of absorbent cotton and a lot of crisscrossed surgeon's plaster marked the slight wound. He moved the shoulder curiously. "That will be stiff for a couple of days, I suppose, but that is all there will be to it. Nothing but a scratch. Did you see the ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine

... disappeared. I used the glycerine to soften the wax, which combining with water formed a harmless soap better qualified for washing the ear, and retaining the wax in solution than anything I have tried, for it is my opinion that the ear wax should be kept in a fluid state. When in that state the absorbent can more readily take it up and use it in the economy of life in this condition. The same day two ladies came to my house, sore in lungs, necks tied up, sore throats, fever and headache. As an experiment, in addition to Osteopathic ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... auto-infection; and hence for mal-assimilation, mal-nutrition, anemia; and for a thousand and one reflex functional derangements of the system as well. The inflamed surface of the intestinal canal (proctitis) inhibits the passage of feces. Absorbent glands begin to act on the retained sewage, and the whole system becomes more or less infected with poisonous bacteria. Various organs (especially the feeblest) endeavor to perform vicarious defecation, and the patient, the friends, ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... fancy they have said many things to us, which, on reflection, we find have been said only with their silent answering eyes. Those who talk much often reply to you less than those who silently and thoughtfully listen. And so it came to pass, that, on account of this quietly absorbent nature, Rose had grown to her parents' hearts with a peculiar nearness. Eighteen summers had perfected her beauty. The miracle of the growth and perfection of a human body and soul never waxes old; parents marvel at it in every ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... ramifications of the vena portae and of the proper veins of the liver are supposed by Galen to be effected by means of anastomosing pores or channels. Although it is evident that Galen was ignorant of the true absorbent system, yet he appears to have been aware of the lacteals; for he says that in addition to those mesenteric veins which by their union form the vena portae, there are visible in every part of the mesentery other veins, proceeding also from the intestines, which ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae

... Nobel conceived the idea (in 1866) of absorbing the liquid in some absorbent earth, and thus forming the material that is now known as dynamite, that the use of nitro-glycerine as an explosive ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford

... will make a woman look pale, for the reason that the black absorbs whatever color there may be in her face. A dark color has also absorbent characteristics. The lighter the color, the less absorbent. Hence light greens are preferable to bring out the color in the face than dark greens, assuming that we are to consider only this point, which is all that is necessary to consider in house decoration. Therefore light ...
— Color Value • C. R. Clifford

... stem is not broken. | | |10 ordinary sized hubbard squashes. | | | |Whenever squashes or pumpkins in storage show | | | |signs of decay, the sound portion should be | | | |immediately canned. | | | | Tomatoes |Cool cellar or cave; can be wrapped in any absorbent paper |preferably without printing upon it, and laid upon shelves to |ripen. The paper absorbs the moisture given off by the |tomatoes and causes them to ripen uniformly. If cellar is dry |or well ventilated, tomatoes can be kept a month or six weeks ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray

... These, in the hands of a clever operator who knows his anatomy well, are therefore, on the whole, more satisfactory, but they require some experience to manage them so as not to shock and disgust the patient by inflicting needless pain. The poles, covered with absorbent cotton well wetted with salt water, which may be readily changed, so as not to use the same material more than once, are placed on each muscle in turn, and kept about four inches apart. They are moved fast enough to allow of the muscles being well contracted, which is easily managed, ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell

... of sodium on heating gives up the extra carbonic acid, which can be collected and stored pure, while the liquor passes back to simple carbonate of sodium, to be used over again as an absorbent. This is not at all new in theory, of course, nor is this the first proposal to use it commercially; but it is claimed that this is the first successful working of it on ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various

... "Having styptic, absorbent, and balsamic qualities, would produce a kind of tanning operation on the body, which would also, no doubt, be heightened by the washing with ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... that man is an omnivorous, versatile, various creature and can draw his strength from a hundred varieties of nourishment. He has physiological idiosyncrasies too that are indifferent to biological classifications and moral generalities. It is not true that his absorbent vessels begin their task as children begin the guessing game, by asking, "Is it animal, vegetable or mineral?" He responds to stimulation and recuperates after the exhaustion of his response, and his being is singularly careless whether the stimulation comes as a drug or stimulant, ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... slate for roofing purposes is hard, heavy and of a bluish gray color. A good slate should readily split into even laminae; it should not be absorbent of water either on its face or endwise, a property evinced by its not increasing perceptibly in weight after immersion in water; and it should be sound, compact and not apt to disintegrate ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various

