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Cushion   Listen
noun
Cushion  n.  
1.
A case or bag stuffed with some soft and elastic material, and used to sit or recline upon; a soft pillow or pad. "Two cushions stuffed with straw, the seat to raise."
2.
Anything resembling a cushion in properties or use; as:
(a)
A pad on which gilders cut gold leaf;
(b)
A mass of steam in the end of the cylinder of a steam engine to receive the impact of the piston;
(c)
The elastic edge of a billiard table.
3.
A riotous kind of dance, formerly common at weddings; called also cushion dance.
Cushion capital.(Arch.)
(a)
A capital so sculptured as to appear like a cushion pressed down by the weight of its entablature.
(b)
A name given to a form of capital, much used in the Romanesque style, modeled like a bowl, the upper part of which is cut away on four sides, leaving vertical faces.
Cushion star (Zool.) a pentagonal starfish belonging to Goniaster, Astrogonium, and other allied genera; so called from its form.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cushion" Quotes from Famous Books



... flash to and fro. He noted the strong white teeth as they snipped the thread. At length the task was done, and she jabbed the needle into a cushion, folded ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... countries, and richly colored Colorado flowers. Once, when Eastern guests were invited to luncheon, twenty-three varieties of wildflowers, each massed in its own color, adorned the home. A friend of hers says: "There is not an artificial flower in the house, on embroidered table-cover or sofa cushion or tidy; indeed, Mrs. Jackson holds that the manufacture of silken poppies and crewel sun-flowers is a 'respectable industry,' intended only to keep ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... with a patchwork quilt, generally the work of the wife when a girl; a bureau was decorated with the few books possessed by the family—usually a Bible, almanac, and photograph album—the best cups and saucers, a looking-glass and a pin-cushion; an old-fashioned roomy sofa filled another corner. The dining-table in the centre had extension leaves, very far from level; the wall was decorated with a big clock, a couple of bright-coloured prints, ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon

... editor was pleasant, a little patronising, it is true, but polite and invariably good-tempered. He usually received his contributors reclining at full length on his sofa, his head, with its beautifully cut features, resting against a cushion and his comfortable little stomach protruding. He was scarcely of medium height, quick in everything he did, very clear, a little flat; very eloquent, but taking somewhat external views; pleased at the great favour he enjoyed among the Copenhagen bourgeoisie. If he ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... this log when long, ambitious thoughts possessed her. The snow had been removed, and a cushion of moss, also bare of snow, made a resting place for two small feet, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... familiar, therefore comfortable and soporific. I leaned back and languidly scanned the scene; eyes halfshut, senses half-awake. An Arab sheikh passed swiftly with his curtained harem; and then went filing by in orderly and bright array a number of Mahommedans, the first of them bearing on a cushion of red velvet, and covered with a cloth of scarlet and gold, a dead child to burial. Down from the colossal tanks built in the mountain gorges that were old when Mahomet was young, there came donkeys bearing great leathern bottles such as the Israelites carried in their forty years' sojourning. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Gerard, "but for all that, Gerard Eliassoen of Tergou was the name the herald shouted. I stood stupid; they thrust me forward. Everything swam before my eyes. I found myself kneeling on a cushion at the feet of the Duke. He said something to me, but I was so fluttered I could not answer him. So then he put his hand to his side, and did not draw a glaive and cut off my dull head, but gave me a gold medal, and there it is." There was ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... with the natives, wives and fathers, young men and maidens, some of them in little more than nightgear, some with stable lanterns, and all offering beds for sale. Their charge began with twenty-five cents a cushion, but fell, before the train went on again, to fifteen, with the bed-board gratis, or less than one-fifth of what I had paid for mine at the Transfer. This is my contribution to the economy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Madame Dambreuse in a rocking armchair. Her dress of lilac taffeta had slashed sleeves, from which fell muslin puffs, the charming tint of the material harmonising with the shade of her hair; and she sat slightly thrown back with the tip of her foot on a cushion, with the repose of an exquisitely delicate work of art, a flower of ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... old racing mare that I used as a riding hack, following the team. In a minute I had her saddled and bridled; I tied the end of a half-full chaff-bag, shook the chaff into each end and dumped it on to the pommel as a cushion or buffer for Jim; I wrapped him in a blanket, and scrambled into the saddle ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... other boat?" said Pryce, "and Miss Nora, will you have a cushion in the bows? Now I think we're made up. No—we want another lady. And running his eyes over those still standing on the bank, he called a plump little woman, the wife of a Llandaff tutor, who had ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... some other outside container; some good insulating or packing material; an inside container for the kettle, or a lining for the nest in which the kettle is placed; a kettle for holding the food; and a cushion, or pad, of insulating material, to cover the ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... at me," quoth he, untying the string of the parcel. "It is not a roll of velvet for a dress, and it is not a roll of parchment, conferring twenty thousand pounds a year. But it is—an air cushion!" ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... Philip was sitting on the floor in the drawing-room at Miss Watkin's house in Onslow gardens. He was an only child and used to amusing himself. The room was filled with massive furniture, and on each of the sofas were three big cushions. There was a cushion too in each arm-chair. All these he had taken and, with the help of the gilt rout chairs, light and easy to move, had made an elaborate cave in which he could hide himself from the Red Indians who were lurking behind the curtains. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... said Mrs. Jarvis, shifting the cushion at her back, and clasping her hands behind her head. Betty Flanders did not hear, for her scissors made so much noise on ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... in that mood, Mab, down goes your work," said Amy. "It would be doing something good to finish your cushion without ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... with his cloak on, placed a manuscript "fresh from the mint" under the cushion, sat down, took out his pocket-handkerchief, applied it vigorously, and ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... bhulka. This is placed in a handee of water, which, as it gets hot, is changed. The head of the still is luted on to the body, and the long arm of the tube in the bhulka is also well provided with a cushion of cloth, so as to keep in all vapour. The boiler is let into an earthen furnace, and the whole is ready for operation. There is such a variety of rose-water manufactured in the bazar, and so much that bears the name, ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... with a rich pall of black velvet studded with silver tulips and elaborately fringed with silver and pearls. On the second step of the throne was placed the kneeling-stool of the Infanta, with its cushion of cloth of silver tissue, and below that again, and beyond the limit of the canopy, stood the chair for the Papal Nuncio, who alone had the right to be seated in the King's presence on the occasion of any public ceremonial, and whose Cardinal's hat, with its tangled scarlet tassels, lay ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde

... ELECTRICITY.—While electricity has no resiliency, like a spring, for instance, still it acts in the manner of a cushion under certain conditions. It may be likened to an oscillating spring acted upon by ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... the lips that said it, and the eyes of the speaker were full of unshed tears, as if the heart rebelled a little, while a sigh stole up and was breathed out wearily. She sat in the full glow of the firelight, a patient, gentle woman, and on a low cushion at her feet was a young girl with her face hidden in her hands and ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... curtains, etc. Heart shaped paper baskets, boxes or envelopes are given to each hunter, to put the hearts in. The one finding the greatest number of hearts receives a heart shaped prize, such as a box of bon-bons, pin tray or cushion, photo frame, blotter, pen wiper, needle book, trinket box, ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain

... have tea. I expect to be treated like a favoured guest in all things, and I mean to take this arm-chair, and the nice soft cushion for my feet, for I warn you, Kate, I'm here for two hours. I've an immense deal to tell you, and I'll not ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... shake. The effect upon the group in the parlor, leaning forward in awed expectation to catch the message from beyond, was upsetting, literally and figuratively. Miss Tamson Black, perched upon the slippery cushion of a rickety and unstable music stool, slid to the floor with a most unspiritual thump and a shrill squeal. Primmie clutched her next-door neighbor—it chanced to be Mr. Augustus Cabot—by the middle of the waistcoat, and hers was no light clutch. Mr. Abel Harding shouted several words at the top ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... pillion; side saddle, pack saddle; pommel. bed, berth, pallet, tester, crib, cot, hammock, shakedown, trucklebed^, cradle, litter, stretcher, bedstead; four poster, French bed, bunk, kip, palang^; bedding, bichhona, mattress, paillasse^; pillow, bolster; mat, rug, cushion. footstool, hassock; tabouret^; tripod, monopod. Atlas, Persides, Atlantes^, Caryatides, Hercules. V. be supported &c; lie on, sit on, recline on, lean on, loll on, rest on, stand on, step on, repose on, abut ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... a cushion under his head. His eyes were open, gazing up with their former gentle expression; more sad now, I fancied, since the great human machine he had controlled ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... the gentleman who preached to the boys. I cannot get papa to tell me how he preached, and must draw my own conclusion from his silence. He will only admit that the pew was very comfortable and the cushion soft, and as he was kept awake all last night by mosquitoes, the inference to be drawn is not difficult. I have since been employed in arranging my leaves in a blotting-book, which I got at Boston for that purpose, and as it is late ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter

... kneels at morn, and noon, and eve— He hath a cushion plump: It is the moss that wholly hides The ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... people. Pieces of linen are said to have been found attaching to some of the skeletons in the tombs; and the sun-dried brick which supports the head is sometimes covered with the remains of a "tasselled cushion of tapestry;" but otherwise we are without direct evidence either as to the material in use, or as to the character of the fabric. In later times Babylon was especially celebrated for its robes and its carpets. Such evidence as we have would seem to make it probable that ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson

... the shells don't all come off the eggs and leave the feathers sticking out for a sofa cushion, I'll tell you next how the other little pig got ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis

... the firelight changes now," said Ezra, "an' seems as if I wuz in the old frame meetin'-house. The meetin'-house is on the hill, and meetin' begins at half-pas' ten. Our pew is well up in front—seems as if I could see it now. It has a long red cushion on the seat, and in the hymn-book rack there is a Bible an' a couple of Psalmodies. We walk up the aisle slow, and Mother goes in first; then comes Mary, then me, then Helen, then Amos, and then Father. Father thinks it is jest ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... signorile in spite of the coarse brick floor and the ugly doors and lumpy walls. Some large dauby old paintings gave a color to the dimness, there were a fine old oak secretary black with age, a real bishop's carved stool with a red cushion laid on it, and a long window opening on to a view of the wide plain with its circling mountains and its many cities and paesetti—Perugia shining white from the neighboring hill; Spello and Spoleto ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... in a corner of the carriage with his bottle resting on his knee, and gripped as tightly in his hand as if he would have ground its neck to powder if he could. Instinctively attracted by the night, he had laid aside the pack of cards upon the cushion; and with the same involuntary impulse, so intelligible to both of them as not to occasion a remark on either side, his companion had extinguished the lamp. The front glasses were down; and they sat looking silently out upon the gloomy scene ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... women are also able to produce the orgasm, when in a state of sexual excitement, by placing a cushion between the knees and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... was buried there, his heart being only interred here. The tomb is of Purbeck marble, and is a fine example of the Early English style. The bishop is represented as in the act of benediction, with a pastoral staff, and in full pontificals; his head is shown as resting on a cushion, and is surmounted by a trefoil arch with a crocketed gable, and a censer-bearing angel ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous

... couch, or bed, for preventing the uneasy motions of a ship or a carriage, has recently been invented. To effect this, the frame of the seat or couch is suspended on juribals or joints, turning at right angles to each other, and an elasticity is produced both in the seat or cushion, and in the swinging frames, by the use of spiral metal springs. These springs are made by twisting steel or iron wire into the form of an hour glass, that is, like two cones united at their apices. The lower points of their springs are to be sown to the canvass or webbing, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various

... drawers built up against the picture-papered wall behind it. Through much use the paint on these drawers was worn off in circles round the polished brass knobs. Here was stored almost every small article required by humanity, from an inflamed emery cushion to a peppermint Gibraltar—the latter a kind of adamantine confectionery which, when I reflect upon it, raises in me the wonder that any Portsmouth boy or girl ever reached the age of fifteen with a single tooth left unbroken. The proprietors of these little ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... his remarks Miss Anthony suggested that the Reverend gentleman doubtless belonged to the pin-cushion ministry, educated by women's sowing societies! which, on inquiry, proved true. It was almost always the case that the "poor but pious" young man, who had studied his profession at the expense of women, proved most narrow and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... in a ride in that clumsy old vehicle, nor dreamed that its halting, uncertain gait was other than the very poetry of motion! Even mother's own wooden rocking-chair, a bit of boughten elegance, with its gay patchwork cushion, and dull, contented "creak! creak!" as its dear occupant swayed meditatively to and fro, knitting in hand, in the quiet, restful gloaming, was not quite equal to that dear, delightful old cradle, for a good brisk canter to "Banbury Cross," or to the famous hunting ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various

... edge of crossness in her Danny's voice. She went to him, smoothed the spotless cushion at his back and put a ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... Kingstown pier on a wet morning—let us say on an average morning; for according to the statement of well-informed natives, the Irish day is more often rainy than otherwise. A hideous obelisk, stuck upon four fat balls, and surmounted with a crown on a cushion (the latter were no bad emblems perhaps of the monarch in whose honor they were raised), commemorates the sacred spot at which George IV. quitted Ireland: you are landed here from the steamer; and a carman, who is dawdling in the neighborhood, with a straw in his mouth, comes leisurely up to ask ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... said the experienced Mullins, 'or his pulse wouldn't act. 'Tisn't a fit or he'd snort and twitch. It can't be sunstroke, this term, and he hasn't been over-training for anything.' He opened Winton's collar, packed a cushion under his head, threw a rug over him and sat down to listen to the regular breathing. Before long Stalky arrived, on pretence of borrowing a book. He looked ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... own set, a never-failing source of sarcasm and ridicule in the Spanish fashion of Miss Montenero's dress, especially her long veils—veils were not then in fashion, and Lady Anne of course pronounced them to be hideous. It was at this time, in England, the reign of high heads: a sort of triangular cushion or edifice of horsehair, suppose nine inches diagonal, three inches thick, by seven in height, called I believe a toque or a system, was fastened on the female head, I do not well know how, with black pins a quarter of a yard long; and upon and over this system, the hair was erected, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... as mischievous as a young monkey,—meddlesome, full of curiosity, and so jealous, that it will drive any other pet bird out of the house. It dislikes to be caged, preferring the freedom of the room, so that it may look in the looking-glass, take pins off from the cushion, or perch on the ...
— The Nursery, March 1878, Vol. XXIII. No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... old man," said The Master in mild reproach. "You might at least have given me a cushion ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... do not, however, find the piscina in our churches of an era earlier than the twelfth century, and even then it was of uncommon occurrence; but in the thirteenth century the general introduction is observable. In Romsey Church, Hampshire, is the shaft and basin (the latter cushion-shaped) of a curious Norman piscina: this is now lying loose, in a dilapidated state. In the south apsis of the same church is another Norman piscina, consisting of a quadrangular-shaped basin projecting from the south wall; and ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam

... the dressing-table stood, and where the wax-candles burnt on the wall, I found Miss Havisham and Estella; Miss Havisham seated on a settee near the fire, and Estella on a cushion at her feet. Estella was knitting, and Miss Havisham was looking on. They both raised their eyes as I went in, and both saw an alteration in me. I derived that, from the ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... said Milly, looking out and clapping her hands. And it was a pretty garden they could see from the window. An up-and-down garden, with beds full of bright flowers, and grass which was nearly all moss, and so soft that no cushion could be softer. In the distance they could hear a little splish-splash among the trees, which came, Milly supposed, from the river mother had told them about; while, reaching up all round the house, so that ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... foot which fell upon the flowers no heavier than a dew-drop—and this charming person set off by the most elegant toilet that ever milliner devised! The lovely Helen's hair (which was as black as the finest varnish for boots) was so long, that it was borne on a cushion several yards behind her by the maidens of her train; and a hat, set off with moss-roses, sunflowers, bugles, birds-of-paradise, gold lace, and pink ribbon, gave her a distingue air, which would have set the editor of the Morning ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... fellow has become so tame, that he is allowed to stay out of his cage as long as he wishes, always going to it of his own accord when bedtime comes. One day I found no pins on my pin-cushion; and, seeing them scattered around on the bureau, I wondered who could have done the mischief. I soon found, by watching, that it ...
— The Nursery, No. 106, October, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... it! The chairs were so superb that I should insult them by sitting down! The sofas swelled in such luxurious state that for an author to breathe upon them would be contamination! I made the daring experiment of pressing with a single finger upon the proud cushion, and the moment the pressure was removed it rose again with elastic arrogance; an apt prototype of the dignity it was meant to sustain.—Though alone, I ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... themselves forbidden to think or talk, and this forbidding had a sufficient effect to make them take refuge in indifference. It's the President's job. He's our leader. He'll attend to this matter. We must not embarrass him. On this easy cushion of non-responsibility the great masses fell back at their intellectual and moral ease—softened, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... shires of Northampton, Oxford, and Bedford, chiefly by children and young persons, who complain universally of bad food, and rarely taste meat. The employment itself is most unwholesome. The children work in small, ill-ventilated, damp rooms, sitting always bent over the lace cushion. To support the body in this wearying position, the girls wear stays with a wooden busk, which, at the tender age of most of them, when the bones are still very soft, wholly displace the ribs, and make narrow chests universal. They usually die of consumption after suffering the severest forms ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... whole batch of loaves be stuffed in one saddle-bag? The loaves are flat and circular like a pancake. The dough is spread on a kind of cushion, the woman takes up the cushion with the dough on it, pushes it through the opening and slaps the dough on the inner wall of a big mud oven (out of doors) that has been heated with a fire of twigs, and in a minute ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews

... morning in an office suit effect of clinging grey with a gold necktie pin shaped like a riding whip. You have seen him often enough going down to the lake front after supper, in tennis things, smoking a cigarette and with a paddle and a crimson canoe cushion under his arm. You have seen him entering Dean Drone's church in a top hat and a long frock coat nearly to his feet. You have seen him, perhaps, playing poker in Peter Glover's room over the hardware ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock

... fairly rapid and it leaves the stone (which is reversed to make the opposite side) round in form and with a rounding top and cone-shaped back. Stones of fancy shape, such as square, or cushion shape, have to be formed in part by hand rubbing or "bruting" as it ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade

... particular examples. I may, however, name, as two of her best for other qualities as well, "Gift," and "Poems." The latter contains two of her quick strokes of observation and comparison: the morning "like the inside of a snow-apple," and she herself curled "cushion-shaped" in the window-seat. ...
— Poems By a Little Girl • Hilda Conkling

... will," agreed Bert. "And we'll put some carpet on the top of the main board, for a cushion for some of the girls." His chum agreed that this would be a good plan, and so the bob was made very attractive for ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope

... Mr. Galloway could tell. He put his two hands upon his knees, and stared in consternation, feeling himself grow hot and cold alternately. Could Roland—then whirling along in the train, reclining at his ease, his legs up on the opposite cushion as he enjoyed a luxurious pipe, to the inestimable future benefit of the carriage—have taken a view of Mr. Galloway and his discomfiture, his delight ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... relief as they saw his bulky figure struggling wildly to draw himself up over the high back of the sleigh. It was no easy task, but Peter's great strength availed him. They saw him climb over and stand upon the cushion, then, for a moment, he looked down ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... sank back upon the morocco cushion of the easy-chair, and he looked languidly at his ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... don't look out. You may possibly get to Rome on the only mule that you say you have left, since you have eaten up your pack horse. Your seat in the school, as second master, will be next to mine: the honour of a cushion will ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... packed the remains of the food. Then arm in arm they tottered to the boat, I trust you have not got an illness my darling murmured Bernard as he helped her in, Oh no I am very strong said Ethel I fainted from joy she added to explain matters. Oh I see said Bernard handing her a cushion well some people do ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford

... who stood laughing in his doorway, called after her, and Biddy came back. He led her through the hall, into a very pleasant room. There was an open fire, a bright rug in front of it, a mocking-bird in a cage in the window, and a beautiful lady sitting in an arm-chair, with her feet on a cushion. The lady was pale; her hands were thin and white; there were crutches beside her chair; but she looked as if she were very happy; and when she smiled at Biddy, Biddy could not have told why she felt as if her heart was ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... bazaars, and every one was intensely interested. It was several seconds before the three free children could make Mrs Biddle understand that what she was walking on was not a schoolroom floor, or even, as she presently supposed, a dropped pin-cushion, but the living hand of a suffering child. When she became aware that she really had hurt him, she grew very angry indeed. When people have hurt other people by accident, the one who does the hurting is always much ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit

... along the terrace, leaning heavily upon his stick, and sank with a little sigh of relief into one of the cushion-laden wicker chairs. I watched him lean back with half-closed eyes; and I realized then what an effort this walk must have been to him. Before me the great front doors stood open, and with the familiarity of close neighborship, I passed into the cool shaded hall, with its palms and flowers, its ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... good little thing,' I observed, as the child reluctantly withdrew to her dreary post, after a longing look at the table, while Miss Locke placed a rocking-chair with a faded green cushion by the fire, and opened the oven door to inspect the cake. 'It is dull work for the little creature to be so much in the sick-room. It is hardly a ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... from the earliest times were especially abundant in the Roman community. Such were those enactments of the Twelve Tables, which prohibited the anointing of a dead body by persons hired for the purpose, the dressing it out with more than one cushion or more than three purple-edged coverings, the decorating it with gold or gaudy chaplets, the use of dressed wood for the funeral pile, and the perfuming or sprinkling of the pyre with frankincense or myrrh-wine; which limited ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... also when he was at home; for he had known her from childhood, and liked to watch the graceful girlish form as she read quietly while he worked at his music. The deep window-seat was panelled in painted deal, and along the side of it hung a faded cushion, which could be turned over on to the sill when the sash was thrown up, so as to form a rest for the arms of anyone who desired to look out on a ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... became wary. He watched Bergstrom closely. After a minute, however, he seemed satisfied, and he let himself settle back against the cushion of his chair. "I remember nothing of what I saw," ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet

... never think of you as walking," I said, taking one of the crutches that leaned against the tree. The part which fitted under the arm was covered with a cushion of blue velvet, and the rosewood staff was mounted with silver. "You manage these so gracefully, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... study in the vast picture-book which the dear God spreads open before us! Yes, the gentleman may believe me, we make the right sort of fellows, who know how to preach to the peasants from the pulpit and to bang the cushion, so that the clodpoles down below are ready to burst with ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... weather; the curls are fuzzy and evidently baked in; it requires a durable veil to keep it in countenance. Evan calls it the "rasher of bacon front." No. 3 is for calling and all entertainments where the bonnet stays on; it has a baby bang edge a trifle curled and a substantial cushion atop to hold the hat pins; while No. 4, the one she wore on our arrival, is an elaborate evening toupie with a pompadour rolling over on itself and drooping slightly over one eye while it melts into a butterfly bow and handful ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... head, with one basket before her and the other behind. At all times the woman wears on her head beneath her burden a small grass ring 5 or 6 inches in diameter, called a "ki'-kan." Its chief function is that of a cushion, though when her burden is a fang'-a of water the ki'-kan becomes also a base — without which the round-bottomed olla could not be balanced on her head without the support ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... low. The wheels are not bigger than those of an ordinary dog-cart, and the seat is only designed for one person, though on a pinch it can accommodate two. Generally it consists of a plank covered with a cushion, extending lengthwise in the same direction as the horse, so that the rider sits astride of it as if riding on horseback; some, however, have been modernized so as to afford a more convenient seat in the usual way. Night and day these droskys ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... many a thump and knock—it was a perfectly innocuous piece of furniture, clumsy of build, but solid and absolutely devoid of anything that could explain the tragedies which had occurred so near it. I even sat down on its musty old cushion and shut my eyes, but was unrewarded by alarming visions, or disturbance of any sort. Nor did the floor where it had stood yield any better results to the inquiring eye. Nothing was to be seen there but the marks left by the removal of its base ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... in which she was lying looked westward. She lay on the sofa with her face to the wall, fingering the buttons of the leather cushion and seeing nothing but that cushion, and her confused thoughts were centered on one subject—the irrevocability of death and her own spiritual baseness, which she had not suspected, but which had shown itself during her father's illness. She wished to pray but ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... pillow is put straight under Ned's dark curls, though he is so helpless she has to raise his head with one arm and arrange the cushion with the other; then the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... rested upon the cushion of the divan from which he had just risen. He appeared perfectly calm. It was evident that his strength had been gradually undermined by illness, but his voice seemed yet powerful, as he said in English, and in a tone which evinced ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... a red cover, a red cushion, crimson draperies, and scarlet ribbons, are all notoriously pleasing to monsieur—why ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... lay like a dead body on the bed, counting the throbs of her heart. It helped her to fall into a state of insensibility. When she awoke, the room was dark; she felt that some one had put a silken cushion across her limbs. The noise of a storm traversing the vale rang through the castle, and in the desolation of her soul, that stealthy act of kindness wrought in her till she almost fashioned a vow upon her lips that she would leave the world ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... was halting, she met his gaze with modest sincerity. Slowly his chin sank into the roll of flesh puffed out under it like a cushion. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... for indeed the Prophet (whom Allah bless and keep!) enjoineth honour to the stranger, more especially when the stranger is sick." Then he carried him home and went in with him to his wife and bade her tend him. So she spread him a sleeping rug and set a cushion under his head, then warmed water for him and washed therewith his hands and feet and face. Meanwhile, the Stoker went to the market and bought some rose water and sugar, and sprinkled Zau al-Makan's face with the water and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... front and attached to the hoods. The driver sits on the bow directly behind the shaft-horse, and one part of his duty is to keep from falling off. The traveler spreads his baggage inside as evenly as possible to form a bed or cushion. Angular pieces should be discarded, as the corners are disagreeable when jolted against one's sides. Two shafts are fixed in the forward axle, and a horse between them forms a sort of point d'appui. Any number from one ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... construction of pleasing arrangements of colour and form for surface decoration. "We shall use it in its full popular significance in constructive work.... The term will cover building houses, making kettles, laying out streets, planning rooms, dressing hair, as well as making patterns for cushion covers and cathedral windows.... In thus widening our art studies, we shall be harking back in a slight degree to the kind of training that in past ages produced the great masters.... Giotto designed his Campanile primarily for the bells that were to summon the Florentines ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... into a sort of human pin-cushion, which they would fill with their assagais," I said half-aloud. "That wouldn't do, Sandho, old boy; so be ready to gallop off when I ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... Cathedral, seized upon the vestments and ornaments of the Church, together with the consecrated plate serving for the altar; they left not so much as a cushion for the pulpit, nor a chalice for the Blessed Sacraments; the common soldiers brake down the organs, and dashing the pipes with their pole-axes, scoffingly said, 'hark how the organs go!' They brake the rail, which was done with that fury that the Table itself escaped not ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette

... explain the discovery, in a coffin which was eaten to pieces by worms, and quite mouldered away, of a well-preserved skeleton, or rather a mummy, for in many places there were carcasses clothed with dry fibers of muscle and skin. It lay upon a mat of pandanus, which was yet recognizable, with a cushion under the head stuffed with plants, and covered with matting of pandanus. There were no other remains of woven material. The coffins were of three shapes and without any ornament. Those of the first form, which were of excellent molave-wood, showed no trace of worm-holes or decay, whereas the ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... the door, and looked restlessly towards the spot where his niece still remained in the attitude in which he had left her. She had flung herself heavily upon the couch, and with her head drooping over the cushion, and her face hidden in her hands, seemed to be still weeping in an agony of shame ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... expression. So it was with me. We rolled together, by shore and by road of this sluggard place, like spent billiard balls; and if by chance we cannoned, we swerved sleepily apart, until, perhaps, one would fall into a pocket of the sand, and the other bring up against a cushion of sea-wall. ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... you? Hey, Proshka! Some sherry, My rug and a cushion!" He sits on the rug. 140 Having finished the ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov

... upon the cushion, not to sleep but to dream. She thought of her sister, who would soon place a crown upon her head; who had sold herself for this crown to a man whom she had never seen, and of whom she knew nothing, but that he was heir to a throne. Amelia ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... stomach is caved in where there should be a fullness, is the giving of less prominence to the purely intellectual side of her education going to do away with these defects, or fill up the waste places and make them glad? Not much! A sack of canary seed, or a rubber air cushion, or a bale of cotton, beats the Boston idea all hollow, and we will leave it to anybody ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... making still larger the hole through which the water came. When the rocks were very hot, a little water upon them would make a terrible commotion like the shock of an earthquake. When much water came down, it would hiss and boil high in the air, as it tried to break the cushion of steam which came between ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... fallen tree with a cushion of moss. Sit down, Anne—it will serve for a woodland throne. I'll climb for some apples. They all grow high—the tree had to reach ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... felt one other time the gentle kind hands which, while her own eyes were blinded with tears, led her and placed her on the sofa. Elizabeth took the sofa cushion in both arms and laid her head upon it, turning her face from her companion; and her whole frame was racked and shaken with ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... avenue with an almost imperceptible electric whir, Caroline bolt upright on the plum-colored cushion, Hunt and Gleggson bolt upright on the seat outside. It was a matter for congratulation to Caroline that of all the vehicles that glided by them, none boasted a more upright pair than ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... fastened with buttons and loops. It is possible that this was the body-clothing referred to by the chronicler. I can give no clue to the origin of the word, unless it be connected with the Kanarese LODU, "a stuffed cloth or cushion." Barros, describing the dress of the Hindu cavalry in the Raichur campaign of 1520, says that they wore LAUDEES of cotton (EMBUTIDOS, whatever that may mean in this context — lit. "inlaid"), or body, head, ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... ex-lady help) gave the bride one of many pairs of shadow-work pillow shams, and that Miss Grosvenor contributed one of the equally numerous drawn-thread table centres. Mrs Bray presented a ribbon-work cushion; Dr Smalley, some of the jam-spoons; Andrew, a bread-fork; and Mr J. Sorrel, great-uncle of the bride, a silver cream-jug; while Mr Claude (alias "Dora") Eweword kept himself in mind by an afternoon tea-set. The complete list ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... of taking the public action which might be requisite to safeguard his succession. The body of the late chief would be carried out by the back door of the house, and as soon as it left his successor would take his seat on the gaddi or cushion and begin to discharge the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... had barely ceased, when a messenger came to Felim to tell him that a daughter was born to him, and on his heels came a procession of chanting women, bearing the babe on a flower-decked cushion. And all who saw the tiny thing, with milk-white skin, and locks "more yellow than the western gold of the summer sun," looked on her with the fear that even the bravest heart feels on facing the Unknown. And Cathbad ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... in a slick alkali flat which was surfaced like steel, and no person in the party was quite hardy enough to claim an eyesight that could detect the track of a cushion on a veneer like that. The bereaved mother fell upon her knees and kissed the ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain

... whitewashed walls, and yet a room that gave one a feeling of satisfaction and peace not always inhabiting far wider and more costly chambers: for the little bed was artistically composed, and covered with snow-white dimity, as was the table between the windows, and the cushion of the wooden rocking-chair; while curtains of the same material, escaped from their tri-colored fastenings, floated in upon the soft breeze like great sails, or the draperies of twilight spirits ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... Shammai say, "one is to wipe his hands on the napkin, and lay it on the table;" but the school of Hillel say, "on the cushion." ...
— Hebrew Literature

... beside the spinning wheel in the corner and leaning her head against it, "was Prince Ferdinand of Negol, which is one of the small Eastern provinces of Hungary. He was an old man, seventy years of age, and he had both the gout and the asthma. He sat with one foot on a cushion on a footstool and when it hurt him he made the awfullest faces. Not a bit like a story book prince, Hinpoha. He was at the Countess Mariska's one afternoon when I played and when I was through he requested that ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey

... soon as old enough to look abroad, to take a little choice fruit from a neighbor's garden or orchard. The finished gambler began his career by the side of his mother, by taking pins stealthily from her cushion. Children cannot do great things when young. They have not the power. Their powers and views are too limited to perform what may be called great deeds of wickedness. Yet the grossly immoral usually begin their ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... the river traces of trench—shallow, pathetic holes dug in wild haste. We might have missed them, we creatures with mere eyes, if Brian hadn't asked, "Can't you see the trenches?" Then we saw them, of course, half lost under rank grass, like dents in a green velvet cushion made by a sleeper who has long ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... in pain, Narses?" asked Justinus affectionately, and Narses briefly replied in a husky voice: "All over," and settled himself against the cushion at the back of the chariot. He even refused the refreshments brought out to him by the Senator's servant and interpreter. He seemed sunk in apathy and to crave ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the King sat on a seat of green rushes, over which was spread a flame-colored satin cover, with a cushion like it, for his ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis

... if I could make it into a cushion for mother?" soliloquized Debby, turning it around in her red fingers. "Mrs. Williams said old flannel was good to stuff them with, and I can bind it with——" she leaned forward and picked among her bunch of faded ribbons. "There is nothing nice enough," she sighed; "but this green ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various

... to go back to," finished Grace, sinking down in a luxurious porch swing and plumping the cushion behind her back. Grace always had a gift for finding the soft places. "It ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope

... on one side against the thrice fifty boys. He always worsted in every game in the east (?) in this way. Thereafter the lad began to use his fists on them, so that fifty boys of them died thereof. He took to flight then, till he took refuge under the cushion of Conchobar's couch. The Ulstermen sprang up all around him. I, too, sprang up, and Conchobar, thereat. The lad himself rose up under the couch, so that he hove up the couch and the thirty warriors that were on it withal, so that he bore it into the middle of the house. Straightway ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown

... lighted the wax candles which he had brought, and Bob Martin stuck them in the sockets at either side of the cushion, on the ledge of the pew, beside the aisle, where the prayer-book lay open at 'the burial of the dead,' and the rest of the party drew about the door, while the doctor was shaking hands very ceremoniously with that tall young man, who had now stepped into the circle of light, with a short, black ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... child lie down on the sofa, pulled a cushion under her head, and then introduced her generally with "They wanted to make her a nun, and so she has run away from ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... in a secluded, somber little office of black metallic walls, grey hangings and rug, a block of carved stone his desk, and a few of the stiff-backed stone chairs, each with its single prim cushion. ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... went down I found her sitting in front of the fire, wrapped in a Chinese robe of black and gold. You can imagine the effect of that with the red of her hair and the red of her cheeks and lips. Her feet, in black satin slippers, were on a jade-green cushion, and back of her head was the strip of brocade that she had bought with her housekeeping money. It was a gorgeous bit, repeating the color of the cushion, and with a touch of ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... rings as he lay back on my sofa, his black hair tumbled on the cushion, his pale profile as clear and sharp against the light as though slashed out with ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... finally drew his attention from the walls and ceiling sufficiently to realize that he was not in the autumn woods, he noticed that this apartment was scantily furnished. Two or three chairs, a small table or so. On one of these tables was a bronze tripod upholding a crystal ball and a silk cushion upon which to rest one's hand during a palm-reading. On another table were several astrological charts and small books, presumably ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... him as Prince and King, and explained to him how matters stood, and went down on their knees before him, offering the crown (on a velvet cushion, with four golden tassels, each nearly as big as his head),—small though he was and lame, which lameness the courtiers pretended not to notice,—there came such a glow into his face, such a dignity into his demeanor, that he ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik

... fashion, but your father can't even bend for the pose. On Sunday we sat for two hours in the presence of the greatest Buddhist priest in Japan, and you can guess whether we wriggled and if my feet were asleep if you try the pose for a few minutes yourself, even on a nice soft cushion as we were. Getting up properly is the hardest ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey

... marvellous knowledge which he possessed of the human heart and the human needs, he said nothing for the time being. Connie was not fit to argue, and he knew she was worn-out. He got her to sit in the old arm-chair, and to lay her golden head against a soft cushion, and then he prepared coffee—strong coffee—both for ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade

... her elbow on the cushion of the glove counter, and a pretty, pleasant young creature, delicate and deft of touch, drew a long-wristed "kid" over Mrs. Sommers's hand. She smoothed it down over the wrist and buttoned it neatly, and both lost themselves for ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... downward, but not to death and destruction, for the aerostat alighted easily upon what appeared to be a sort of air-cushion, and, though unsteady for a brief space, then settled upon an ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... airplanes were circling, so high that we could not tell from which side they came, except when we saw some of them being shelled, and so knew that they belonged to Fritz. They looked like black pinheads against the blue cushion of the sky, and no doubt that they were vastly puzzled as to the reason of this gathering of naked men. What new tricks were the damned English up to now? So I have no doubt, they were wondering! It was ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder

... nearly speechless indignation, and then she recovered breath and words. "She's forty if she's a day; and she's as fat as a pin-cushion, with her cheeks a mottled ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... the pulpit be a grave, solid, rational discourse, all the congregation grow weary, and fall asleep, till their patience be released; whereas if the preacher (pardon the impropriety of the word, the prater I would have said) be zealous, in his thumps of the cushion, antic gestures, and spend his glass in the telling of pleasant stories, his beloved shall then stand up, tuck their hair behind their ears, and be very devoutly attentive. So among the saints, those are most resorted ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... contrivance was meant to be blown up, like an air-cushion, and Bobby's servant expended most of the day and much valuable breath in performing the feat. Ultimately, in a misguided attempt to save his lungs from rupture, he employed a bicycle ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... romance about it; he did not intend that there should be any. As soon as he had spoken he turned his head and looked to her for his answer. Mrs. Goddard had clasped her small white hands over her face and had turned her head away from him against the cushion of the high backed chair. The squire felt very uncomfortable in the dead silence, broken only by the sleet driving against the window panes with a hissing, rattling sound, and by the singing of the tea-kettle. For some seconds, which to Juxon ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... Christmastime. Here and there the steam plough had thrown its furrows, on either side of the railroad, high above the window line. The fences were muffled in long ridges of snow, their stakes showing like pins in a cushion of white velvet. Some of the small trees on the edge of the big timber stood overdrifted to their boughs. I have never seen such a glory of the morning as when the sun came up, that day we were nearing home, and lit the ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... him in the pitiful attempts at home making shown in the few crude decorations. A feminine instinct for domesticity evidenced itself in the imitation of the scalloped border of a lace curtain made in soap on the glass of the small window in the back of the wagon, in a pin cushion of coarse muslin worked in blue worsted yarn, in the bouquet of dried goldenrod in a bottle, in the highly colored picture of an ammunition company's advertisement pinned to the canvas wall. A snag of a comb and a brush were thrust in a wooden strip ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... I am wearying you! Cheer up. Two pages more, and my letter reaches its term, for I have no more paper. What delightful things inns and waiters and bagmen are! If we didn't travel now and then, we should forget what the feeling of life is. The very cushion of a railway carriage—"the things restorative to the touch." I can't write, confound it! That's because I am so tired with my walk.... Believe ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... murmured, pressing the picture to his lips, "how can I part with you?" And dropping his head on the hard, prickly cushion, by which he knelt, he cried in a way that would considerably have astonished the youths with whom he had, a few hours earlier, engaged in a vigorous snowball fight. They only knew a bright, mirthful Aubrey Clare, the cleverest lad in ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... major source of support. The rehabilitation of mined land and the replacement of income from phosphates are serious long-term problems. In anticipation of the exhaustion of Nauru's phosphate deposits, substantial amounts of phosphate income were invested in trust funds to help cushion the transition and provide for Nauru's economic future. As a result of heavy spending from the trust funds, the government faces virtual bankruptcy. To cut costs the government has frozen wages and reduced overstaffed public service departments. ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States



Words linked to "Cushion" :   muffler, cushion calamint, shock, damper, air cushion, inflatable cushion, cushiony, headrest, buffer, bed, air spring, soften, head restraint, suspension system, pillow, seat cushion, shock absorber, suspension, throw pillow, layer, padding, pincushion, hassock



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