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Cul-de-sac   Listen
noun
Cul-de-sac  n.  (pl. culs-de-sac)  
1.
A passage with only one outlet, as a street closed at one end; a blind alley; hence, a trap.
2.
(Mil.) A position in which an army finds itself with no way of exit but to the front.
3.
(Anat.) Any bag-shaped or tubular cavity, vessel, or organ, open only at one end.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cul-de-sac" Quotes from Famous Books



... Power felt that he had wandered into a cul-de-sac. He had found his way into one of those branch avenues leading from the great road of his imperial success. He was man enough to know when ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... sides, at all points, facing each other, exactly twenty yards.' The diary goes on to state that they explored three chasms, and that in a fissure of the third of these Peters discovered some 'singular-looking indentures in the surface of the black marl forming the termination of the cul-de-sac.' It is surmised by Pym and Peters that the first of these indentures is possibly the intentional representation of a human figure standing erect, with outstretched arm; and that the rest of them bore a resemblance to alphabetical characters—such, ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... Powers, which provided Belgium with the strongest and most unequivocal guarantees respecting her territorial integrity. Provided these guarantees were observed faithfully, the closing of the Scheldt by Holland in time of war, the critical situation on the Eastern frontier created by the indefensible cul-de-sac of Dutch Limburg, and the supremacy in Luxemburg of a foreign Power, did not seriously jeopardize the country's security. The treaties of 1839 were considered as forming a whole, the moral safeguard of guaranteed neutrality counterbalancing, ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts

... discovering it to be really no passage at all. It was a brave blind alley, where to pass was impossible and where, unless they stuck fast, they would have—which was always awkward—publicly to back out. They were touching bottom assuredly tonight; the whole scene represented the terminus of the cul-de-sac. So could things go when there was a hand to keep them consistent—a hand that pulled the wire with a skill at which the elder man more and more marvelled. The elder man felt responsible, but he also felt successful, since what had taken place ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... though since early morning he had sought diligently a way out of this cul-de-sac he was no nearer to liberty than at the moment the first bellowing gryf had charged him as he stooped over the carcass of his kill: but with the falling of night came renewed hope for, in common with the great cats, Tarzan was, to a greater or lesser extent, ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... a sub-prefecture with about ten thousand inhabitants. Built on a plateau overlooking the Viorne, and resting on the north side against the Garrigues hills, one of the last spurs of the Alps, the town is situated, as it were, in the depths of a cul-de-sac. In 1851 it communicated with the adjoining country by two roads only, the Nice road, which runs down to the east, and the Lyons road, which rises to the west, the one continuing the other on almost parallel lines. Since that time a railway has been ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... carriages and cars, and presently he found what he sought,—her limousine. He had taken the number into his mind too keenly to be mistaken. He saw the end of his difficulties; and he went about the affair with his usual directness. It was only at rare times that he ran his head into a cul-de-sac. If her chauffeur was regularly employed in her service, he would have to return to the hotel; but if he came from the garage, there was hope. Every man is said to have his price, and a French chauffeur might prove no notable exception to ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... making their way through the darkness easier. They had evidently been busy breaking up case and keg, starting the brands thoroughly in the fire, and keeping them well alight by their bearers brandishing them to and fro as they advanced, with the full intent of driving the Spaniards into some cul-de-sac among the ancient workings of the mine, and there bayoneting them or forcing them ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn

... thorough knowledge of what she was about. We had now been walking for more than three hours, and had apparently only got half way up a kind of gorge in the mountains, which seemed to become gradually narrower and narrower, and from all appearances afforded every prospect of terminating in a 'cul-de-sac'. A watercourse must at some period have run down this ravine, for the boulders were rounded; but it was now quite dry. As the sides of the mountains drew nearer, our path led along this watercourse, ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... and he found himself in a cul-de-sac. The street was filled from house-wall to house-wall with an immense mass of broken stone, brick, and other debris. The cause ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... saw that Brecqhou would be impossible to us, and moreover must prove but a cul-de-sac if we got there, for at best there were but two sick men there, and they could give us no help. The house indeed might offer us shelter for a time, but the end would only be delayed. So I edged off from Brecqhou, thinking to run for Havre Gosselin, and then, with senses quickened to the occasion, ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... gone by the time she rang off. I felt, instead, a sort of relaxation that was most comforting. The rear hall, a cul-de-sac of nervousness in the daytime and of horror at night, was suddenly transformed by the light of my lamp into a warm and cheerful refuge from the darkness of the lower floor. The purring of the cat, comfortably settled on the telephone-stand, was ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... and north spread the Cul-de-Sac—a plain of unequalled richness, extending to the foot of the mountains, fifteen miles into the interior. The sun had not yet risen so high but that these mountains cast a deep shadow for some distance into the plain, while their skirts were dark with coffee-groves, ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... and I found the Ecole Feminine in the Boulevard Beausejour all and more than Mlle. Thompson had taken the time to portray in detail. The entrance was at the side of the house and one approached it through a large gateway which led to a cul-de-sac lined with villas and filled with beautiful old trees that enchanted my eye. I cursed those trees later but at the moment they almost decided me before I ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... ordered up, and at daylight countermarched two miles. Halted all day. Bivouacked in a cul-de-sac of the Conedoguinet Creek, at a place called Orr's Bridge. Day warm and pleasant. ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood



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