... watery solution of gum Arabic. The extremely delicate nature of the paper matrix was a serious drawback, and had to be overcome. The slabs of limestone which served Senefelder in a previous emergency were now recurred to by him as an absorbent material similar to paper, and a trial by making an impression from his above-mentioned paper matrix on the stone, and subsequent gumming, convinced him that he was correct in his surmise. By this act lithography became an ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various

... this system, there are two things to bear in mind. The action that goes on within a septic tank will only dissolve paper of tissue grade. Therefore, old bandages, pieces of absorbent cotton, and the like should go into the incinerator. Otherwise, they will clog the system and a thorough cleaning will be imperative. Secondly, the leaders which care for the water from the eaves cannot be connected ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... absorbent cotton will reveal the presence of such dirt and another kind of dirt that does not show through the opaque fluid. This second kind of dirt is generally found in milk when the first kind is present in any quantity. It is more liable ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 2 - Volume 2: Milk, Butter and Cheese; Eggs; Vegetables • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... liquor pancreaticus, or a few grains of Fairchild's extract of pancreas, in each. Boil B, and make C acid with dilute hydrochloric acid. Place in each tube an equal amount of well-washed fibrin, plug the tubes with absorbent cotton, and place all in a water-bath ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... had never looked so serious as he did now, and he was more slim than in England. He impressed me as permeated by an atmosphere of perception. A magnetic current of sympathy with the city rendered him contemplative and absorbent as a cloud. He was everywhere, but only looked in silence, so far as I was aware. "The Marble Faun" shows what he thought in sentences that reveal, like mineral specimens, strata of ideas stretching far beyond the confines of the novel. While he ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... account for the nature of the morbid state, which gives rise to general and local dropsy, there are only three which our author regards as entitled to our notice. According to these, all dropsical accumulations arise either, 1st, From a want of tone or energy in the absorbent vessels, giving rise to a deficient absorption. 2nd, From an increased exhalation of the natural fluid, through a similar want of tone in the exhalents; and 3d, From a mechanical obstruction to the free return of blood by the veins, produced by tumours of various kinds, &c., by which a ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... clear sky, nor is it moderated by the warmth-bringing currents of the sea; the short summer, on the other hand, is hot. In the Southern Ocean the winter is not so excessively cold, but the summer is far less hot, for the clouded sky seldom allows the sun to warm the ocean, itself a bad absorbent of heat: and hence the mean temperature of the year, which regulates the zone of perpetually congealed under-soil, is low. It is evident that a rank vegetation, which does not so much require heat as it does protection from intense cold, would approach much nearer ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... everything to her, even to the sterilising of his instruments. Until daylight the following morning Lloyd came and went about the house with an untiring energy, yet with the silence of a swiftly moving shadow, getting together the things needed for the operation—strychnia tablets, absorbent cotton, the rubber tubing for the tourniquet, bandages, salt, and the like—and preparing the little chamber adjoining ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... test-tubes and flasks must be carefully plugged with cotton-wool, and for this purpose best absorbent cotton-wool (preferably that put up in cylindrical one-pound packets and interleaved with tissue paper—known as surgeons' wool) should ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... Niessen[119] comprises the softening of the outer layers of the beans by steam, cold or warm water, or brine, and then surrounding them with an absorbent paste or powder, such as china clay, to which a neutralizing agent such as magnesium oxid may be added. After drying, the clay can be removed by brushing or by causing the beans to travel between oppositely reciprocated wet cloths. In the development of this process, von Niessen evidently ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... was come. And further, how could the habit of lapsing in thought, or more simply, of passing abruptly from the present subject, be explained except on the theory of something to which he had so given himself it had become overmastering and all absorbent? This, she saw intuitively, would prove the key to the man; and she set about ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... his abilities. Behind all the forces of the man, whether of body or of mind, there stands the soul, which uses them for purposes of its own, be they for better or for worse. And of these there is always one which in time becomes the absorbent of all its life, the essence of all its being; and such purpose is soon found in the life of every man who lives, and not merely exists; such purpose is soon found in the mightiest as well as in the frailest, in the loftiest as well ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin

... possibly be devised. Outer walls wind and moisture proof, and inner walls of brick, with an absolutely protected air space between, insure strength and warmth. An interior wall finish of the hardest and most non-absorbent materials known for such uses is a valuable hygienic provision, and both safety and salubrity are further conserved by an absence of any hollow spaces between floors and ceilings, or in stud partitions. No vermin ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various

... shut out external noises and eliminate many of those within. Loud dictation, conversations, clicking typewriters, loud-ringing telephones, can all be cut to a key which makes them virtually indistinguishable in an office of any size. More and more the big open office as an absorbent of sound seems to be gaining in favor. In one of the newest and largest of these I know, nearly all the typewriting machines are segregated in a glass-walled room, and long-distance telephone messages can be taken at any instrument in ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott

... niche. What they failed to acknowledge was his point of view—and this he was wise enough not to press at dinner tables and in drawing-rooms—that religion should have the penetrability of ether; that it should be the absorbent of life. He did not have to commit the banality of reminding them of this conviction of his at their own tables; he had sufficient humour and penetration to credit them with knowing it. Nay, he went farther in his unsuspected analysis, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... quite get your flow of words, Kitten, but I do agree with their meaning. Yes, small towns can turn out gigantic specimens of conceited ego. And that conceit is like a paraffine coating; air tight against personal progress, absorbent for the poisons of jealousy and envy. There, that sounds as if I have learned a little English, doesn't it? But it isn't enough to face Miss ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... the grape rot? or for the yellows or leaf-curl in peach trees? or for the rust in the blackberry and raspberry? In any or all of these it may have a decided value, and should be faithfully experimented with. As an absorbent alone it ought to be worth saving, to use in retaining the house slops and other liquid manures ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... dramatizing than in simple re-telling; in the listening and the re-telling, it is dominant for good. The child imitates what he hears you say and sees you do, and the way you say and do it, far more closely in the story-hour than in any lesson-period. He is in a more absorbent state, as it were, because there is no preoccupation of effort. Here is the great opportunity of the cultured teacher; here is the appalling opportunity of the careless or ignorant teacher. For the implications of the oral theory of ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant

... avick! Devise a little drink, my son,—none of the weakest—no lemon—-hot! You understand, hot! That chap has an eye for punch; there's no mistaking an Irish fellow, Nature has endowed them richly,—fine features and a beautiful absorbent system! That's the gift! Just look at him, blowing up the fire,—isn't he a picture? Well, O'Mealey, I was fretting that we hadn't you up at Torrijos; we were enjoying life very respectably,—we established a little system of small tithes upon fowl, sheep, pigs' heads, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... absorbent cotton? I can wash the wound after a fashion. Warm water and Castile soap. We can have ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... says: "The power of soils to absorb water from air is much connected with fertility.... I have compared the absorbent powers of many soils, with respect to atmospheric moisture, and I have always found it greatest in the most fertile soils; so that it affords one method of judging ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman

... oiled-silk protective, which is made to cover the raw surface and the skin for about a quarter of an inch beyond the margins of the sore. Over this three or four thicknesses of sterilised gauze, wrung out of eusol, creolin, or sterilised water, are applied, and covered by a pad of absorbent wool. As far as possible the part should be kept at rest, and the position should be adjusted so as to favour the circulation in the ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... by the formula (2) has been verified by experiments for various solids, liquids and gases. The method consists in comparing the intensity after transmission through a layer of known thickness of the absorbent with the intensity of light from the same source which has not passed through the medium, k being thus obtained for various thicknesses and found to be constant. In the case of solutions, if the absorption of the solvent is negligible, the eflect of increasing the concentration of the absorbing ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... close to the tip absorb most of the plant's moisture as they occupy new territory. As the root continues to extend, parts behind the tip cease to be effective because, as soil particles in direct contact with these tips and hairs dry out, the older roots thicken and develop a bark, while most of the absorbent hairs slough off. This rotation from being actively foraging tissue to becoming more passive conductive and supportive tissue is probably a survival adaptation, because the slow capillary movement of soil moisture fails to replace ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon

... ... Composition of Crystalline and Sedimentary Rocks ... their Disintegration ... Chemical Composition of the Soil ... Fertile and Barren Soils ... Mechanical Texture of Soils ... Absorbent Action of Soils ... their Physical Characters ... Relation to Heat and Moisture ... The Subsoil ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson

... moist add a few more crumbs; if too dry add a little ketchup, milk, tomato juice, &c. Form into sausage-shaped pieces or small flat cakes. Dip into frying batter, and drop into smoking-hot fat. When a golden brown lift out, and drain on absorbent paper. Serve them, as also the golden marbles, on sippets of toast or fried bread with tomato ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill

... method is scarcely any more complicated than the one daily employed for coleoptera and orthoptera, which latter, too, must pass through alcohol, and be pinned, spread out, and dried. There are but two additional elements, carbolated glycerine and absorbent paper. I do not estimate the time necessary for desiccation as being very long, since the zoologist can occupy himself with other subjects while the specimens are drying. Let us add that the process renders the preservation indefinite, and that destructive insects are not to be feared. Some ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various

... equivalent to it, in all creatures of any size and activity. In a comparatively small inert animal, such as the hydra, which consists of little more than a sac having a double wall—an outer layer of cells forming the skin, and an inner layer forming the digestive and absorbent surface—there is no need for a special apparatus to diffuse through the body the aliment taken up; for the body is little more than a wrapper to the food it encloses. But where the bulk is considerable, or where ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... Flannel, being an absorbent, has usually been recommended as the best material for under-clothing in sweltering weather, such as that of the present summer. An ingenious gentleman of this city, however, has discovered that a full under-suit of blotting-paper is by far more efficacious than flannel, and he has ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various

... of Russian calf modeling leather. (1.) Make on paper the design wanted. (2.) Moisten the back side of the leather with sponge or cloth with as much water as it will take yet not show through on the face side. (3.) Place the leather on some hard non-absorbent material, such as brass or marble. (4.) Place the paper design on the leather and, holding it in place with the left hand, trace the outline, of the object and the decorative design with the nut ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... from a living body falling upon any non-absorbent surface will, in the course of a few minutes, solidify into a jelly which will, at first, have the same bulk and colour as ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... first when (good many years ago now) as DIZZY's whip he hunted in couple with ROWLAND WINN; then always called HART DYKE. Like many other young men he has in interval lost his HART, and now known as Sir WILLIAM DYKE. Curious thing, as SARK reminds me, how absorbent is the name of WILLIAM. Quite probable that before Black-Eyed Susan's friend came prominently on the stage he had some other Christian name, sunk when he was promoted to shadow of yard-arm. Certainly there ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various

... histories, and a vial still bearing ghastly frost of Borgian contarella spoke of a virgin martyr and of a princely cardinal whose deeds were forgotten by all save Mother Church. Paul's genius was absorbent, ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... authoritative.) Peron pointed to the political insecurity of the Spanish-American colonies, and predicted that the outbreak of revolution in them, possibly with the connivance of the English, would further the deep designs of that absorbent and dominating nation.* (* A French author of later date, Prevost-Paradol (La France Nouvelle, published in 1868), predicted that some day "a new Monroe doctrine would forbid old Europe, in the name of the United States of Australia, to put foot ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... users of a highway if sods and weeds in quantity are left in the road after it has been graded. The humus that will be left in the soil as the vegetable matter decays increases the porosity of the road surface making it more absorbent than soil without humus. This increases the susceptibility to softening from storm ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg

... of Canada, is wealthy, busy, commercial, Scotch, absorbent of whisky; but she is duly aware of other things. She has a most modern and efficient interest in education; and here are gathered what faint, faint beginnings or premonitions of such things as Art Canada can boast (except the French-Canadians, who, it is complained, produce ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke

... a very good absorbent of ammonia, and consequently, as will be hereafter described, adds to the fertility ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring

... will fade at last be it tended ever so carefully. If we wish to preserve it dried we can best do so as soon as we bring it home, by placing it between sheets of absorbent paper (newspaper will do) well weighted down, the paper to be renewed if the plants are succulent and if there is any risk of mildew. But a dried plant after all is only a mummy. Its colours are gone; its form bruised and crumpled, gives ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various

... without being subject, like its Italian ancestors, to rivalry with its own species; nothing checks the growth; it may absorb all the juices of the ground, all the air and sunshine of the region, and become the Colossus which the ancient plants, equally deep-rooted and certainly as absorbent, but born in a less friable soil and more crowded ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... of Bellwood, Pa., relates the case of an old lady of seventy-eight whom he found with the blood gushing from the nostrils. After plugging the nares thoroughly with absorbent cotton dusted with tannic acid he was surprised to see the blood ooze out around the eyelids and trickle down the cheeks. This oozing continued for the greater part of an hour, being controlled by applications of ice to both sides of ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... Aaron looked melancholy; his coffee was not charmful, I knew; the chemical changes that sugar and milk wrought were not the same as when Sophie presided over the laboratory of the breakfast-tray. I am not an absorbent, and so I reflected Aaron's discomfort. He was disposed to question me for a reason for Miss Axtell's aberration. I was not empowered to give one, and was fully determined to impart no information until such time as I could with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... stand for 12 hours, filtered, the precipitate washed with water rendered slightly ammoniacal, dried, ignited, and weighed. The weight so found multiplied by 0.278 gives the weight of phosphorus in the form of phosphine in the volume of gas passed through the absorbent liquid. ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... becomes a very pure vegetable mould; and it is well known that very pure vegetable mould is the most proper of all materials for the growth of almost all kinds of plants. The moss would also not retain more moisture than precisely the quantity best adapted to the absorbent powers of the root—a condition which can scarcely be obtained with any certainty by the use ...
— Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... wholly white animals. The explanation has, however, been carried a step further, by experiments showing that the absorption of odors by dead matter, such as clothing, is greatly affected by color, black being the most powerful absorbent, then blue, red, yellow, and lastly white. We have here a physical cause for the sense inferiority of totally white animals which may account for their rarity in nature. For few, if any, wild animals are wholly white. The head, ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... oldest, finest manure you can get, combined with about one-fourth or one-fifth its weight of South Carolina rock (or acid phosphate, if you cannot get the rock). It is a good plan to compost the manure and rock in advance, or use the rock as an absorbent in the stable. Fill in the hole again, leaving room in the center to set the tree without bending or cramping any roots. Where any of these are injured or bruised, cut them off clean at the injured spot ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell

... can get from the Department of Agriculture suggestions for the practical use of chicken, mutton, beef, and other kinds of meat fats. The main points are to free them from flavor, by melting them with milk or water, possibly using some special absorbent like potato or charcoal too, and then mixing hard and soft together, just as the oleomargarine-makers do, to get such a degree of hardness as suits one's purpose. All this requires time and thought. Let no one dream that ...
— Everyday Foods in War Time • Mary Swartz Rose

... The absorbent stem power of the Laminaria for taking up iodine is very large; and this element is afterwards brought out by fire in the kelp kilns of Ireland and Scotland. Sea Tang acts most beneficially against the various forms of scrofulous disease; and signally relieves some rheumatic affections. It is also ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... their proximate effect, though they may he somewhat similar in less essential properties; thus the thin and saline discharge from the nostrils on going into the cold air of a frosty morning, which is owing to the deficient action of the absorbent vessels of the nostrils, is one species; and the viscid mucus discharged from the secerning vessels of the same membrane, when inflamed, is another species of the same genus, Catarrhus. Which bear no analogy either in respect ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... to wounds? 4. If your knife should slip and cut you, how ought you to take care of the cut? 5. If you know the knife is dirty, what is the proper treatment? 6. Is "sticking-plaster" good for a wound? Why not? 7. Why does absorbent cotton make a good dressing? 8. Give two reasons why doctors can perform surgical operations now much more safely than some years ago. 9. Why must surgeons and nurses keep themselves and their patients perfectly clean? 10. What difference has this cleanliness made in the saving of life? 11. ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... put into a folded napkin and held on the back of the neck. Taking a long breath and holding it as long as possible and repeating it while the ice is being applied is an aid. Placing the feet in hot mustard water is of decided use. Another excellent expedient is to wrap absorbent cotton round a smooth probe (piece of whalebone, for example), dip the cotton in an alum-water mixture (half teaspoonful powdered alum in a half cupful of water), and then push it into the bleeding nostril as far as you can with gentle ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague

... pads used during the lying-in are the antiseptic absorbent pads which can be obtained at any place where surgical dressings are sold; they are made of absorbent cotton, covered with ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith

... might be distinguished from mucus; and the Essay in which he had stated his discovery was published by his father after his death, together with another treatise, which he left incomplete, on the Retrograde Motions of the Absorbent Vessels of Animal Bodies in some Diseases. Another of his sons, Erasmus, who was a lawyer, in a temporary fit of mental derangement put an end to his existence, in 1799. Robert Waring, a physician, now in high reputation at Shrewsbury, is the only ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... Adulteration of milk Quality of milk influenced by the food of the animal Diseased milk Kinds of milk to be avoided Distribution of germs by milk Proper utensils for keeping milk Where to keep milk Dr. Dougall's experiments on the absorbent properties of milk Washing of milk dishes Treatment of milk for cream rising Temperature at which cream rises best Importance of sterilizing milk To sterilize milk for immediate use To sterilize milk to keep Condensed milk Cream, composition ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... prepared skin in a clean paper, wrap in damp cloth, and lay over one night in a cool place, before mounting. This allows arsenic-water to penetrate through into base of plumage, thus becoming more effective against moths than if skin were immediately filled with absorbent material which would tend to draw out ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray

... one—By the immortal sunflower you ware in your hallered buttin-hole, and the admyrashun you bear your asthetick frend, vote for Mr. Gilley for Guvner, cos the delercate purple tint of his perfume absorbent, is quite too, too, and his long and shaggy Bur-muder-oniyun cullered locks are jest too delish-us, and placed in the guvermentel cheer, will do much towards educatin the common hurd, to a appresheashun of our assthetick tastes. Besides that, I think the other Candydate, is too much of a 'orridley ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray

... removed by passing a cloth, wrung out of hot water, around edge and over top of stock. This fat should be clarified and used for drippings. If time cannot be allowed for stock to cool before using, take off as much fat as possible with a spoon, and remove the remainder by passing tissue or any absorbent paper over the surface. ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum

... and whiskey. Then with a quick stroke of a razor she laid open the green streak and immersed the whole arm in a strong solution of bichloride of mercury for twenty minutes. She then dressed the wound with absorbent cotton saturated with olive oil and carbolic acid, bundled her patient into a buggy, and drove forty-five miles that night to get him to a doctor. The doctor told us that only her quick action and knowledge of what to ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... have remained liquid. There would appear to be little gain by the use of the Goux lining as regards freedom from nuisance, and though it removes the risk of splashing and does away with much of the unsightliness of the contents, the absorbent, inasmuch as it adds extra weight which has to be carried to and from the houses, is rather a disadvantage than otherwise from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various

... a platform upon which even ancestral enemies can meet. While I sat cross-legged (and, like cotton, absorbent) last summer enjoying the hospitality of the Oo-vai-oo-aks, to us entered a beautiful-faced Loucheux Indian mother with a pair of twins pendant,—rollicking chaps. The younger Mrs. Oo-vai-oo-ak dropped on the floor her lord's boot which she ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... muses' hapless train, Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main! Their hearts no selfish stern absorbent stuff, That never gives—tho' humbly takes enough; The little fate allows, they share as soon, Unlike sage proverb'd wisdom's hard-wrung boon. The world were blest did bliss on them depend, Ah, that "the friendly e'er should want a friend!" Let prudence number o'er each ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... fixative, and then the specimen must be covered with a bell-jar or other receiver to prevent even the slightest draft of air, otherwise the spores will float around more or less. The spores may be caught on a thin, absorbent paper, and the paper then be floated on the fixative in a shallow vessel until it soaks through and comes in contact with the spores. I have sometimes used white of egg as a fixative. These pieces of paper can then be ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... "Elsie," he cried frantically. "Where are you? Are you in the hospital? Is everything all right? Is the doctor there? Elsie!" He shouted her name aloud, angrily, trying to force it through the immense absorbent space between them, cursing and screaming at his ...
— A Choice of Miracles • James A. Cox

