Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Balsam   Listen
noun
Balsam  n.  
1.
A resin containing more or less of an essential or volatile oil. Note: The balsams are aromatic resinous substances, flowing spontaneously or by incision from certain plants. A great variety of substances pass under this name, but the term is now usually restricted to resins which, in addition to a volatile oil, contain benzoic and cinnamic acid. Among the true balsams are the balm of Gilead, and the balsams of copaiba, Peru, and Tolu. There are also many pharmaceutical preparations and resinous substances, possessed of a balsamic smell, to which the name balsam has been given.
2.
(Bot.)
(a)
A species of tree (Abies balsamea).
(b)
An annual garden plant (Impatiens balsamina) with beautiful flowers; balsamine.
3.
Anything that heals, soothes, or restores. "Was not the people's blessing a balsam to thy blood?"
Balsam apple (Bot.), an East Indian plant (Momordica balsamina), of the gourd family, with red or orange-yellow cucumber-shaped fruit of the size of a walnut, used as a vulnerary, and in liniments and poultices.
Balsam fir (Bot.), the American coniferous tree, Abies balsamea, from which the useful Canada balsam is derived.
Balsam of copaiba. See Copaiba.
Balsam of Mecca, balm of Gilead.
Balsam of Peru, a reddish brown, syrupy balsam, obtained from a Central American tree (Myroxylon Pereirae and used as a stomachic and expectorant, and in the treatment of ulcers, etc. It was long supposed to be a product of Peru.
Balsam of Tolu, a reddish or yellowish brown semisolid or solid balsam, obtained from a South American tree (Myroxylon toluiferum). It is highly fragrant, and is used as a stomachic and expectorant.
Balsam tree, any tree from which balsam is obtained, esp. the Abies balsamea.
Canada balsam, Balsam of fir, Canada turpentine, a yellowish, viscid liquid, which, by time and exposure, becomes a transparent solid mass. It is obtained from the balm of Gilead (or balsam) fir (Abies balsamea) by breaking the vesicles upon the trunk and branches. See Balm.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Balsam" Quotes from Famous Books



... earliest song of the birds, and was out before the first rays of the sun had touched the mountaintops. The coolness was delicious, and the air was filled with the sweet odors of aromatic shrubs and flowers, with a hint of the pine-forests and balsam-thickets from the higher altitudes. Taking a breakfast solus, pocket-bible in hand I bent my steps up the gorge, often crossing the brook that wound its way among the thickets or sung its song at the foot of the great overhanging cliffs. A shining trout would now and then flash like a silver bar ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... in one chosen place. We were overlooking a deep valley, which was entirely occupied by three lakes, and from the brink to the surrounding ridges rose precipitously five hundred and a thousand feet, covered with the dark green of the balsam pine, relieved on the border of the lake with the light foliage of the aspen. They all communicated with each other, and the green of the waters, common to mountain lakes of great depth, showed that it would be impossible to cross them. The surprise manifested by our guides when these impassable ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... Cleopatra, as the only means of saving himself from being crushed by the rising power of Octavianus. She asked to have the whole of Arabia and Judaea given to her. But Antony had not so far forgotten himself as to yield to these commands; and he only gave her the balsam country around Jericho, and a rent-charge of two hundred talents, or one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a year, on the revenues of Judaea. On receiving this large addition to her kingdom, and perhaps in honour of Antony, who had then lost all power in Italy ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... the yoke thereof is a yoke of iron, and the bands thereof are bands of brass. The death thereof is an evil death, the grave were better than it." Incurable are the wounds which the slanderer inflicteth, irreparable the damages which he causeth, indelible the marks which he leaveth. "No balsam can heal the biting of a sycophant;" no thread can stitch up a good name torn by calumnious defamation; no soap is able to cleanse from the stains aspersed by a foul mouth. Aliquid adhaerebit; somewhat always of suspicion and ill opinion will stick in the minds of ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... nature, one would say on beholding Yosemite that here is the work of exceptional and extraordinary agents or world-building forces. It is as surprising and exceptional as would be a cathedral in a village street, or a gigantic sequoia in a grove of our balsam firs. The approach to it up the Merced River does not prepare one for any such astonishing spectacle as awaits one. The rushing, foaming water amid the tumbled confusion of huge granite rocks and ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... the heart is sick and sorest, There is balsam in the forest— There is balsam in the forest ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... of the most salubrious places I know for such trouble as yours. And Dr. Theophilus Balsam is one of the best doctors in the State. He was my regimental surgeon during the war. He is a Northern man who came South before the war. I think he had ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... magnificent size reach up into the blue and give us shade. Ozone sweeps gently through the forest impregnated with the perfume of fir, balsam, cedar, pine ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter

... deep, homely beauty of his lays. He is as genuine, as wholesome and real as sweet-flag and clover. Even when he utters pure sentiment, as in that perfect lyric, "My Psalm," or in the intrepid, exquisite humility—healthful and sound as the odor of new-mown hay or balsam-firs—of "Andrew Rykman's Prayer," he maintains the same attitude of realism. He states God and inward experience as he would state sunshine and the growth of grass. This, with the devout depth of his nature, makes the rare beauty of his hymns and poems of piety and trust. He ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... For soul like mine, diseased in every part, There is but one condition in which grace May give it service. For my malady The Great Physician draws the blood away That only flows to feed its baleful fires; For only thus the balsam and the balm May touch the ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland

... given us a brief account of both his cause and usage, it came in my mind that I had in my box (which I had sent for from my lodging, to keep some few books and other necessaries in) a little gallipot with Lucatellu's balsam in it. ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood

... plateaus, which stretch, seamed and broken by rivers and volcanoes, to the Cordillera frontier of Honduras on the E.; soil is extremely fertile and naturally irrigated by numerous streams, and produces in abundance coffee and indigo (chief exports), balsam, tobacco, sugar, cereals, &c.; has a warm, healthy climate. The natives are chiefly Indians of Aztec descent, but speaking Spanish. The government is vested in a president and chamber of deputies. Education ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... the core, thus in the nation's need You carp and cavil while your brothers bleed, And while on England vitriol you bestow You offer balsam to her ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various

... which has grown a small village possessing one good hotel, the Prince rode up the valleys to some of the beauty spots, such as Emerald Lake, which lies high in the sky under the cold glaciers of Mount Burgess. It was a wonderful ride through the spruce and balsam woods ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... completely shutting out all the cold and damp and darkness; and Ben and I, with our moccasoned feet thrust toward the cheerful blaze, reclined luxuriously upon a pile of genuine Navajo blankets, while our guide, friend, and mentor, Uncle Ezra Norton, sat upon his couch of balsam sending up from his pipe clouds of tobacco incense that broke in fleecy folds against the low roof over our heads. Our minds were in the dreamy, tranquil state that comes after a good dinner and a brief season of repose following ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon

... Pharaohs of Egypt, as the historical excavators of more recent times have done with the embalmed, crowned, and consecrated mummies which they have been pleased to denounce as delusions. Your Potiphars or your Mizraims, even when converted into balsam, or employed as a styptic, were at least not denuded of their historical identity by the druggists who reduced their time-honored remains to a powder. Their dust was made merchandise, but their characters were respected. Moreover, there was an object and a motive, even ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... garden, which unites the flower, kitchen-garden, and orchard in one. Oranges and roses, cabbage and tobacco, melons and leeks, neighboured each other, as if they belonged to the same climate; and all were thriving among numbers of weeds, of which the wholesome calliloo and the splendid balsam attracted my eye most. A side-door in the garden let us into a beautiful field, whither chairs were brought, that we might sit and enjoy the freshness of the evening. Overhanging that field there is a steep hill, on whose side a great deal of wood ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... plan in the world, and she and Amanda brought branches of pine, and fragrant fir balsam to cover the ground under the big sail. Mrs. Stoddard insisted on spreading her two new fine table-cloths over the rough table, and on ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis

... sewing of the pieces of birch bark together, and the fastening of the whole to the outer frame, is done with the long slender roots of the balsam or larch trees, which are soaked and rubbed until they are as flexible as narrow strips of leather. When all the sewing is done, the many narrow limber pieces of spruce are crowded into their places, giving the whole canoe its ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young

... hind feet. Clean the crack well, cutting with a sharp knife the dead horn from each side of it; shoe as advised for quarter crack, or for the purpose of getting expansion and natural action of the dead, shelly hoof. The dirt and sand may be kept out of the crack by filling it with balsam of fir, or pine pitch. Keep the ...
— Rational Horse-Shoeing • John E. Russell

