Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Dam   Listen
verb
Dam  v. t.  (past & past part. dammed; pres. part. damming)  
1.
To obstruct or restrain the flow of, by a dam; to confine by constructing a dam, as a stream of water; generally used with in or up. "I'll have the current in this place dammed up." "A weight of earth that dams in the water."
2.
To shut up; to stop up; to close; to restrain. "The strait pass was dammed With dead men hurt behind, and cowards."
To dam out, to keep out by means of a dam.






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





"Dam" Quotes from Famous Books



... their use restricted to medicine; others fell into disuse, and only reappeared at sacrifices, or at funeral feasts; several varieties continue to be eaten to the present time—the acid fruits of the nabeca and of the carob tree, the astringent figs of the sycamore, the insipid pulp of the dam-palm, besides those which are pleasant to our Western palates, such as the common fig and the date. The vine flourished, at least in Middle and Lower Egypt; from time immemorial the art of making wine from it was known, and even the most ancient monuments ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... injured by means of any part of the works of said improvement heretofore or hereafter constructed, for which compensation is now or shall become legally owing, and in the opinion of the officer in charge it is not prudent that the dam or dams be lowered, the amount of such compensation may be ascertained in like ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... and thus secure it against any sudden surprise, he constructed the celebrated Julius Portus on the coast of Campania, near Baiae, by connecting the inland Lake Avernus, by means of a canal, with the Lake Lucrinus, and by strengthening the latter lake against the sea, by an artificial dike or dam. While he was engaged in these great works, Antony sailed to Taventum, in B.C. 37, with 300 ships. Maecenas hastened thither from Rome, and succeeded once more in concluding an amicable arrangement. He was accompanied on this occasion by Horace, who has ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... bre'ks t'rough," he said. "I 'ave see dem bre'k t'rough two, t'ree tam in de day, but nevaire dat she get drown! W'en dose dam-fool can't t'ink wit' hees haid—sacre Dieu! eet is so easy, to chok' dat cheval—she make me cry wit' ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... being momentarily expected. The first view of their pickets, after leaving Williamsport, was obtained at Falling Waters, by which sonorous appellation the Virginians designate a small and pretty mill-pond, which loses itself over the dam of a solitary grist-mill, within a stone's throw of the Potomac. Here was a strong natural position, and an excellent place for waging a defensive war, if the rebels had been so disposed. But they did not make a stand till a point was reached a mile ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... faint; she didn't know which it would be. For several seconds she saw the dark garden through a veil of black gauze. Then a voice inside her brain roused her; she braced herself and set her teeth fiercely to dam back the treacherous tide that threatened to swamp her senses. Whatever happened, she must hold on a little longer; she must, she must! ... She heard Holliday go down the street in the opposite direction, stop, then after another minute return, ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... en Prose. Their principal resemblance to Baudelaire's is that they are rather longer and not quite so good. They are ve-ry cle-ver (words of two syllables), O so aw-ful-ly cle-ver (words of three), O so dam-na-bly cle-ver (words of a devil of a number of syllables). I have written fifteen in a fortnight. I have also written some beautiful poetry. I would like a cake and a cricket-bat; and a pass-key to Heaven if you please, and as much money as my friend the Baron Rothschild ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... disappointment. The great tree, which seems so solid and firm, has been secretly decaying within, and is hollow at heart; at last it falls in a moment, filling the forest with the echoes of its ruin. The dam, which seems strong enough to resist a torrent, has been slowly undermined by a thousand minute rills of water; at last it is suddenly swept away, and opens a yawning breach for the tumbling cataract. And almost as suddenly came ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... it is not votes, but the law of supply and demand which regulates wages. The law of gravity is that water shall run down hill, but when men build a dam across the stream, the force of gravity is stopped and the water held back. The law of supply and demand regulates free and enfranchised labor, but disfranchisement estops its operation. What we ask is the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... this place,' said my neighbour when the able-bodied pauper who superintended us had trooped us into this abominable chamber, 'and I'd a dam good mind to smash a lamp or summat and get run in instead o' comin' here. If I'd ha' knowed the truth about ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray

... Obstruction!"—Why, then, all this ruction? "When we obstruct, who dares to call't Obstruction?" To dam a deluge, stop a bolting horse,— That is obstruction, of a sort, of course; Our sort, in fact! But theirs on t'other side? That's quite another matter. They can't hide The cloven foot of malice, the false faitours! Not obstruct them? As well ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various

... the river, and found it rasping and crackling over rocks as an Androscoggin should. We passed the last hamlet, then the last house but one, and finally drew up at the last and northernmost house, near the lumbermen's dam below Lake Umbagog. The damster, a stalwart brown chieftain of the backwoodsman race, received us with hearty hospitality. Xanthus and Balius stumbled away on their homeward journey. And after them the crazy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... Those laws by which the irrational animal creations are controlled are usually called instincts. Their operation and design are sketched, to some extent, in treatises upon the instincts of animals. Such is the law which leads the beaver to build its dam, and all other animals to pursue some particular habits instead of others. All beavers, from the first one created to the present time, have been instinctively led to build a dam in the same manner, and so their instinct will lead them to ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden

... anxious from below, communicating this intelligence. Polson at once desired them to do their best, and to destroy the cubs. Soon after, he heard the feeble howling of the whelps as they were attacked below, and saw almost at the same time, to his great horror, a full-grown wolf, evidently the dam, raging furiously at the cries of her young, and now close upon the mouth of the cavern, which she had approached unobserved, among the rocky irregularities of the place. She attempted to leap down at one bound from the spot where she was first seen. In this emergency, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... had moistened the fields and they were faintly green with tiny shoots of oats. These thickened into a rank velvety carpet while the homesteaders were hauling a hundred loads of rocks to form a crude dam across the stream below the take-out. The water was gradually raised till it ran almost flush with the top of the head gate. The gates were lifted and the diverted waters sped smoothly down the new channel to carry life to a ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... a degree, and her voice—as is usual with the voices of cats and women out there—was harsh and grating. But I did not dam the flood of her eloquence (outwardly, at any rate), and so she went on till she was tired. Then I thanked her, and blarneyed her as well as I was able, although that wasn't much, as I never have been much of a hand with women. But the outcome of it ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... scanty, Giles started to the westward on a search for more, sending Messrs. Tietkins and Young to the north on a similar errand. The leader travelled for one hundred and fifty miles through scrub, and past dry salt lakes, until he came to a native well or dam, with a small supply of water in it. Beyond this he went another thirty miles, but found himself once more amongst saline flats and scrubs; he therefore returned to the depot. Messrs. Tietkins and Young had not been as successful, having found no water. At their furthest point ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... always ready to do him order—no angry more, gubbernor, with young chief," pointing to the ensign, as he moved off with his small guard. "Dam good soger—you see dis?" and he touched his scalping-knife with his left hand, and ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson

... having little or none of the spirit of adventure that is supposed to dominate the young, that the old negro was sure he would come to no harm. Instead of wandering about, and going to places where he had no business to go, the little boy sat where he could see the water flowing over the big dam. He had never seen such a sight before, and the water seemed to him to have a personality of its own—a personality with ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... on the main route, but something also that would dam the opening we had awaited for ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)

... (Hastinapura), O destroyer of hostile heroes! O warrior, if I had come, Suyodhana would not have been alive or the match at dice would not have taken place. What can I do now? It is difficult to confine the waters after the dam is broken!'" ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... some things," said L. P. Brown, "and now I would not turn you down if you were busted flat, my dear; I've learned that love's the one thing here that's worth a continental dam*; you ask for me—well, here ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason

... crash like thunder Fell every loosened beam, And, like a dam, the mighty wreck Lay right athwart the stream: And a long shout of triumph Rose from the walls of Rome, As to the highest turret-tops Was splashed ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... India and Pakistan have maintained the 2004 cease fire in Kashmir and initiated discussions on defusing the armed stand-off in the Siachen glacier region; Pakistan protests India's fencing the highly militarized Line of Control and construction of the Baglihar Dam on the Chenab River in Jammu and Kashmir, which is part of the larger dispute on water sharing of the Indus River and its tributaries; UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) has maintained a small group of peacekeepers since 1949; India does not recognize Pakistan's ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... advocate: "ask his mother; yes, sir, ask his dam. Oh, Monsieur Veuillot, is there not deep damnation in thus having an idiot for one's child? Here is your purgatory:—purgatory? no: for purgatory is a kind of half-way house to heaven, but this son of mine is to me a slippery stepping-stone to perdition. Sir, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... great multitude. Nobody could fail to understand either that Aldegonde, who followed right on his heels, would win or lose for as many. The pair were blood-brothers, sons of the great Hamburg, but one out of an imported dam, the other from a mare tracing to Lexington, and richly inbred to that ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... hated young Patrick—into whose veins, he said, there had been poured the distilled raid-venom and love-poison of all the gentlemen-scaumers that ever infested the Borders. The origin of this hatred had some connection with an affair of the Newmilne, belonging to Berwick; the dam-dike of which, Patrick alleged, prevented the salmon from getting up the river, and hence destroyed all his angling sport, as well as that of all the noblemen and gentlemen that resorted to the river for the purpose of practising the "gentle art." He had therefore threatened ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... Remembering, with bitter remorse, how all his life he had meant to try and do better, on her account, but had kept putting off and putting off until now. And now—Did nothing lie before him but to go back and rot yonder? Was that the end, because he never had learned better, and was a "dam' nigger"? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... darted back; And, as they passed, beneath their feet they felt the timbers crack; But when they turned their faces, and on the farther shore Saw brave Horatius stand alone, they would have crossed once more. But, with a crash like thunder, fell every loosened beam, And, like a dam, the mighty wreck lay right athwart the stream. And a long shout of triumph rose from the walls of Rome, As to the highest turret-tops was splashed ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various

