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Damp   Listen
verb
Damp  v. i.  (past & past part. damped; pres. part. damping)  
1.
To render damp; to moisten; to make humid, or moderately wet; to dampen; as, to damp cloth.
2.
To put out, as fire; to depress or deject; to deaden; to cloud; to check or restrain, as action or vigor; to make dull; to weaken; to discourage. "To damp your tender hopes." "Usury dulls and damps all industries, improvements, and new inventions, wherein money would be stirring if it were not for this slug." "How many a day has been damped and darkened by an angry word!" "The failure of his enterprise damped the spirit of the soldiers."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Damp" Quotes from Famous Books



... church-goers never have a chance of seeing. They peeped into the choir vestry, and Verity gave rather a gasp at the sight of an array of white surplices hanging on the wall like a row of ghosts. They went down a narrow flight of damp steps into a dark place where the coke was kept, they peered into a dusty recess behind the organ, and into a room under the tower, where spare chairs were stored. All this was immensely interesting, but did not quite content them. Verity's ambition soared farther. Very high up on the wall, above ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... the latter should have been larger in proportion than those of the species. Again, once when, in the autumn, I was preparing my greenhouse plants for their winter quarters, I cut back a "Lady Plymouth" geranium, which chanced to be set away in a cool and somewhat damp cellar. When discovered the following February and started into growth in the greenhouse it produced nothing but solid green leaves, and never afterward produced a variegated leaf. This I attributed to its having gained greater root power during its long season of rest. By this ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various

... if he expected her to do any such thing. He was rather graver than usual, and did not at once say anything. Through the open window came the air, still damp with dew, laden with the scent of honeysuckle and roses, jocund with the shouts of birds; and for one instant Diana's thoughts swept back away to years ago, with a wondering recognition of the change in herself since those June days. Then her husband ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... old man without another question. He looked haggard and wearied; his clothes were wet, torn and soiled; his very hair was damp, and his boots were soaked and burst as though from a long day's tramp. Mrs. Shairp, the housekeeper, with whom he was a favourite, uttered a startled ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... large range of all the daintiest materials. I believe our charmeuse, ninons and crepe-de-Chines to be unrivalled in town, Sir. A little damp under foot to-day, Sir, but warmer, I think—distinctly warmer. Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir, Good ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various

... Villas are generally designed for summer; you are the single person who think they look best in winter. You have still a more unlucky thought; which Is, to visit the Vine in October. When I saw it in the middle of summer, it was excessively damp; you will find it a little difficult to persuade me to accompany you thither On stilts, and I believe Mr. Chute Will not be quite happy that you prefer that season; but for this I cannot answer at present, for he is at Mr. Morris's in Cornwall. I shall ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... Iver was damp. His hands were clammy. His hair ends dripped. His face was running with water. He spread his palms ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... Abbot was thinking of scenery About as much, in sooth, As a lover thinks of constancy, Or an advocate of truth. He did not mark how the skies in wrath Grew dark above his head; He did not mark how the mossy path Grew damp beneath his tread; And nearer he came, and still more near, To a pool, in whose recess The water had slept for many a year, Unchanged and motionless; From the river stream it spread away The space of half a rood; The surface had the hue of clay And the scent of human blood; The trees ...
— English Satires • Various

... of Philip the Second probably did not regard his rooms at the Escurial as particularly interesting, but simply as small, ugly, and damp. The character which we find in them and which makes us regard them as eminently expressive of whatever was sinister in the man, probably did not strike them. They knew the king, and had before them words, gestures, and acts enough in which to read his character. But ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana

... of the early spring and late fall seasons. Generally comes with cold and damp weathers during east winds. It begins with sore throat, chilly and tired feelings, followed with headache and vomiting. In a few hours chilly feeling leaves and fever sets in very high, burns your hands. The patient is rounded in chest, abdomen, face and limbs by congestion of the fascia ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... instincts of the clinging vine. We fling our tendrils round what is the nearest castle-keep or pig-stye wall, rain and sunshine fastening them but firmer. Dying Sir Walter Scott—do you remember?—hastening home from Italy, fearful lest he might not be in time to breathe again the damp mists of the barren hills. An ancient dame I knew, they had carried her from her attic in slumland that she might be fanned by the sea breezes, and the poor old soul lay pining for what she called her "home." Wife, mother, widow, she had lived there till the alley's reek smelt good to her nostrils, ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... the door. He is soaked through and through with mud and dirt, it was clear that no roof had covered his head during last night's tempest. His feet peeped from out of his boots, his damp hair seemed glued to his temples, his eyes were sunken, his cheeks were mere bone, his lips were ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... your pardon. How thoughtless of me! Dear me, mine has gone out. Do you suppose anything is wrong with them? Perhaps they're damp." ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... town with an ancient cathedral, which was so cold and dark and damp that looking into its door was like looking down the throat of old Father Time. The cathedral had a fine choir, which sang at all the services and was taught and led by a music-master whose name was John Jasper. ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... people that the effects of the strife are still marked in his harsh and rugged features and independent ways. It is well known that his cattle are the best in all the country, for the pastures, by reason of the damp polder ground, are very rich, and yield year out year in an abundant crop of grass and hay, the cows he keeps for milking purposes giving from 20 to 30 litres, or from 45 to 70 pints, of milk a day, which is a ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough

... her to dare the shock And seek him near the hostile camp; Her mind her heart would basely mock, And boding fears her ardor damp; The bondage of her heart so great Her coward mind could never free; She heeds no danger, dares all fate, And this ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... the ancient mansion of Stoke, appearing to Mr. Penn, after some years absence in America, to demand very extensive repairs, (chiefly from the destructive consequences of damp in the principal rooms,) it was judged advisable to take ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... life at Uruvela is known as the wrestling or struggle for truth. The story, as he tells it in the Pitakas, gives no dates, but is impressive in its intensity and insistent iteration[318]. Fire, he thought to himself, cannot be produced from damp wood by friction, but it can from dry wood. Even so must the body be purged of its humours to make it a fit receptacle for illumination and knowledge. So he began a series of terrible fasts and sat "with set teeth and tongue pressed against the palate" until ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... Shaw, were kept steadily at work upon water-proof tents of hemp canvas, for I perceived, by the premonitory showers of rain that marked the approach of the Masika that an ordinary tent of light cloth would subject myself to damp and my goods to mildew, and while there was time to rectify all errors that had crept into my plans through ignorance or over haste, I thought it was not wise to permit things to rectify themselves. Now that I have returned ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... fifteen from Salt Lake City. The site, to which was given the name of Fort Scott, was sheltered by bluffs rising abruptly at a few hundred yards from the bed of the stream. Near by were clumps of cottonwood which the Mormons had attempted to burn; but the wood being green and damp, the fire had merely scorched ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... spines is also a double adaptation, active on dry and arid soil and latent in a moist climate or under cultivation, as with the wild and cultivated apple, and in the experiments of Lothelier [455] with Berberis, Lycium and other species, which lose their spines in damp air. ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... other in the dim light with ghoul-like eyes, and at night they lay down at opposite sides of the floor on bundles of straw for beds. This straw, having served them in their poverty for weeks and even months, had fermented and become filthy and damp. ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... this, however, the night was so bitterly cold that we were glad to put on anything to keep us warm. Our situation may in some measure account for this extreme variation of temperature, as we were in the bed of the creek which might yet have been damp, as its surface had only just dried up; perhaps also from exposure to such heat during the day we were more susceptible of the least change. Be that as it may, certain it is that as morning dawned on this occasion, when the thermometer ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... a suspicion that it was damp, when his back struck the water, I think. I'll tell you how it was. When my chum and I run away to Pewaukee, Ma thought we had gone off to be piruts, and she told Pa it was a duty he owed to society to go and get us to come back, and be good. She told him if he would treat me as an equal, ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck

... some of them, I don't deny, on evidence as decent as one ever gets for such things. Someone saw a blaze hereabout, don't you know, as he walked home through a wood; someone keeping sheep on the uplands inland thought he saw a flame hovering over Pendragon Tower. Well, a damp dab of mud like this confounded island seems the last place where one would think ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... was a smile of anguish, and in his heart he cursed the vivacity of both. He could not for his soul recollect himself so as to utter one connected sentence; and the suspicion that they observed every circumstance of his behaviour, threw such a damp on his spirits that he was quite overwhelmed with shame and resentment, when Sophy, casting her eyes towards the gate, said, "Yonder is your servant, Mr. Pickle, with another man who seems to have a wooden leg." Peregrine started at this intelligence, and immediately underwent sundry changes of ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... walling, leaving a clear diameter of from 7 to 9 feet; greater regard was paid to their drainage and ventilation, both of which required particular attention, owing to the watery nature of the coal measures, and the abundance of "choke-damp," although happily "fire damp" never appears. Horses were now used underground for bringing the coal-trams to the foot of the pit, and all the workings were accurately surveyed and recorded, agreeably to the regulations instituted by the Dean Forest Mining Commissioners, ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... lined by low walls; not a tuft of vegetation is to be seen on its tame rectilinear sides: all is slimy and brown, with here and there dank, muddy recesses, as if for the frog and the rat; while on the damp flat above, there lie, somewhat in the style of the grouping in a Dutch painting, the rotting fragments of canal passage-boats and coal-barges, with here and there some broken-backed hulk, muddy and green, the timbers peering out through the planking, and ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... Equator. I beg you often to reflect (I have found NOTHING so instructive) on the case of thousands of plants in the middle point of their respective ranges, and which, as we positively know, can perfectly well withstand a little more heat and cold, a little more damp and dry, but which in the metropolis of their range do not exist in vast numbers, although if many of the other inhabitants were destroyed [they] would cover the ground. We thus clearly see that their numbers are kept ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... rot, if you like it better, in spite of all your boastful speeches, for the darkness and damp seem to have sucked all manhood out of thee; or shouldst thou survive a month, to have thine ears cropped and thy ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... us to beat up under steam and sail, which we went on doing for a couple of days, plunged in a world of fog. Ugh! that endless, stubborn fog of the Arctic Sea! When it lowers its curtain, and shuts out the blue above and the blue below, and everything becomes a damp gray mist, day in and day out, then all the vigor and elasticity of the soul is needed to save one from being stifled in its clammy embrace. Fog, and nothing but fog, wherever we turn our eyes. It condenses on the rigging and drips down on every tiniest spot on deck. It lodges on your clothes, ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... Raphael, pressing the old schoolmaster's frozen fingers in his own damp ones; "how ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... understood all that had been said and of pretending to carry off the indiscretion by a simulated fit of curiosity as to the roots of an ancient oak. "There's one thing more," he went on. "You know, if you don't like Lockleigh—if you think it's damp or anything of that sort—you need never go within fifty miles of it. It's not damp, by the way; I've had the house thoroughly examined; it's perfectly safe and right. But if you shouldn't fancy it you needn't dream of living in it. There's ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... behind him. And now he urged the donkey forwards with speed; for he knew that he had lost much precious time, and that many miles still lay between him and Regin's charcoal-pits. And there was nothing here amid the thick shadows of the wood to make him wish to linger; for the ground was damp, and the air was chilly, and every thing was silent as the grave. And not a living creature did Siegfried see, save now and then a gray wolf slinking across the road, or a doleful owl sitting low down in some tree-top, and blinking at him in the dull but ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... corners of high buildings, pelting the homegoing hoards, whirling them about, throwing women down upon street crossings. You have a vision of the muddy, slushy subway steps, and slimy platforms, packed with people, their clothing caked with wet white spangles. You see them wedged, cross and damp, into the trains, and hear them coughing into one another's necks. You see emaciated tramps, pausing to gaze wanly into bakery windows: men without overcoats, their collars turned up, their hands deep in the pockets of their trousers, their heads ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... another. The example once set was universally followed, and Miltiades was thus left in absolute and undivided command. But that able and keen-sighted chief, fearing perhaps that if he took from another his day of command, jealousy might damp the ardour of the general thus deprived, and, as it were, degraded, waited till his own appointed day before ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... house, though, decidedly tended to damp her pleasant anticipations, for there was not a light to be seen anywhere. All the windows were gaping wide to the storm, while from more than one a bedraggled curtain hung ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... near Clover Lane and the grounds of Rochester Castle and the green drives of Cobham Park, the untroubled dreams of happy childhood. And though he could not know this, yet, as he sat amongst the damp straw piled up round him in the inside of the coach, he "consumed his sandwiches in solitude and dreariness" and thought life sloppier than he had expected to find it. And in David Copperfield he has thrown back into those earlier golden days the shadow ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin

... a larger inverted glass, which must not be so close as to prevent a circulation of air. The plants can thus be watched at every stage and some should always be grown in this way. The water in the tumbler will keep the sponge damp, and the roots, after emerging from the sponge, will grow well in the moist air. Seeds can also be grown on blotting paper. Put the seeds on several thicknesses of moist blotting paper on a plate, cover them with more moist paper, and invert another plate ...
— Outlines of Lessons in Botany, Part I; From Seed to Leaf • Jane H. Newell

... Tom put on more speed. As he was steering the boat along near shore he heard, off to the woods at his right, the report of a gun. It came so suddenly that he jumped involuntarily. A moment later there sounded, plainly through the damp air, ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton

... thrown into prison for her deed of madness and now the executioner's axe awaits her. She sits on the damp straw, rocking a bundle, which she takes for her baby, and across her poor wrecked brain there flit once more pictures of all the scenes of her short-lived happiness. Then Faust enters with Mephisto, and tries ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... in separate little trickles, and presently with sudden little darts into one another, as they came to uneven places in the walk. She watched it all with great wide eyes, and felt quiet and cool just to smell the damp earth. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various