... sat in the doorway, and one and another came to give Noko a bit of gossip. Rose crept off to bed presently. How fragrant the fresh balsam of fir was, and the tired girl soon ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... gentle heat) to the silk with a brush of fine hair (badgers' is the best). As soon as this first coating is dried, which will not be long, apply a second; and afterwards, if you wish the article to be very superior, a third. When the whole is dry, cover it with two or three coatings of the balsam of Peru. ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... eight poplars, four oaks, four plums, three nuts and one apple. The evergreens consisted of thirteen Scotch pine, eleven evergreens (not named), eight Norway spruce, five spruce (not named), three balsam, three Austrian pine, two white pine, one yellow pine, two cedar, two white spruce, two pine (variety not named), two fir, two jack pine, one Black Hills spruce, and one tamarack. In the willows were given twenty willows (variety not named), two laurel-leaved, seven white ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... soul, his starry mind To Science, a gracious heart to kin and kind, He living gave. Therefore let each fair bloom Of Faith and Hope breathe balsam ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves

... snow-man, who would stand stanch for weeks. Snow-storms in Lenox began early and lasted till far into April. The little red house had all it could do, sometimes, to lift its upper windows above them. In the front yard there was a symmetrical balsam fir-tree, tapering like a Chinese pagoda. One winter morning we found upon one of its lower boughs a little brown sparrow frozen stiff. We put it in a card-board coffin, and dug out a grave for it beneath the fir, with a shingle head-stone. The funeral ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... persuaded them; we underwent this terrible operation. The Iman applied the same balsam to us, as he does to children after circumcision; and we all ...
— Candide • Voltaire

... came back into the path and passed directly over my feet. He evidently felt that he had as good a right to the road as I had; he had traveled it many times before me. When I charged upon him with a stick in my hand, he slowly climbed a small balsam fir. ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs

... Miss Schuyler nodded sympathetically. "Now, couldn't you just let us talk to him? The boys have cut his forehead, and Hetty wanted to bring him some balsam. I believe he used ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... the King's rage need be feared in these forests," she said. "The pure breezes here bear balsam. As for the King's rage, there are caves in these woods where a man might hide, snug and warm, for a century. Bush and tree yield fruits and nuts in plenty, for a ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... "Here is balsam of Genesareth, incense from Cape Gardefan, ladanum, cinnamon and silphium, a good thing to put into sauces. There are within Assyrian embroideries, ivories from the Ganges, and the purple cloth of Elissa; and this case of snow contains a bottle of Chalybon, ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert

... 361 "Basmath," meaning "balsam" or "sweet," was no doubt a common woman's name. It occurs as the name of Ishmael's daughter whom Esau married (Gen. xxxvi. 3, 4, 13), and as that of one of Solomon's daughters (1 Kings iv. 15). She may have been the wife of Milcilu, King of Gezer, and pleads for her sons after ...
— Egyptian Literature

... cruel an auto-de-fe, amidst buildings more sumptuous than the palace of Aladdin, fountains more wonderful than the golden water of Parizade, conveyances more rapid than the hippogryph of Ruggiero, arms more formidable than the lance of Astolfo, remedies more efficacious than the balsam of Fierabras. Yet in his magnificent daydreams there was nothing wild, nothing but what sober reason sanctioned. He knew that all the secrets feigned by poets to have been written in the books of enchanters are worthless when compared with the mighty secrets which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the bustard, which the eagle had struck down, but slightly wounded; we washed his hurts with a balsam made of wine, butter, and water, and tied him by the leg in the poultry-yard, as a companion to our ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... deal of interest. The friends parted with mutual good wishes, after exchanging in the Oriental fashion, such gifts as became sages, to whom knowledge was to be supposed dearer than wealth. Barak el Hadgi presented Hartley with a small quantity of the balsam of Mecca, very hard to be procured in an unadulterated form, and gave him at the same time a passport in a peculiar character, which he assured him would be respected by every officer of the Nawaub, should his friend be disposed to accomplish his ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... House, was built and endowed by Hugh Balsam, Bishop of Ely, A.D. 1280; and, in imitation of him, Richard Badew, with the assistance of Elizabeth Burke, Countess of Clare and Ulster, founded Clare Hall in 1326; Mary de St. Paul, Countess of Pembroke, Pembroke ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... the Hermit's letter) "I did my best. I bathed the youth's wound with my healing balsam. I gave him soothing draughts to drink. I sat by his bedside and prayed that the Lord's will might be done through me. And then came a change. A faint color blossomed in his cheeks. His lips trembled; his eyes opened and he looked at me. Then he sighed ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown

... refreshed by a clean and brisk discourse as by the air of Campanian wines; and our faces and our heads may as well be anointed and look pleasant with wit and friendly intercourse as with the fat of the balsam tree; and such a conversation no wise man ever did or ought to reprove. But when the jest hath teeth and nails, biting or scratching our brother,—when it is loose and wanton,—when it is unseasonable, and ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... are many others; the lightning strikes the oaks most of all, but it will strike the pine, the ash, the hemlock, the basswood, and many more. Only two trees have I never seen struck, the balsam and the birch." ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... often to stay all night. There is a great granite boulder up there in the 'Graveyard,' as we used to call it, that's just as good as a house any day. It leans away out on one side, and we built a big bed of balsam boughs under it. Right behind the great rock, to the west, we found a tiny spring, hardly big enough to be called a spring; but we dug it out and stoned up a small reservoir to catch the water. We used to come up in the evening, cook our supper, get our beds ready for ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley

... ride and distance were helping her, sloughing away the dark deadlock to hope and brightness. They left the place exactly as they had found it, except that Cleve plucked the card from the bark of the balsam-tree—Gulden's ace—of—hearts ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... soothing antiseptic gargles are indicated. Later, when the patient is unable to gargle, the inhalation of steam impregnated with the vapour of carbolic acid or friar's balsam, and the application of hot fomentations or a large linseed poultice to the neck may afford relief. When an abscess is formed, it should be opened by means of a fine-pointed pair of sinus forceps, thrust through the soft palate at ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... cropping is to be practised, the mother should have been previously removed. It is quite erroneous, that her licking the wounded edges will be serviceable. On the contrary, it only increases their pain, and deprives the young ones of the best balsam that can be applied—the blood that flows ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... and variety of the trees which rose up in the forest before me. Some had enormous buttress trunks, which sent down rope-like tendrils from their branches in every direction. There was the gigantic balsam-tree, the india-rubber-tree, and many others. Among them were numerous palms—one towering above the rest with its roots shooting out in every direction from eight feet above the ground, and another slender ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... willing to be seen; only at a distance of thirty or forty miles is it seen to stand up above all other peaks. It takes its name from a landslide which occurred many years ago down its steep northern side, or down the neck of the grazing steed. The mane of spruce and balsam fir was stripped away for many hundred feet, leaving a long gray ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs

... have mentioned is a most valuable balsam for wounds, having a peculiar smell, which prevents the attacks of flies, who would otherwise blow the sore and occasion a nest of maggots in a few hours. This oil is very healing, and soon creates a healthy appearance in a bad cut. It is manufactured from the fruit of a ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... Syrup of balsam of tolu, two ounces; the muriate of morphia, two grains; muriatic acid, twenty drops: a teaspoonful twice ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... was indeed a stiff one. At first the trail led through low, flat woods, fragrant with hemlock and balsam; here it was sheltered and warm. But ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... him, a little timidly, and she, too, looked back to the dark blotch of life out on the lake. And as she stood there close beside him, Kazan sniffed at something in the air that was not the scent of blood, nor the perfume of the balsam and spruce. It was a thing that seemed to come to him from the clear stars, the cloudless moon, the strange and beautiful quiet of the night itself. And its presence seemed to be a ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... whisper to you, that, when honest industry raises a family to opulence and honours, its very original lowness sheds lustre on its elevation;—but all its glory fades, when it has given a wound, and denies a balsam, to a man, as humble, and as honest, as your ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman

... this very beauty in it reminded him at times of the vanishing loveliness which results from a mere chance effect—of the sunlight on the green leaves or the flutter of Laura's blue gown against the balsam. In the very intensity of his enjoyment there was at certain instants almost a terrified presentiment; and following this there were periods of flagging impulse when he asked himself indifferently if a life of the emotions brought as its Nemesis an essential incapacity ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... vast intentions of beneficent creation. The valley, glooming low, harbored all the shadows. The air was still, the sky as pellucid as crystal, and where a crag projected boldly from the forests, the growths of balsam fir extending almost to the brink, it seemed as if the myriad fibres of the summit-line of foliage might be counted, so finely drawn, so individual, was each against the azure. Below the boughs the road swept along the crest of the crag and ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock

... best gift to man; his angel and minister of graces innumerable; his gem of many virtues; his casket of jewels; her voice his sweet music; her smiles his brightest day; her kiss the guardian of his innocence; her arms the pale of his safety, the balm of his health, the balsam of his life; her industry, his surest wealth; her economy, his safest steward; her lips, his faithful counselors; her bosom, the softest pillow of his cares; and her prayers, the ablest advocates of heaven's blessings on his ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... half sitting, half lying, on the grassy bank of the stream, supported by a pile of balsam boughs. His long body, in its worn, patched clothing, was pitifully emaciated. His face was ghastly, and deeply marked with the sad lines that grief alone can trace. His hair was white, and yet, somehow, he did not seem aged, except by suffering. ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... feed me, I am hungry, I am red-tongued with desire; Boughs of balsam, slabs of cedar, gummy fagots of the pine, Heap them on me, let me hug them to my eager heart of fire, Roaring, soaring up to heaven as a symbol and a sign. Bring me knots of sunny maple, silver birch and tamarack; Leaping, sweeping, I will lap them with ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... I say, is my Sienna balsam?" said he, laying a deep emphasis on the guttural. This sally was acknowledged with delight by the courtiers. But "Jack" had not been seen or even remembered. Some trick or device was doubtless intended, and the king held himself in readiness for the expected surprise; ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... that Philip the Fair summoned them all to a general assembly at Mechlin. Here they were organized, and formally incorporated under the general supervision of an upper or mother-society of Rhetoric, consisting of fifteen members, and called by the title of "Jesus with the balsam flower." ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the last thing at night. A tried horse should have everything comfortable about him, but carefully avoid any tight bandage round the body. In over-reaches or wounds, warm water was our first application, and plenty of it, to clean all dirt or grit from the wound; then Fryer's balsam and brandy with a clean linen bandage. Our usual allowance of corn to each horse per diem was four quarterns, but more if they required it, and from 14 lbs. to 16 lbs. of hay, eight of which were given at night, at racking-up time, about eight o'clock. Our hours of feeding ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... the hut and came back after a while with a forest of balsam boughs. He made me a bough bed in one corner of the room, spread a blanket over it and laid me on it. After that he rummaged around the place and fished out an iron kettle from a heap of stuff in a corner. Then he took it and went out of the shack, and I heard him ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower

... hearn from Uncle Jered Smith, who visited them while he wuz up on a tower through Maine, a-sellin' balsam ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... teas. Miss Petingill could not have slept without having them beside her, for, as she said, how did she know that she might not be "took sudden" with something, and die for want of a little ginger-balsam or pennyroyal? ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge

... nailed horizontally between two trees, and from this the shelter tent was stretched with its sloping roof to the breeze and its front open toward the pond. There were no balsam or hemlock boughs for the beds, so we gathered armfuls of fallen leaves and pine needles, and spread our blankets on this rude mattress. Arthur and Walter cut wood for the fire. Master Thomas and William busied themselves with the supper. ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... hot mornings; and the corn patch, with the great stumps of the primeval trees standing in it. All around us the silent forest threw its encircling arms, spreading up the slopes, higher and higher, to crown the crests with the little pines and hemlocks and balsam fir. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... had reached our companions the rain set in again and forced us to take shelter under a balsam. When it slackened we moved on and soon came up with Aaron, who had caught his first trout, and, considerably drenched, was making his way toward camp, which one of the party had gone forward to build. After traveling less than ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... removed from the tissue, either by drying or by immersing it in rectified spirits, and then in absolute alcohol, and the alcohol driven off by floating it upon oil of clove or turpentine. The substances used to preserve the tissues are Canada balsam, Dammar balsam, glycerine, Farrant's solution, potassium acetate, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various

... a great consolation to him then, and Providence willed that the first balsam applied to his wounds, after that of time, should come from the hand of one whom he had lashed in his satire. He passed in this way the last months of 1811, and the first two of the following year. Meanwhile his star was about to rise, soon to transform, without any transition, his misty ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... show me about all these things," Billy Button remarked. "To tell the truth I don't know the difference between balsam, fir, spruce, hemlock, larch and some other trees I've ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster

... right, whom he had brought in, was a leading actress of the town—indeed, of the United Kingdom and America, for that matter—a creature in airy clothing, translucent, like a balsam or sea-anemone, without shadows, and in movement as responsive as some highly lubricated, many-wired machine, which, if one presses a particular spring, flies open and reveals its works. The spring in the present case was the artistic commendation she deserved ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... some ridges a little higher where some small pines and beech grew. Now our camp was one place where there was no large timber caused by the stream being dammed by the beaver. Here were some of the real Russian Balsam trees, the most beautiful in shape I had ever seen. They were very dark green, the boughs very thick, and the tree in shape like an inverted top. Our lines of trips led for miles in every direction marked by blazed ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... would warble so sweet 'twas great joy to hear while the discordant croakings and shrill clamours of others might scarce be endured. Here, too, are trees (like the cocos) so beneficent to yield a man food and drink, aye, and garments to cover him; or others (like the maria and balsam trees) that besides their timber do distil medicinal oils, and yet here also are trees so noxious their mere touch bringeth a painful disease of the skin and to sleep in their shadow breedeth sickness and death; here, too, grow all manner of luscious fruits as the ananas ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... annuals are: China aster, alonsoa, balsam, petunia, ricinus, stocks, balloon-vine, martynia, salpiglossis, ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey

... midday sun; In form spontaneous, without regard To law of uniformity, there stand In silent awe, or whispering to the breeze, The sombre fir and melancholy pine. And many a denuded avenue Of varying and considerable width, Cut through the growth of balsam, spruce and pine, Which stands erect and proud on either hand, Attests the swift and desolating force Of ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King

... The main building faces southwest and overlooks the hamlet of Pine Hill, down the Shandaken Valley to Big Indian. The mountains, "grouped like giant kings" in the distance are Slide Mountain, Panther Mountain, Table and Balsam Mountains. Panther Mountain, directly over Big Indian Station, with Atlas-like shoulders, being nearer, seems higher, and is often mistaken for Slide Mountain. Table Mountain, to the right of the Slide, is the divide between the east branch of ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce

... common scene, nothing rarely beautiful about it. Fog enclosed the earth. There was no sky. But I had known it as a boy, this same kind of a picture, and it went to this poor tired heart of mine and was like balsam to a wound. By Jove, it is balsam! These hills are for the healing of men. I have been here three days and have taken more exercise than in three months—walking and climbing; beside the creek lined with great sycamores—alluvial ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... doctrine—at once historical doctrine and doctrinal history. Hence its enchaining, ever fresher, and younger charm. Yes, parable is nature's own language in the human heart; hence its universal intelligibility, its, so to speak, permanent sweet scent, its healing balsam, its mighty power to win one to come again and again to hear. In short, the parable is the voice of the people, and hence also the voice of God.—Die Gleichniss-reden Jesu Christi, von Fred. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... and my sinning, Move my friend to speak to me, By his words of kindness winning, Never as an enemy. Who reproves in love and sadness Is like him, in days of gladness, Who pours balsam over me ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... eyes flashing wildly, piercing bright; Her black hair loose; her rude garb looser still, Yet partly bound with glittering skins of snakes; And panting, staggering ran to Gurnemanz, And thrust into his hands a crystal flask With the scant whisper, "Balsam—for the King!" And on his asking, "Whence this healing balm?" She answered: "Farther than thy thought can guess. For if this balsam fail, then Araby Hath nothing further for the King's relief. Ask me no further. I am weak ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel

... appeased. "How it must hurt the poor things—I won't set it again, but leave them all to the cat; he'll kill them, if he only can get at them." The old lady went to a drawer, unlocked it, brought out some fragments of rags, and a bottle of friar's balsam, which she applied to the Dominie's hand, and then bound it up, scolding him the whole time. "How stupid of you, Mr Dobbs; you know that I was only out for a few minutes. Why didn't you wait—and why did you go to the cupboard? Hav'n't I always told you not to look into ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... country all the way from the village came abruptly to an end, and there was no longer anything for the eye to rest upon but a wilderness of bare trunks rising out of the universal whiteness. Even the incessant dark green of balsam, spruce and gray pine was rare; the few young and living trees were lost among the endless dead, either lying on the ground and buried in snow, or still erect but stripped and blackened. Twenty years before great forest fires had swept through, and the new growth was only pushing its ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... of amethyst. The court in which we watch the jousting is floored with onyx in order to increase the courage of the combatants. In the palace, at night, nothing is burned for light but wicks supplied with balsam....Before our palace stands a mirror, the ascent to which consists of five and twenty steps of porphyry and serpentine." After a description of the gems adorning this mirror, which is guarded night and day by three thousand armed men, ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... seen shining through it, which, entangled in it while in a liquid state, became enclosed as it hardened. [264] I should therefore imagine that, as the luxuriant woods and groves in the secret recesses of the East exude frankincense and balsam, so there are the same in the islands and continents of the West; which, acted upon by the near rays of the sun, drop their liquid juices into the subjacent sea, whence, by the force of tempests, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... the zephyrs perfumed by the pine, The ivy, the balsam, the wild eglantine, But sweeter, O, sweeter superlative were The joys that I tasted in answer to prayer, In answer ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... kindling the oil lamp. Then he pulled a couple of partridges and a cold-stiffened hare out of the bag, which he then threw carelessly in a corner. Whether owing to the dampness of melting snow or the stickiness of fir-balsam on the bottom of the bag, the envelope Stefan had left for him stuck to it and he never saw the telegram that had been sent ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... disappeared through the door leading into the kitchen, returning with one arm piled high with evergreens, the other wound around a small balsam tree. ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester

... however, may be a very neat sylvan affair, provided you are camping where spruce or balsam fir may be easily reached, and in the hot months when bark will "peel"; and you have a day in which to work at a camp. The best bark camps I have ever seen are in the Adirondacks. Some of them are rather elaborate in construction, requiring two or more days' hard ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears

... a land Where the trees together stand Closely as the blades of wheat When the summer is complete. Rolling like an ocean wide Over vale and mountainside, Balsam, hemlock, spruce and pine,— All those mighty trees are mine. There's a river flowing free,— All its waves belong to me. There's a lake so clear and bright Stars shine out of it all night; Rowan-berries round it spread Like a belt of coral red. Never ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke

... remarked. "Perhaps it's in your mail. No odds. Montgomery can complete it, and send it on, just as well as if I had n't been near the place at all. But here's something like two hundred and thirty miles to be done in seven days—and the country in such a state. This is the balsam that the usuring senate pours into captains' wounds. Never mind The time is only too near, when I'll sit in my sumptuous office, retaliating all this on some future Deputy-Assistant-Sub-Inspector. And, in the meantime, this long dusty ride will make a man of me once more. I must start at ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... with Amalia—and that was Josefina. This little creature, white and silent as a snow-drop, sweet as a lily with the innocence of a dove, and the tender melancholy of a moonlight night, was like a delicious, refreshing balsam to his soul—a prey to remorse. How often, when holding her in his arms, he had asked with surprise how such an innocent, pure, divine being could be the child of sin. But that same child caused him fresh cruel ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... their arms, the two young men swung away upon the trail—a wide, much-used trail, which could be followed without difficulty. The warm summer air was fragrant with the scent of balsam, pine, and fern; pine needles carpeted the path; faint forest sounds came to their ears—the call of a loon from a distant lake, the whirr of a partridge, the chatter of a squirrel, the splash of falling water. Waldron took off his straw hat and tucked it under his arm, baring his forehead to ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond

... to him to suppress his voice; he sank half down by the tree and wept, for it was night in his soul: silent, bitter tears flowed, as the blood flows when the heart is transpierced. Who could breathe to him consolation? There lay no balsam in the gentle airs of the clear summer night, in the fragrance of the wood, in the holy, silent spirit ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen

... wonderful, and all the more so that for the last few years the flower-garden, at least, had been allowed to take its own way as to growing and blossoming, and bade fair when they came to be a thicket of balsam, peonies, hollyhocks, and other hardy village favourites. But Ned saw great possibilities of beauty in it, compared with the three-cornered morsel that had been the source of so much enjoyment in Singleton, and having taken Philip into his confidence, there came from time ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson

... essential ingredient (what a pharmacist would call the adhesive "vehicle") of cosmetics. One of the results of this practice in a hot climate must have been the association of a strong aroma of resin or balsam with a living person.[60] Whether or not it was the practice to burn incense to give pleasure to the living is not known. The fact that such a procedure was customary among their successors may mean that it was really ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith

... Raleigh to school. Reports came home that no such boy had ever been taught there. His fellow-students prophesied that Carolina would some day be proud of her gifted son. Up in the mountains the two brothers ploughed, trapped, dug ginseng and climbed the peaks for balsam with hot, steady zeal to earn the little money which was needed to pay for his schooling. The bare cabin grew barer, mother and brothers went hungry many a day, but the pittance was always saved and sent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... the substances used by the Church in certain ceremonies: water, wine, ashes, salt, oil, balsam, incense. Incense, besides representing the divinity of the Son, is likewise the symbol of prayer, 'thus devotio orationis' as it is described by Raban Maur, Archbishop of Mayence in the ninth century. I happen to remember also, a propos of this resin and the censer ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... stopped up, then a good steaming from the kettle. While the dog must have plenty of fresh air, be sure to avoid draughts. When the lungs and bronchial tubes are affected, then put flannels wrung out of hot Arabian balsam around neck and chest, and give suitable doses of cod liver oil. If the disease is principally seated in the intestines, then give once a day a teaspoonful of castor oil, and the dog should be fed with arrow root ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell

... an enamel miniature that always haunted Wayland. "I love it," she said, "the harder it blows, the harder I want to ride! You remember that night coming down the Ridge in the storm? It was like Love and Life! And smell the air, Dick! It has all the sunbeams of the summer imprisoned, done up in balsam fir and balm of gilead and spices! Exchange this life in the open, here, in the very thick of things doing, for that ancient tapestry ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... The BALSAM, Impatiens, Gulmu'hudee, doopatee is not cultivated, or encouraged as it should be in India, where some of the varieties are indigenous. A very rich soil should ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... opening before you, in the far distance faint blue peaks that seem to blend with the horizon scarcely discernible; within the nearer circle of your vision smoothly flowing hills, rising in soft and graceful curves, and from their summits to near their bases, thick with dark pine, hemlock and balsam fir, interspersed with birch, mountain maple and oak resembling a vast sea of emerald; within the rising hills a large space with velvety meadows, rich with the color of the Oxeye daisy and first golden rods; and brooding over it all, that indescribable misty veil of purplish ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... Harriet, I must abide in the conviction that we manufacture misery for ourselves which was never appointed for us; and because Mercy, unfailing and unbounded, out of these very miseries of our own making, draws blessed balsam for our use, I cannot believe that it ordained and inflicted all ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... disease. He was so emaciated that he couldn't carry a watch. The ticking of the watch rattled his bones so that it made him nervous, and at night they had to pack him in cotton so that he wouldn't break a leg when he turned over. He got to sleeping out nights on a bed of balsam and spruce boughs ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... the cake, inventing devices, with the aid of scraps of telegraph wire, as supports for the upper decorations, decorating the house with cedar and balsam wreaths, and providing as good a dinner as it was possible to obtain in the woods. With the exception of having nothing for our guests to drink, we succeeded tolerably well. Being within the limits ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon

... balsam 3 drachms; gum sandric 3 drachms; spirits of wine 1/2 pint. Dissolve the balsam and gum in the spirits of wine and it is ready ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young

... me last night, suh!" declared the Southern boy; "but I've got a hunch I can sleep just as sound on balsam." ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas

... passing a latticed gateway that closed in a narrow court, I caught the odour of wild sweet balsam. I do not know now where it came from, or what could have caused it—but it stopped me short where I stood, and the solid brick walls of that city rolled aside like painted curtains, and the iron streets dissolved before my eyes, and with the curious dizziness of nostalgia, I was myself ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson

... Gargantua made a present of them to the great King of Paris. But by change of air, and for want of mustard (the natural balsam and restorer of Chitterlings), most of them died. By the great king's particular grant they were buried in heaps in a part of Paris to this day called La Rue pavee d'Andouilles, the street paved with ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... has it, the wealth of this country was so great that the people wore gold for clothes, it being their custom to smear their bodies with oil of balsam, and then sprinkle themselves with gold-dust, till they looked ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 41, August 19, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... of climbing to call into exercise long unused muscles, the granite blocks are rough, angular and irregular enough to exercise eyes, hands and feet to keep one from falling, and the lungs are filled with balsam-ladened mountain-air, fresh from God's own perfect laboratories, healing, vivifying, rejuvenating, strengthening, while the heart is helped on and encouraged to pump more and more of its blood, drawn from long almost quiescent cells ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... stand alone, I do not mean is every branchlet stiff as if galvanized, like a balsam, for this is by no means pretty, but is the plant so constructed that it can languish gracefully, petunia fashion, and not fall over stark and prone like an uprooted castor bean. Hybridization, like physical culture in the human, has evidently infused grace in the plant ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... after awhile it came to Marjorie what he meant—just about the time she climbed out of the car, sat on its step, and watched Francis competently unfurling and setting up two small and seemingly inadequate tents and flooring them with balsam boughs. He meant that there would have to be at least a semblance of friendliness on account of the people they lived among. She felt ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer

... noon shall find me laid In the pungent balsam shade, Where sharp breezes spring and shiver On some deep rough-coasted river, And the plangent waters come, Amber-hued and streaked with foam; Where beneath the sunburnt hills All day long the crowded mills With remorseless champ and scream Overlord the sluicing ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman

... of the second of this month was rather a harsh medicine; but I was delighted with that spontaneous tenderness, which, a few days afterwards, sent forth such balsam as your next brought me. I found myself for some time so ill that all I could do was to preserve a decent appearance, while all within was weakness and distress. Like a reduced garrison that has some spirit ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... a deep breath of the pervading fragrance, a tang of resin and balsam, a barky smell of clean earth-mould and moss, an odor as of some illusive frankincense proffered from the vesper chalices and censer ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut



Words linked to "Balsam" :   balsam of tolu, balsam herb, balsam pear, Western balsam poplar, balsam woolly aphid, balsam family, balm, balsamic, seed plant, balsam of Peru, Peruvian balsam, Canada balsam, tolu balsam, balsamy, balsam willow, balsam poplar, unguent, balsam-scented, spermatophyte, tolu balsam tree, tolu, balsam fir, ointment, balsam apple, unction, salve, phanerogam, balsam capivi, orange balsam, copaiba balsam



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com