... Mongolia and when he moved to Lhasa a Lama was appointed to be his vicar and Primate of all Mongolia with residence at Kuren or Urga.[959] The prelates of this line are considered as incarnations of the historian Taranatha.[960] In common language they bear the name of rJe-btsun-dam-pa but are also called Maidari Khutuktu, that is incarnation of Maitreya. About this time the Emperor of China issued a decree, which has since been respected, that these hierarchs must be reborn in Tibet, or in other words that they must not reappear in a Mongol family ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... of large piles, the interstices being filled up with mud and stones, apparently mounting five guns, eighteens and twelves in the lower tier, and an equal number of smaller caliber on the ascend or more elevated range. A boom or dam of fishing-stakes was constructed across the river one-eighth of a mile below the fort, a large armed prow was moored in the center of the river, mounting two long twelves, and a masked battery opposite to the right, the number ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... only robs her parents of all happiness, but it upsets my mother. She now wrings her hands over her own past and fears that by working so strenuously for the emancipation of women she has assisted to breach the dam—Can't you imagine the way the old cats of both sexes go on at her?—the dam which held up female virtue, and that Society now will be drowned in a flood of ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... degrees, and then the head and shoulders. At this instant Brown, collecting all his energies for one desperate effort, sprang at once into the centre of the cloud, tore it asunder, and descended to the ground, exclaiming, with a hoarse, furious voice that grated on my ear, 'There, I've got out; dam'me if I haven't!' This was the first word that had been spoken through the whole horrible scene. It was the first time I had ever seen a cloud fail to produce its appropriate result, and it terrified me so that I trembled from head to foot. The devils, however, did not seem ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... by a Dam. Yet in spite of these serious charges I make against the Colorado, it is peculiar in that it is the most useful of the large rivers of the world in another domain. The United States Reclamation Service has spent millions of the people's money in making it of use. At Laguna, a few ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... miller, how he will laugh, When he sees the mill-dam rise! The jolly old miller, how he will laugh, Till the tears fill ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... a company. In 1860 Pfordte, who had become director of this Keller, aimed at higher things. Being a good organiser and administrator, he eventually moved the Keller to the street that runs from the Alster Dam to the Rathaus gardens, and there, at the corner of the gardens, established a restaurant which is one of the ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard

... through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.' That text I read in the flood, where the hand of God has written it. All the pound-notes in the world would not dam this torrent for a moment, so that we might pass over to you safely. Yet it is but a trickle of water, soon to be dried up. Verily, I say unto you, only a few hours ago the treasures of earth stood between ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... country, as the ancient altar was heated with kindled fires, the Greeks beheld an azure-coloured serpent creep into a plane tree, which was standing near the sacrifice they had begun. There was on the top of the tree a nest of twice four birds, which the serpent seized[5] together, and the dam as she fluttered around {the scene of} her loss, and he buried them in his greedy maw. All stood amazed. But {Calchas}, the son of Thestor, a soothsayer, foreseeing the truth, says, "Rejoice, Pelasgians, we shall conquer. Troy ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... God-forsaken perch for two little love birds? It's funny how I remember this and that. I reckon ma's temper don't improve with age. They kid me something dreadful about saying 'reckon,' in the talent. But it's all good and a dam' sight better than 'I guess.' That's ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... closely as to prevent any observation of the process of suckling. At the time of birth the young was larger than a new-born mouse, and its hind legs and claws were remarkably strong and serviceable, enabling it not only to cling to its dam, but also to the deal sides of the cage. On the 24th the animal took her food in the morning, and appeared very careful of her young, shifting it from side to side to suckle it, and folding it in the membranes of the tail and ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... why should our oxen eat up the grass and drink out of the dam without our paying?" asked Constance; but Jan only muttered, "Thief! Dog!" and got away from the scene of his defeat ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... the earliest riser in the parish, perceived, in going to the farmyard, that the knob of the column that flanked the board had been feloniously broken off; that the four holes were bunged up with mud; and that some jacobinical villain had carved, on the very centre of the flourish or scroll-work, "Dam the stocks!" Mr. Stirn was much too vigilant a right-hand man, much too zealous a friend of law and order, not to regard such proceedings with horror and alarm. And when the squire came into his dressing-room at half-past seven, his butler (who fulfilled also the duties of valet) informed ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... folks wouldn't ketch 'em and beat 'em up, if dey went off de plantation. Niggers went to de white folks church and listened to white preachers. When Ma jined de church, dey had to break de ice in Beaver Dam Crick to baptize her. Her was so happy and shouted so loud, dey had to drag her out of de crick and take her way back in de woods to keep her from 'sturbin' de rest of de folks at ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... man replied with simple, manly directness that he "was dam'd if he was. See?" Mr. Lewes began to discuss The Drama with Robert. Mrs. de Vere Carter raised ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton

... each apparently caused by the bursting of some dam of trees and debris of the shores; but they were less than those which had preceded them, and an hour later the water was perfectly calm and motionless, save in the course of the river, where it rushed onward at ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... floor is a beautiful meadow, in which are innumerable springs. Surrounding this meadow is heavy timber, oaks, pines and giant cedars. Pauma Creek flows out of this meadow through a narrow gorge, which nature evidently intended should some day be closed with a dam to make of the valley a reservoir to conserve the winter waters. We followed a partially destroyed road through the meadow to its upper end. Then as high and dry land was within sight we attempted to cross a small, damp, but ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves

... Bardana; trozo pedazo de cola que le queda al animal despues de habersela cortado; dique. Masamang dam; buntot na nakausl pagkatapos na ...
— Dictionary English-Spanish-Tagalog • Sofronio G. Calderon

... what he intended to do. Far back on the head-waters he built a dam. The construction of it was crude, consisting merely of log cribs filled with stone and debris placed at intervals across the bed of the stream, against which slanted logs made a face. The gate operated simply, and could be raised to let loose an entire flood. And indeed this was the whole purpose ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... sheep expert, but I can tell a sheep ranch when I see one. Usually they have a feedin' ground around somewhere, for the woolies to feed in durin' the winter. And they have troughs to put the fodder in when they can't get to the range to graze, for sheep are dam perticular what they eat off of. Maybe it was away 'round the back somewhere, but ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker

... it does not require more genius and skill to execute this minute work than it does to bore a Hoosac tunnel, or build a Victoria bridge, or put a dam across the Connecticut, or construct an Erie canal? I do not speak of the relative importance of the great works and the small, but of the relative amount and quality of the power that is brought to bear upon them. In a very important sense the greatest thing a man can do is the most difficult thing ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... and level; we were, in fact, nearing the upper end of the valley. Beyond Cheshi the road leads up a bluff and down the other side on to the bed of the Pandur Lake. This lake had, at the beginning of 1894, been a sheet of water some four and a half miles long, but, the dam at its end having given way in July, it had drained off rapidly; and when I had crossed it in November of the same year, the mud of its bed was only just becoming firm and was cracked and fissured in every direction. It was now covered with a sheet of ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon

... to guess what he says. He declares that there is no grinding to be got now, and that his last remaining money has gone to pay for the dam. What good would it do for us to turn him out? As to what you were pleased to say about the mortgage, you yourself are aware that your money there is locked up and cannot be recovered at a moment's notice. I was sending a ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy

... soldiers across the wire bridge as picket. One of them was named Schwartz and the other Pfifer—he called it Fifer, but spelled it with a P—both full-blooded Dutchmen, and belonging to Company E, or the German Yagers, Captain Harsh, or, as he was more generally called, "God-for-dam." ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... little hearts. If nothing further comes to light, then the press steps aside and allows the law to take its course. Meanwhile to the Morgue and the Malesherbes. We'll pick up a cab on the Avenue de Neuilly. Newspaper life, my young friend, is one dam taxi after another." ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... suspicious manner. He was making notes in a book, and his runabout which he had concealed in a wood road was stuffed with blue-prints. It did not take Jimmie long to guess his purpose. He was planning to blow up the Kensico dam, and cut off the water supply of New York City. Seven millions of people without water! With out firing a shot, New York must surrender! At the thought Jimmie shuddered, and at the risk of his life by clinging to the ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... to Holyoke, which is one of the largest paper manufacturing towns in the world. I have a little business to do there and while I am seeing my man you people can take a little walk. Be sure you notice the big dam. It's a thousand feet long. The Holyoke water power is ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith

... burdensome station, and confer in familiar converse with my friends in your great state. The good opinion of my fellow citizens of all sections is the sweetest solace in all my anxieties. I look forward with longing to the time when I can lay aside the cares of office—" ["dam sight," shouted a tipsy fellow near the door. ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... who is a grave man, watched that spectacle to the end, and then observed that it was "dam funny." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... we found that our dam at the foot was holding out bravely, and that comparatively little water was trickling through the bank into the shrubbery. The flow at the upper end, however, was distressingly small, and though a whole night had passed ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... Cumberland and Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, that he might cross, dry shod, the lake made by the beavers when they dammed the strait at Blomidon, but he afterward killed the beavers, and breaking down their dam he let the lake flow into the sea, and went southward on a hunting tour. At Mount Desert he killed a moose, whose bones he flung to the ground at Bar Harbor, where they are still to be seen, turned to stone, while across the bay he threw ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... muddy your water? Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Why shouldn't we drink of your water, Pray, pray, pray? If our Sire was a Coster's Donkey Our Dam was a Golden Bay, And the Mules shall drink of the Bays' water Every ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various

... creeking* day by day, Tells when She goes her long white egg to lay. A Goose I have, which, with a jealous ear, Lets loose Her tongue, to tell what danger's near. A Lamb I keep, tame, with my morsels fed, Whose Dam An orphan left him, lately dead. A Cat I keep, that plays about my house, Grown fat With eating many a miching** mouse. To these A Tracy*** I do keep, whereby I please The more my rural privacy, Which are But toys to give my heart some ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... should take milk from its dam for, say, three days. During that period the milk is only fit for feeding purposes. It is very important that the calf shall be started right, and in no way can this be done so well as by Nature's method, that is, by allowing ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.