... time, to swallow up Presbyterianism. I make no invidious comparison between the two systems: I merely look at facts. And it does appear to me that Congregationalism—so simple, so free, so unsectarian, and so catholic—is nevertheless a powerful absorbent. It has absorbed all that was orthodox in the old Presbyterian Churches of England; and it is absorbing the Calvinistic Methodists and the churches named after the Countess of Huntingdon. It has all along exerted a powerful influence on the Presbyterianism of America. The Congregational ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... shall be set up at all times. The following articles are recommended in dressing and caring for infants: Sterile gauze, absorbent cotton, medium and small safety pins, bottle of alcohol, a bar of pure mild soap, a proper lubricant (albolene or olive oil), boric acid solution, pure powder, ...
— Rules and regulations governing maternity hospitals and homes ... September, 1922 • California. State Board of Charities and Corrections

... Absorbent.—Some canvases are primed so as to absorb the oil during the process of painting. They are very useful for some kinds of work, and many painters choose them; but unless you have some experience with the working ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... one who would not carry on the torch his father had set out with. He could not force his child to be a genius, but he insisted that Joel should have an education. The editor had found himself handicapped by a lack of the mysterious enrichment that a tour through college gives the least absorbent mind. He was determined to provide it for his boy, though Joel felt that every moment's delay in leaping into the commercial arena was so much delay ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... open sores or their discharges, are likely to be dangerous. Moreover, even though these objects remain moist, the spirochetes are likely to die out within six or seven hours, and may lose their infectiousness before this. Smooth, non-absorbent surfaces, especially of metal, are unfavorable for the germ. Wash-basins, dishes, silverware, and toilet articles are usually satisfactorily disinfected by hot soapsuds, followed by drying. Barbers, dentists, nurses, and physicians who take care at ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes

... obtained lodgement in the lungs? Increase the general nutrition of the body in every way, and then the lungs can resist the inroads of the disease. The first thing necessary to improve the nutrition of the body is to stimulate the digestive and absorbent functions of the stomach and intestines. Naturally then, you must throw the so-called cough medicines out of the window. The drugs used to stop a cough are sedatives. Now, no sedative or nauseant is known that does not lock up the natural secretions and thus ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... new subjects for her brush, at that quiet hour. She said to a friend: "I have been a faithful student since I was ten years old. I have copied no master. I have studied Nature, and expressed to the best of my ability the ideas and feelings with which she has inspired me. Art is an absorbent—a tyrant. It demands heart, brain, soul, body, the entireness of the votary. Nothing less will win its highest favor. I wed art. It is my husband, my world, my life-dream, the air I breathe. I know ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... following morning, Saturday, the twenty-ninth—I betook myself to Charly and there managed to beg the elements of a rudimentary infirmary from the old pharmacist, who must have thought me crazy. Absorbent cotton I was able to procure in small rolled packages from the draper, and promising to send the boys down in the afternoon with a small band cart, I returned home, without having observed anything abnormal save the frequent passage of autos towards Paris—all going ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard

... Beltham, are of the kind requiring squeezing. Government, as my chum and good comrade, Jorian DeWitt, is fond of saying, is a sponge—a thing that when you dive deep enough to catch it gives liberal supplies, but will assuredly otherwise reverse the process by acting the part of an absorbent. I get what I get by force of arms, or I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... The dish is a survival of the rigid Puritanism which was the affliction and at the same time the making of New England; it is a fast, an aggravated fast, a scourge to indulgence, a reproach to gluttony; it comes Saturday night, and is followed Sunday morning by the dry, spongy, antiseptic, absorbent fish-ball as a castigation of nature and as a preparation for the austere observance of the Sabbath; it is the harsh, but no doubt deserved, punishment of the stomach for its worldliness during the week; ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... comfortable as Mother Eve at a woman's club. Lockerbie's scowl was no joke; and Follet had a way of wriggling his backbone gracefully.—It was up to me to save Schneider, and I did. The honor of Naapu was nothing to me; and by dint of almost embracing him, I made myself a kind of absorbent for his worst breaks. It was not a pleasant hour for me before the rest began to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... commonly used. A tablespoonful of powdered boric acid is added to three ounces of water and thoroughly mixed. This is poured into a six-ounce bottle, which is then filled with grain alcohol (95 per cent). The solution is applied twice a day with a small piece of absorbent cotton. ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... is to give a perfectly level and non-absorbent basis for varnish covering or other finish. This can be done with shellac carefully rubbed down with fine oiled sandpaper, but this method requires much toil and patience, and has therefore been given up by furniture finishers. The best fillers, (such as "Wheeler's ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... the smallest pieces of broken glass can be easily picked up by using a bit of wet absorbent cotton, which can afterward be destroyed ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler

... carefully with the fingers among the fine rootlets. Every root fibre is thus brought into close contact with the soil. More good soil should be added (in layers) and firmly packed about the roots. The last layer should remain loose so that it may act as a mulch or as an absorbent of moisture. The tree should then ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison

... bells and corals. On her lap was a beautiful winged smiling genius, who flourished two bright torches. On her left hand stood the man of Modena with his white lamb, a new S. John. On her right stood the man of Torcello with his keys, a new S. Peter. Both were laughing after their all-absorbent, divine, noiseless fashion; and under both was written, Sic Genius. Are not all things, even ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... however, ready with the necessary machinery, both material and mental, to make conquest of a people which had not only religious aspirations, but also latent aesthetic possibilities of a high order. As in its course through China this Northern Buddhism had acted as an all-powerful absorbent of local beliefs and superstitions, so in Japan it was destined to make a more remarkable record, and, not only to absorb local ideas but actually to cause the ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... before they begin to expand. The pistillate, or female blossoms, should be enclosed in bags, about six of the three-pound, common kraft bags should be enough. These are slipped over those branches which bear female blossoms and are tied around a heavy packing of absorbent cotton, which has been wound around the branch at approximately the place where the opening of the bag will be. In fastening the mouth of the bag around the cotton, I find that No. 18 copper wire, wrapped ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke

... justified Mr Cruickshank's selection. He did his work as unobtrusively as he did it admirably well; and for the rest he was just washed about, carried, hither and thither, generally on the tops of omnibuses, receptive, absorbent, mostly silent. He did try once or twice to talk to the bus drivers—he had been told it was a thing to do if you wanted to get hold of the point of view of a particular class; but the thick London idiom defeated him, and he found they grew ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... the most even climate, the largest proportion of fair, clear days, a sandy and absorbent soil, and the minimum amount of atmospheric moisture—all the factors requisite in ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn

... during that strenuous interval there was little more than the eating and sleeping for one whose time for the absorbent process was all too limited. Also, the perplexing questions reaching down into the under-soul of things were silent. Also, again—mark of a change so radical that none but a Thomas Jefferson may read and understand—an ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... C. dressed with: Stack of towels, 1 towel spread C. of table Cup of water and absorbent cotton SHOWCASE against wall U. C. filled with dog supplies: Harness, collars, testimonials, dog basket Ash ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings

... pictures. I then made a strong solution of sal. soda I had in the house, and soaked my paper in it, and then washed it off in hot water, which perfectly fixed the view upon the paper. This paper was very poor with thick spots, more absorbent than other parts, and consequently made dark shades in the picture where they should not have been; but it was enough to convince me that I had succeeded, and that at some future time, when I had the means and a more extensive knowledge of chemistry, I could apply myself to it again. I ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling



Words linked to "Absorbent" :   sorbent material, assimilating, shock-absorbent, receptive, absorbent material, absorbency, sponge, assimilatory, hygroscopic, absorb, thirsty



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