... incomplete, ugly and imperfect, even as a bear at his first coming into the world hath neither hands, skin, hair, nor head, but is merely an inform, rude, and ill-favoured piece and lump of flesh, and would remain still so, if his dam, out of the abundance of her affection to her hopeful cub, did not with much licking put his members into that figure and shape which nature had provided for those of an arctic and ursinal kind; ut not. Doct. ff. ad ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... make thee hold thyself My peer in might invincible? Dar'st thou say That thou, when slain Achilles lay in dust, When round him swarmed the Trojans, didst bear back That furious throng, when I amidst them hurled Death, and thou coweredst away? Thy dam Bare thee a craven and a weakling wretch Frail in comparison of me, as is A cur beside a lion thunder-voiced! No battle-biding heart is in thy breast, But wiles and treachery be all thy care. Hast thou forgotten ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... kill us off? Palliatives—palliatives—and whoy? Because they object to th' extreme course. Look at women: the streets here are a scandal to the world. They won't recognise that they exist—their noses are so dam high! They blink the truth in this middle-class counthry. My bhoy"—and he whispered confidentially—"ut pays 'em. Eh? you say, why shouldn't they, then?" (But Shelton had not spoken.) "Well, let'em! let 'em! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... dam. He had thought to open the little sluice at the bottom of it, which would add to the volume of the water in the stream—raise it a ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... shall do it amid streams of blood, and we shall hold out there. We must hold out, for we are protecting the labor of thousands of years for all of Europe, and for Great Britain! But that day when Great Britain tore down the dam will never be forgotten in the history of the world, and history's judgment shall read: On that day when Russian-Asiatic power rushed down upon the culture of Europe Great Britain declared that she must side with Russia because "the sovereignty of ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... first-fruits, while the priests take the rest for their food, either boiled or mingled with oil, but made into cakes of bread. But whatsoever it be that a priest himself offers, it must of necessity be all burnt. Now the law forbids us to sacrifice any animal at the same time with its dam; and, in other cases, not till the eighth day after its birth. Other sacrifices there are also appointed for escaping distempers, or for other occasions, in which meat-offerings are consumed, together with the animals that are sacrificed; of which ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... dark side to it, but I praise God there is a bright side. It is like a dam. When the dam begins to go, it will go all at once. Youth is on our side. In thirty years we shall not have the same problem we have now—no, not in twenty years. Wealth is coming in. A large tract of eleven thousand acres, containing some of the finest coal that the world knows, ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various

... To dam the river at its mouth would only cause it to overflow its banks and seek another outlet, and to close the doors of the brothels on one street would only drive them ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner

... too much quentence have got that chee-chee woman; that chee-chee woman all same dam iscamp; paunch butcha not have got,— one butcha not have got. Master not give buksheesh; no good ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... breaking up, Federigo was drunk, and Salve was obliged to accompany his inconsolable friend in the darkness over the long narrow dam down by the dock, where there was water on both sides, Federigo clinging to his arm the whole way, and leaning ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie

... of the water as it runs through the courses above the dam, the music of the wheels, from which the churned water falls back into the basin in sparkling cascades, animate the rue du Pont, contrasting in this respect with the tranquillity of the river flowing downward between the garden of Monsieur Grevin, whose house is at one ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... had been given her to see that these springs had existed before love had come, and would flow, perchance, after it had departed. Now she understood his anger; it was like the anger of a fiercely rushing river striving to break a dam and invade the lands below with devastating floods. All these months the waters had been mounting ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... he has added largely to the original property. A neat village of dwellings has grown up around his mills, which deserves a name of its own. Wallaceville would be an appropriate name. He has put in a substantial stone dam at great expense. In 1878 he erected a new brick mill, with all the modern improvements, doubling the capacity of the establishment. It is now capable of producing from 15,000 to 18,000 pounds of paper every twenty-four hours. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... and fann'd by arctic air Shines, gentle BAROMETZ! thy golden hair; 285 Rooted in earth each cloven hoof descends, And round and round her flexile neck she bends; Crops the grey coral moss, and hoary thyme, Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime; Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam, 290 Or seems to bleat, a ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... greater part of a forenoon watching logs go over a dam. It seems a simple thing to tell, and hardly worth the telling, but it was a great morning in actual experience. In time those huge logs became things of life, and when they arose from their mighty plunge into the watery deeps they seemed to shake themselves free and laugh in their ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson

... hidden under grass and plants, at the southern angle of Lake Grant. Nothing was easier, since if the level of the lake was raised two or three feet, the opening would be quite beneath it. Now, to raise this level they had only to establish a dam at the two openings made by the lake, and by which were fed Creek ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... raft and a river. The men poled only fitfully, and we were driven solely by the current. It was dark long before we had neared Fort Douglas and the waters swished past with an inky, glassy sheen that vividly recalled the murky pool about the beaver-dam. And yet I had no fear, but drifted along utterly indifferent to the termination of the freakish escapade in which I had become involved. Nature mercifully sets a limit to human capacity for suffering; and I felt I had reached that limit. Nothing worse could ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... flocks, let Foxes tear My earliest Lambs, and Wolves whilst I do sleep Fall on the rest, a Rot among my Sheep. I love thee better than the careful Ewe The new-yean'd Lamb that is of her own hew; I dote upon thee more than the young Lamb Doth on the bag that feeds him from his Dam. Were there a sort of Wolves got in my Fold, And one ran after thee, both young and old Should be devour'd, and it should be my strife To save thee, whom I love above ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... obliterated instincts, this author states that in Holland, where, for centuries, the young of the cow has been usually taken from the dam at birth and fed by hand, calves, even if left with the mother, make no attempt to suck; while in England, where calves are not weaned until several weeks old, they resort to the udder as naturally as the young of wild quadrupeds.-Ziel en ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... where the stream was about a hundred feet wide, and the water very shallow—not over six inches in depth—a rude but efficient dam was expeditiously constructed by thrusting branches of she-oak and ti-tree into the sandy bottom, and then making it partially waterproof by quickly filling the interstices with earthen sods, ti-tree bark, reeds, leaves, and the other debris found on the banks. In the centre a small ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke

... crushing sorrow may sanctify it to the happiness of all. Your son and his friend, Mr. Birely, often passed their leisure hours in rowing on the river, and, on last Saturday afternoon, the 4th inst., attempted what they had more than once been cautioned against—to approach the foot of the dam, at the public bridge. Unfortunately, their boat was caught by the return-current, struck by the falling water, and was immediately upset. Their perilous position was at once seen from the shore, and aid was hurried to ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... hand with it," remarked the barge-builder, "an' more advice than the old 'un 'ud take. But I dessay 'e could potter about with the dam' tub round about as far as Canvey, if 'e keeps it out of the wash of the steamers. He's been at this job two years now, and I shan't be sorry to see my yard shut of it. . . . Must humour the old boy, though. . . . Nigglin' ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson

... fountain, a great source of pleasure to my wife and to all of us. We raised, in the upper part of the river, a sort of dam, made with stakes and stones, from whence the water flowed into our channels of the sago-palm, laid down a gentle declivity nearly to our tent, and there it was received into the shell of the turtle, which we had raised on some stones of a convenient height, the hole which ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... before long, too. Laura LaRue's daughter isn't going to settle down to being either a butterfly or a blue-stocking. You are going on the stage and you know it. No use, Holiday. You won't be able to hold her back. It's in the blood. You may be able to dam the tide for ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... well dam up the wafers of the Nile with bulrushes as to fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... confront us. The question now to be decided concerns the kind of canal that shall be constructed. Two plans have been suggested: the lock-canal plan and the sea-level plan. The advocates of the lock-canal plan aim to build a gigantic dam in the valley of the Chagres River; the enormous artificial lake thus formed being used as part of the passageway for the vessels. They say that this lake will be at an elevation of about eighty-five feet above mean sea-level; the passage to and from it will be made by means ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... to his mistress, said he was butler of the family, Mrs. G. was always poking about his pantry, and dam if ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the animal world. Here are the principal deliberate constructions of the Beaver: First the lodge. The Beaver was the original inventor of reinforced concrete. He has used it for a million years, in the form of mud mixed with sticks and stones, for building his lodge and dam. The lodge is the home of the family; that is, it shelters usually one old male, one old female and sundry offspring. It is commonly fifteen to twenty feet across outside, and three to five feet high. Within is a chamber about two feet high and six feet across, well above water ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Spring in these wooded hollows; the noise of bees in the blossom of the elms was murmurous as limes in June. Mark congratulated himself on the spot in which he had chosen to celebrate this fine birthday, a day robbed from time like the day of a dream. He ate his lunch by the old mill dam, feeding the roach with crumbs until an elderly pike came up from the deeps and frightened the smaller fish away. He searched for a bullfinch's nest; but he did not find one, though he saw several of the birds singing in the snowberry bushes; round and ruddy as October apples they ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... beauteous maid no more. Slow is her step as a crippled bird's, And mournful her voice as the dying note Of a thunder-cloud that hath passed; And yet she joys to meet the youth. Into his arms she flies, Like a fawn that escapes from the hunter's shaft, And reaches its dam unhurt. Lock'd in a soft and fond embrace, The lovers recline on the flowery bank, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... bread and almost mechanically bit a piece out of it. He found that he was hungry. There was wine in the bottle and he drank. The straw no longer bound him, and he rose slowly to his feet and stared about him. Then, like waters suddenly breaking down a dam and flowing again into their old channel, memory reasserted itself and his brain grew clear. He recollected the empty house, the sudden movement on the stars, the fight, Jeanne standing behind him in the corner. What had ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner

... bought'st thy reason at too dear a rate, For thou hast all thy actions bounded in With curious rules, when every beast is free: What is there that acknowledges a kindred But wretched man? Who ever saw the Bull Fearfully leave the Heifer that he lik'd Because they had one Dam? ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... little confused, and lay quiet in the chair. There was a long silence, broken only by the uneven tapping of the hardwood mallet. By and by she said, "I never felt a thing," and then she smiled at him very prettily beneath the rubber dam. McTeague turned to her suddenly, his mallet in one hand, his pliers holding a pellet of sponge-gold in the other. All at once he said, with the unreasoned simplicity and directness of a child: "Listen here, Miss ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... men were abundantly occupied in other quarters of Mardi; nor was he long in discovering that fight he never so valiantly, Vivenza—not yet its inhabitants—was wholly unconquerable. Thought Bello, Mountains are sturdy foes; fate hard to dam. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... shone, heavy clouds rolled about the hills. Jim, knowing the fine weather would not last, drove his men hard, since there was work he must push forward before the next flood. The new bank had reached a creek where he must build a strong sluice-gate and hold back the water by a rude coffer-dam while he dug for ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss

... would you do? Make ponds, you say, like the old monks' ponds, now all broken down. Dam all the glens across their mouths, and ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... where, as I said in the beginning, I landed my rafts from the ship; and hauling her up to the shore, at high-water mark, I made my man Friday dig a little dock, just big enough to hold her, and just deep enough to give her water enough to float in; and then, when the tide was out, we made a strong dam across the end of it, to keep the water out; and so she lay dry, as to the tide, from the sea; and to keep the rain off, we laid a great many boughs of trees, so thick, that she was as well thatched as a house; and thus we ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... him? It appears to me the poor buy the poor here, and that they all starve together.' Says I, 'there was a very good man once lived to Liverpool, so good, he said he hadn't sinned for seven years; well he put a mill-dam across the river, and stopped all the fish from goin' up, and the court fined him fifty pounds for it, and this good man was so wrathy, he thought he should feel better to swear a little, but conscience told him it was wicked. So he compounded with conscience, ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... each side, and terminating in a point; being the end of a splendid granite wall, at its base thirty feet thick, and tapering to half the thickness, dividing the natural from the artificial stream. Here we come to a point of great interest: on the right is an artificial dam across the river, with two sharp lines at an angle of sixty-seven degrees, the point meeting the stream, thus stopping the waters, and insuring a supply for the reservoir, while it forms a cascade of about ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various

... out of the mill-race and joins itself to that portion which flows over the dam, it is a considerable creek, to be sure, but it looks very small compared to the mill-pond. But what it wants in size it makes up in speed, like some little Morgan horses you may have seen, and it goes rushing along quite rapidly again. Here, ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... how the one lad laughed and leaped and clapped his hands for glee! A kid that bounds to meet its dam might dance as merrily. And how the other inly burned, struck down by his disgrace! A maid first parting from her home might wear as ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus

... his pretty chickens and their dam?" asked the cousin, parting his coat-skirts to the genial influence of ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... turn to the left. You can't miss the road, for its got a big maple tree right at the junction. We call that the Grapevine Road, because it twists and turns so; but it will fetch you out right at the old dam, mister." ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... Dam, n. [dam] La madre en los animales; presa represa de agua. Inahn, in; salopilan; harangan ...
— Dictionary English-Spanish-Tagalog • Sofronio G. Calderon

... necessary to build a rampart all about it, against which the ice floes in the spring, as the current moves them down into Lake Huron, are piled up in tumultuous disorder. In order to get a foundation for the lighthouse, a huge coffer-dam was built, which was launched like a ship, towed out to the reef and there grounded. When it was pumped out the men worked inside with the water surrounding them twelve to fourteen feet above their ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... they worked, digging and heaping with teeth and claws, and beating the earth hard with their queer tails like shovels! Rosy and the men watched them work, glad to be safe, while the storm cleared up; and by the time the dam was made, all danger was over. Rosy looked into the faces of the rough men, hoping her father was there, and was just going to ask about him, when a great shouting rose again, and all began to run to ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott

... the garden of that cot beside the stream. And all the flowers I could see and name were safe beside their dams, as I leapt down the hillside. Nay, Periwinkle was missing! Periwinkle was ever a strayer, and Periwinkle's dam was bleating at the edge of the steep cliff up which the stranger toiled. It was Periwinkle and none other that he was carrying in his arms! Seeing it was Periwinkle, I halloed to him to halt. Hearing my cry, he stopped, and ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... when the situation was explained. 'Command him— black nigger—when I was in the Saarbruck. Ole Pambe, good ole Pambe. Dam lascar. Show him up, Sar;' and he followed into the room. One glance told the stoker what the kind gentleman had overlooked. Pambe was desperately poor. Nurkeed drove his hands deep into his pockets, then advanced with clenched fists ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... and he arose, and with a gasp found himself at the surface again. A few strokes onward in the darkness, and his hands met a rough wall, over which the water was draining as over the brink of a dam. ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs

... has any; Tho' friends I fear there isn't many; But yet the dam for her, wi' Johnny, Will fret to-day, And think her watter-wagtail bonny Has ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright

... Mr. Gladstone's banquet at Leeds; at Tunis; and Mr. Stead; defends W. E. Forster; on novel-writing; overlooks Carlton Club meeting; suggested police protection for; visits Tangier; visits Norway; Reporters, Duties of newspaper; stories of Parliamentary; possibilities of Parliamentary. Reservoir dam, Bursting of Bradfield. Riddell, Mrs., novelist, Reminiscences of. Robinson, Sir John, editor of Daily News. Rosebery, Earl of, Lord Houghton on; and W. E. Forster. Ross, Mr., head of Times Parliamentary corps. Royal ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... of early bitches of the same breeding may briefly be mentioned Reynold's Famous, dam of Gilbert's Fun; Kelley's Nell, dam of Ross and Trimount King; Saunder's Kate, dam of Ben Butler; Nolan's Mollie, dam ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell

... widens, that great river of opinion, And its torrent beats and plunges at the base of greed's dominion. Though you dam it by oppression and fling golden bridges o'er it, Yet the day and hour advances when in fright you'll ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... spit on the worm yourself. The dam isn't half as far as Dead Tree, and, besides, we can always walk across to Grass Lake. Jerry votes for ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart

... Where the devil have you been? This noise is still going on. Tell me what it is. No-dam-nonsense-now. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various

... to her piggies so white, "Oh! the chilly winds whistle around, There is ice on the old miller's dam, And there's snow on the hard frozen ground; But a warm, sheltered stackyard have we, Where all day you may play hide-and-seek: So away, little piggies, my white little piggies, For a gambol ...
— The Nursery, June 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various

... thunder rolls. The lightning flashes about him. A thousand impressions beat upon him at the same time—a gigantic vision. He cannot think; he is unable to move; he can only write; breathless, unreflecting, unable to control himself or to exercise his critical faculties lest he dam the eruption, he dashes down his thoughts on scraps of paper—walking, standing, lying down, on the street, at the table, in the night—as if under unceasing command. So furiously did the cataract of his thoughts rush through him, that he thought he was going out of his mind. He was not working ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl

... blood alone The sine qua non for a flyer? The breed of his dam is a myth unknown, And we've doubts respecting his sire. Yet few (if any) those proud names are, On the pages of peerage or stud, In whose 'scutcheon lurks no sinister bar, No taint ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... continued to solicit with much urgency the matters in his keeping at the court of France, and received answers respecting them according as the matters which were proposed in Portugal, [the marriage of Carlota, daughter of Francis, with the prince Dam Joao], gave hopes of advancement. The king said through one Luys Homem that he greatly desired the fostering and increase of ancient friendship. Following upon that in a few days he ordered the vessels ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy

... added the other comrade. "Why, he's traveled a bee line for days! I'll bet he's seen us many a time. Wildfire's about as smart as any man. He was born wild, an' his dam was born wild, an' there you have it. The wildest of all wild creatures—a wild stallion, with the intelligence of a man! A grand hoss, Lin, but one thet has killed stallions all over the Sevier range. A wild stallion thet's ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... excited look was upon them; and if left free, they generally set out for the woods, or for some other secluded spot. After the calf is several hours old, and has got upon its feet and had its first meal, the dam by some sign commands it to lie down and remain quiet while she goes forth to feed. If the calf is approached at such time, it plays "possum," pretends to be dead or asleep, till, on finding this ruse does not succeed, it mounts to its feet, bleats loudly and fiercely, and charges ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... above the door, which accordingly ended the supernatural dance. * * * Michael Scott," continues the same author, "once upon a time was much embarrassed by a spirit, for whom he was under the necessity of finding constant employment. He commanded him to build a cauld, or dam-head, across the Tweed at Kelso; it was accomplished in one night, and still does honour to the infernal architect. Michael next ordered that Eildon Hill, which was then a uniform cone, should be divided into three. Another ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various

... lake was about 275 feet above the Johnstown level, and it was about two and one-half miles long and one and one-half miles in its greatest width. In many places it was 100 feet deep, and it held a larger volume of water than any other reservoir in the United States. The dam that restrained the waters was nearly 1,000 feet in length, 110 feet in height, ninety feet thick at the base, and twenty-five feet wide at the top, which was used as a driveway. For ten years or more this dam was believed to be a standing menace to the Conemaugh ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... 162 miniscule enclaves, and allocate divided villages remain stalled; skirmishes, illegal border trafficking, and violence along the border continue; Bangladesh has protested India's attempts to fence off high traffic sections of the porous boundary; Burmese attempts to construct a dam on the border stream in 2001 prompted an armed response halting construction; Burmese Muslim refugees migrate into Bangladesh straining ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government



Words linked to "Dam" :   High Dam, dyke, metre, milldam, hectometer, m, Tai Dam, female, dam up, occlude, dekametre, hm, decameter, obturate, barrier, close up



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com