... while the red sky paints the tips of the birches a rosy colour; of last embraces, so closely entwined, and of the unerring heart's mournful whispers: "No, this will not be repeated, this will not be repeated!" And the lips were then cold and dry, while the damp mist of the morning lay upon ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... no; yet, strange to say, instead of them, the walls blazed from end to end with scarlet paintings, only striped across with green damp-marks in many places, some falling bodily from the wall, the plaster hanging down with the fading ...
— The Hollow Land • William Morris

... their way out to the entrance again, getting whiffs of damp, disagreeable air from several dark dungeons, and passing through a number of great apartments stacked with guns. It was a relief to gain the main part of the building, where other people were, and plenty of warmth and sunlight. Their spirits rose, and they laughed and joked while climbing ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson

... he had seen Awang Itam, he was one of the best favoured of the King's Youths, a fine, upstanding youngster, dressed in many-coloured silks, and with an amount of side and swagger about him, which would have amply sufficed for a regiment of Her Majesty's Guards. Now he half lay, half sat, on the damp decking, the most pitiful wreck of humanity that the White Man had ever seen. What had befallen him to cause so fearful a change? I will tell you the tale, in my own words, as the White Man learned it from him and Bedah, as they ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... look forward too much. Don't look at the road ahead of you in dismay. Look at the road behind you. Don't you see how far up the hill we have come? Don't you see what those low and damp miasmatic levels were from which we have slowly led the way? Don't you see the rows of men come, not upon the lower level, but upon the upper, like the rays of the rising sun? Don't you see the light starting and don't you see the light illuminating ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... allow the Americans to withhold the boon which you have the means of extorting if you will, I much fear that the closing period of the connection between Great Britain and Canada will be marked by incidents which will damp the ardour of those who desire to promote human happiness by striking shackles either off ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... tripe de roche. A considerable quantity was gathered and with half a partridge each (which we shot in the course of the day) furnished a slender supper which we cooked with a few willows dug up from beneath the snow. We passed a comfortless night in our damp clothes but took the precaution of sleeping upon our socks and shoes to prevent them from freezing. This plan was afterwards ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... agreed that high buildings were unsanitary—which means bad for the health—and that they made all the lower buildings around them unsanitary too, by shutting off the light and air, and making them dark, and inclined to be damp. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 17, March 4, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... keep the rain and snow out; the opening to allow the Gipsies to go in and out of their tent is covered with a kind of coverlet. The fire by which they cook their meals is placed in a kind of tin bucket pierced with holes, and stands on the damp ground. Some of the smoke or sulphur arising from the sticks or coke finds its way through an opening at the top of the tent about 2ft. in diameter. The other part of the smoke helps to keep their faces and hands the proper Gipsy colour. Their beds consist of a layer of straw ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... after a long and weary night to many within and without the abbey. Every thing betokened a dismal day. The atmosphere was damp, and oppressive to the spirits, while the raw cold sensibly affected the frame. All astir were filled with gloom and despondency, and secretly breathed a wish that, the tragical business of the day were ended. The vast range of Pendle was obscured by clouds, and ere long the vapours ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... there. A fiery fuliginous mass, which could not be choked and smothered, but would fill all France with smoke. And now it has got air; it will burn its whole substance, its whole smoke-atmosphere too, and fill all France with flame. Strange lot! Forty years of that smouldering, with foul fire-damp and vapour enough, then victory over that;—and like a burning mountain he blazes heaven-high; and, for twenty-three resplendent months, pours out, in flame and molten fire-torrents, all that is in him, the Pharos and Wonder-sign of an amazed Europe;—and then lies ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... were complete, and all the bones were from the same body. The bones were quite clean—of soft structures, I mean. There were no cuts, scratches, or marks on them. There was not a trace of adipocere—the peculiar waxy soap that forms in bodies that decay in water or in a damp situation. The right hand had been detached at the time the arm was thrown into the pond, and the left ring finger had been separated and had vanished. This latter fact had attracted my attention from the first, but I will leave its consideration for the moment ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... damp, and smelly, and overrun with large rats —big black fellows. Most of the Tommies slept with their overcoats over their faces. I did not. In the middle of the night I woke up in terror. The cold, clammy feet of a rat had ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey

... anything before this came on, or that anything had excited me, nor that anything special had happened beforehand. Beside nothing like it has ever happened to me when I have been greatly excited. At the most, after my marriage I led a life of strain. I was tied to a shop which was damp, unwholesome and full of bad air, and I am a friend of fresh air. I suffered very much mentally under these conditions, because I love light and air."—"Did you think that you were indeed not a human being?"—"No; ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... had surprisingly little regard for comfort," Thorndyke remarked. "Think of spending the winter evenings in damp ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman

... eagerness which could not trust to sight, but must touch also, as if she were blind. Thurstane held her firmly, kissing hair, forehead, and temples, and whispering, "Clara! Clara!" Her face, which had turned white at the first glimpse of him, was now roseate all over and damp with a sweet dew. It became smirched with the dust of his face; but she would only have rejoiced, had she known it; his very squalor was ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... from above. The heat of the torrid sun departed. The chill of the fog bit in like a knife. They were glad in an hour to get into their furs, and there remained shivering in the damp, cold fog, while the streams of water which had poured down the ice-wall congealed again into ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... because of my interest in the goods that we have brought there to lie), but the people were abed, so we knocked them up, and so I to bed, and in the night was mightily troubled with a looseness (I suppose from some fresh damp linen that I put on this night), and feeling for a chamber-pott, there was none, I having called the mayde up out of her bed, she had forgot I suppose to put one there; so I was forced in this strange house to rise and shit in the chimney twice; and so to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... unfailing instinct of her kind, to hide private grief and show a brave front to the world, Helen flew to the mirror, smoothed her tumbled hair, put away her damp handkerchief; and, standing calmly beside the mantel-piece, one foot on the fender, ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay

... clump of eucalypts down the creek induced me first to visit them, but the channel was hopelessly dry. Returning, I next went up the creek, and came to a place where great boulders of stone crossed the bed, and where several large-sized holes existed, but were now dry. Hard by, however, I found a damp spot, and near it in the sand a native well, not more than two feet deep, and having water in it. Still farther up I found an overhanging rock, with a good pool of water at its foot, and I was now satisfied with my day's work. Here I camped. I ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... after that he can sleep in any position. Further, that a man must not sleep on the ground, on silken or woollen cloth, under a solitary tree, where cross-roads meet, on mountains, or on the sky (whatever that may mean). Nor is he to sleep with damp clothes, wet feet, or in a naked state; and, unless an initiate, should not sleep on Kusha grass or its varieties. There are many more such rules. I may here notice that in Sanskrit the right hand or side and south are signified by the same term. So also the front and north have one and ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... only one adventurous traveller left be congratulated: for the two others had been set down at their respective roadside destinations. The mildewy inside of the coach, with its damp and dirty straw, its disagreeable smell, and its obscurity, was rather like a larger dog-kennel. Mr. Lorry, the passenger, shaking himself out of it in chains of straw, a tangle of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and muddy legs, was rather like a ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... vigorous strokes, and the canoe shot forward once more. They were confident now that no enemy was ahead of them, and that none of those behind could overtake them. The wet, cold fog still enclosed them like a heavy, damp blanket, but their vigorous exercise and their high spirits kept them warm. After ten minutes they made another stop, but as Tayoga could hear nothing of Jumonville's party they pushed on again at speed. By ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler

... seemed not to get her meaning. He picked up the garden fork. Thoughtfully scraping the damp earth from its prongs, he repeated, "All ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... they had before them. Death would stare them in the face all through its performance. There was choking after-damp below, noxious vapors, to breathe which was to die; there was the chance of crushing masses falling from the shaken galleries—and yet these men left their companions one by one and ranged themselves, without saying a ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... like him to wish us to believe that he was obliged to give up being a mining magnate to become a laborer in a quartz-mill, for there is a grim humor in the confession. That he abandoned the milling experiment at the end of a week is a true statement. He got a violent cold in the damp place, and came near getting salivated, he says in a letter, "working in the quicksilver and chemicals. I hardly think I shall try the experiment again. It is a confining business, and I will not be confined ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... boy, slowly pulling off one damp, well-made boot and then the other over the gouty toes, was the only person who noticed that "the governor" was ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward

... in from the field with their hands full of the soft, pale-green corn-silk. Annie had rolled hers into a bird's-nest; while Willie had dressed his little sister's hair with the long, damp tresses, until she seemed more like a mermaid, with pale blue eyes shining out between the locks of her sea-green hair, than like our ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews

... the saloon, sank into our seats only to leave again hurriedly when a steward approached to know if we would have porridge or kippered herring! I know you are never sea-sick, unlovable creature that you are, so you won't sympathize with us as we lay limp and wretched in our deck-chairs on the damp and draughty deck. Even the fact that our deck-chairs were brand-new, and had our names boldly painted in handsome black letters across the back, failed to give us a thrill of pleasure. At last it became ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... thy sons to fetters are consign'd, To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom And Freedom's fame ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... disturbing social conditions, looking for a way to relieve poverty and wipe out crime and corruption. She saw luxury, extravagance, and success for the few, while half of the population lived in the slums in dilapidated houses and in damp cellars, often four or five to a room. Immigrants, continually pouring in from Europe, overtaxed the already inadequate housing, and unfamiliar with our language and customs, were the easy prey of corrupt politicians. ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... tags for bootlaces. With this one fact to build on, and with the assumption that the scene of his sufferings was the Bridge Lockhouse, Nonconformist imagination has drawn a 'den' for us, 'where there was not a yard or a court to walk in for daily exercise;' 'a damp and dreary cell;' 'a narrow chink which admits a few scanty rays of light to render visible the abode of woe;' 'the prisoner, pale and emaciated, seated on the humid earth, pursuing his daily task, to earn the morsel which prolongs his existence ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude

... tired and a little lonely, and he wished suddenly that a friendly cart would come along in which he might ride the remainder of the way. Between the densely wooded thicket on either side, the road looked dark and solemn. It was spread with a rotting carpet of last year's leaves, soft and damp under foot, and polished into shining tracks in the ruts left by passing wheels. Through the dusk the ghostly bodies of beech trees stood out distinctly from the surrounding wood, as if marked by a silver light falling from the topmost branches. The hoarse, grating ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... have not the remotest idea what mysterious thing you did to me last night, but this I know, that you have imparted to me a something that I have never hitherto possessed. I feel this morning a buoyancy of spirit that it seems to me no amount of disappointment could damp or lessen for a moment, and I have a belief in myself so complete, so boundless, that I feel I cannot help but be successful in this new venture of mine upon which I am ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood

... and damp in my heated face; a storm seemed to be gathering; black stormclouds grew and crept across the sky, their smoky outlines visibly changing. A gust of wind shivered restlessly in the dark trees, and somewhere, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... undermining and rotting the foundations, earth heaped up against the outside, weeds and shrubs growing upon them ... too frequently the floors are meanly paved, or the walls dirty or patched, or the windows ill glazed, and it may be in part stopped up ... or they are damp, offensive, and unwholesome. Why (he adds) should not the church of God, as well as everything else, partake of the improvements of later times?'[867] Bishop Fleetwood had observed forty years before,[868] that unless the good public spirit of repairing churches should prevail ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... this capacity came into frequent contact with the people of Finland. Topelius, who collected eighty epical fragments of the Kalevala, spent the last eleven years of his life in bed, afflicted with a fatal disease. This misfortune, however, did not damp his enthusiasm. Mr. Crawford tells us that he used to invite the wandering Finnish merchants to his bedside and induce them to sing their heroic poems which he copied down as soon as they were uttered, and that whenever he heard of a renowned Finnish minstrel he did all in his power to bring the ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... web," he replied. "The spider will be waiting. Petrie, I sometimes despair. Sir Lionel is an impossible man to shepherd. You ought to see his house at Finchley. A low, squat place completely hemmed in by trees. Damp as a swamp; smells like a jungle. Everything topsy-turvy. He only arrived to-day, and he is working and eating (and sleeping I expect), in a study that looks like an earthquake at Sotheby's auction-rooms. The rest of the house ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... groaned and cleared his throat with loud guffaws; she listened to hear the saliva fall: it splashed on the earthen floor. Farther away a circle of dried and yellowing faces bespoke centuries of damp cabins; they moaned and sighed, a prey to the gross superstition of the moment. One man, bent double, beat a ragged shirt with a clenched fist; the women of forty, with cloaks drawn over their foreheads and trailing on the ground in long black folds, crouched until only the lean, hard-worked hands ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... were small, hot, damp, dusty, and unhealthy. They were not more so perhaps than the cottages where domestic industry had been carried on; but now the hours were more regular, continuous, and prolonged in which men, women, and children were ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... foot on the surface, or breathed the air, of Niflheim. To have done so would have been instant death; the air was a mixture of free fluorine and fluoride gasses, the soil was metallic fluorides, damp with acid rains, and the river was pure hydrofluoric acid. Even the ordinary spacesuit would have been no protection; the glass and rubber and plastic would have disintegrated in a matter of minutes. People came to Niflheim, ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper

... gardens of Harkings it was a raw, damp evening, pitch-black now, with little gusts of wind which shook the naked bushes of the rosery. The garden door led by a couple of shallow steps on to a gravel path which ran all along the back of the house. The path extended right up to the wall of the ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine

... hope you will have time to read to me! Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. All these volumes! They are quite damp. You have ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... diligent over the "Battle of Prague;" a nursery full of crying babies on the other; more Battles of Prague opposite, diversified by a future Lind practicing her scales unweariedly; water-pipes bursting in the frost, walls streaming in the thaw, the lower offices reeking and green with damp, and the upper rooms too insecure for unrestricted movement—all these, and more miseries of the same kind, she willingly encounters rather than shift into a locality relatively unfashionable to her sphere, but where she could have substantiality ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... life. Unworn health, a blessed inexperience of failures and limitations, the sense of undeveloped power within you, the natural buoyancy of early days, all tend to make you rather live by impulse than by reflection. And I should be the last man in the world to try to damp the noble, buoyant, beautiful enthusiasms with which Nature has provided that we should all begin our course. The world will do that soon enough; and there is no sadder sight than that of a bitter old man, who has ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... men tasted the contents of his water-bottle, and in a minute there was a buzz of talk. Before scarce a word had been spoken; the men had been marching in a sort of sulky silence, disgusted at being taken from their beds for work they disliked, and at their long march through the damp night air; but their satisfaction at this ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... camp war mare mast chart damp warp share cask lard hand warm spare mask arm land ward snare past yard sand warn game scar lake waft fray lame spar dale raft play name star gale chaff gray fame garb cape aft stay tame barb ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... follows hard;—swift riding enough, in the summer night, through those damp Havel lands, in the old Hohenzollern fashion: and indeed old Freisack Castle, as it chances,—Freisack, scene of Dietrich von Quitzow and LAZY PEG long since,—is close by! Follows hard, we say: strikes in upon this midmost party (nearly twice ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... dry bed of white sand about 400 yards broad, but dotted with deep and beautifully clear pools, in which peculiarly brilliant fish and crocodiles, deprived of their stream, are crowded together. The atmosphere is more damp than by the Nile, and produces, in the terrible heat of the summer, profuse and exhausting perspiration. The natives dislike the water of the Atbara, and declare that it does not quench the thirst like that of the great river. It has, indeed, a slightly bitter ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... of the Boston Tea-party reached London on January 19, 1774, and was public property on the 21st. Other news little less unpleasant soon followed. At Charleston tea was only landed to lie rotting in damp cellars, not an ounce of it to be bought or sold. In Philadelphia a proclamation of December 27, 1773, announced that "THE TEA-SHIP being arrived, every Inhabitant who wishes to preserve the Liberty of America is desired to meet at the STATE-HOUSE, This Morning, precisely {162} at ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... do us harm; more especially as our sails are damp with dew. Here she cannot come so long as our cable stands; and as that is under water where she lies, it cannot burn. In half an hour there will be little of her left, and we will enjoy the bonfire while ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... a silent breakfast eaten late to avoid his table companions, had just come on deck. It had been misty earlier, but now the sun was beginning to break through in sudden glints of brightness. The deck was still damp, however, and the whole prospect seemed to the emerging Stefan cheerless in the extreme. His eyes swept the gray, huddled shapes upon the chairs, the knots of gossiping men, the clumsy, tramping youths, with the same loathing that the whole voyage had ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... a shroudless burial, of a solitary grave and a family vault—were this all, then, indeed it would be true that death is a common leveler. Such paltry distinctions as those of wealth and poverty are soon leveled by the spade and mattock; the damp breath of the grave blots them out forever. But there are other distinctions which even the mace of death can not level or obliterate. Can it break down the distinction of virtue and vice? Can it confound ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... on with a firm pressure that I was too weak to resist. I expostulated feebly that I was drowning, which she also laid to my mental exaltation, and then I finally dropped into a damp sleep. It was probably midnight when I roused again. I had been dreaming of the wreck, and it was inexpressibly comforting to feel the stability of my bed, and to realize the equal stability of Mrs. Klopton, ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Has-se had speared from the canoe as they swam in the clear water. He had cleaned them, wrapped them in fresh, damp leaves, raked aside a portion of the fire that he had kindled when he first arose, buried them in the hot sand beneath it, and covered the ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe

... quite impossible, for it would have supposed him a coward, and I was sure that he would rather die than leave me; therefore, as I feared, the first must be true. I was afraid, and I was wretched, and I said my prayers and cried a little, while the cold struck me through the red cloak, and the damp mist made me shiver. ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... toad which had alarmed his childhood; but his national dislike to that animal had not been lessened by years, and the toad of the prison seemed likely to fare no better than the toad of the chateau. He dragged himself from his pallet, and took up one of the large damp stones which lay about the floor of the cell, to throw at the intruder. He expected that when he approached it, the toad would crawl away, and that he could throw the stone after it; but to his surprise, the beast ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade

... Your faults, so obvious to mankind, My partial eyes could never find. When by the breath of fortune blown, Your airy castles were o'erthrown; Have I been over-prone to blame, Or mortified your hours with shame? Was I e'er known to damp your spirit, Or twit you with the want of merit? 10 'Tis not so strange, that Fortune's frown Still perseveres to keep you down. Look round, and see what others do. Would you be rich and honest too? Have you (like those she raised to place) Been opportunely mean and base? Have you (as ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... the trampling note of the big blast-engines had quickened to its normal beat, the blow-hole was plugged with its stopper of damp clay, and a red twilight born of the reflection from the surface of the great pot of seething slag had succeeded to the blinding glare. Where there had been two men locked in struggle there was now only one, and he was lying quietly with one leg doubled under him. Gordon set his ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... stony harshness...Obstinately it probes the chinks and pores of the nest; glides over it, crawls forward, returns, and recommences. The radicle of the germinating seed is not more persevering, not more determined to descend into the cool damp earth. What inspiration impels it? What compass guides it? What does the root know of the fertility of the soil?...The nurseling, the seed of the Anthrax, is barely visible, almost escaping the gaze of the magnifying glass; a mere atom compared to the monstrous ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... let us lay her on the sofa. It is very damp here, and if she sleeps long you will ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... the silver pitcher and drank it. Outside, the rain was falling with a gentle dripping. The thunder had died; the breeze, cooler, came laden with damp earthy smells. Varia went to the window and knelt beside it, leaning out into the warm darkness. Her father's eyes followed her. But if Varia's mood had changed, his was not to be shaken off so lightly. He sat down on the couch, wiping his forehead free from sweat. Here, he was ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... and Margaret's country-loving nature cried out for the smell of damp fields, for the scents and the sounds of untrodden paths. The long twilight evenings seemed the loneliest hours to her in London. Their beauty was wasted. But the real country was denied her, for what distance could her two-hours-off take her from London? ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... crowd of national creditors becomes more dense, and is mixed up with substantial capitalists in high check neckties, double-breasted waistcoats, curly-rimmed hats, narrow trousers, and round-toed boots. Parties of thin, limp, damp-smelling women, come in with mouldy umbrellas and long, chimney-cowl-shaped bonnets, made of greasy black silk, or threadbare black velvet—the worn-out fashions of a past generation. Some go about their business in confidential pairs; ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... his, there was no detestation of himself because of his humiliation of the trusting Isobel; he did not loathe his abuse of her confidence, or his having wrapt her in the foul fire-damp of his miserable weakness: the hour of a true and good repentance was for him not yet come; shame only as yet possessed him, because of the failure of his own fancied strength. If it should ever come to be known, what contempt would not clothe ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald

... a moment. He was looking about him wonderingly, noting the damp stone walls and high vaulted ceiling of a large windowless chamber. By the uncertain light of the baron's candle he made out an arched passageway at one side and around the walls piles of logs carefully roped and ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... to the surface, and when well awash, the engines were started at full speed. The hatches were opened and the ventilating fans started, blowing out the gases and letting in the cold, damp air. All on board drew a breath of this invigorating air, and then Captain Nicholson turned his attention to escaping from beneath the big guns ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... a low knock at the front door, and went to see. As she opened it a savage swirl of damp wind rushed in, and the shrinking figure leaning against one of the fluted columns of the Grecian porch seemed to cower before its fury. It was a woman who stood there, a woman whose emaciated face wore a piteous expression, as she lifted it to ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... known only to the natives, and it afforded them admirable places for ambush and for retreat. Nowadays a large part of the bush-covered land is used for ostrich-farms, and it is, indeed, fit for little else. The scrub is mostly dry, while the larger forests are comparatively damp, and often beautiful with flowering trees, small tree-ferns, and flexile climbers. But the trees are not lofty enough to give any of that dignity which a European forest, say in England or Germany or Norway, often possesses, and as the native kinds are mostly evergreens, their leaves have comparatively ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... conversation, Mrs. Villiers took her leave, and Christie continued his round of visits. All that long, sultry afternoon he toiled on, climbing dark staircases, going down into damp cellars, visiting crowded lodging-houses; and everywhere, as he went, dropping seeds of the Word of life, sweet words from the Book of books, suited to the hearts of those with ...
— Christie's Old Organ - Or, "Home, Sweet Home" • Mrs. O. F. Walton

... been close and oppressive which has added to the distress of the horses and camels. One of the latter, an old Indian, could hardly be persuaded to come along. Very light rain commenced about dark or a little after, but I doubt whether it will come to anything; however it will damp the grass for the poor animals and make ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay

... was hurried away and thrust into a cold, damp dungeon, his lacerated flesh bleeding copiously, but ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold

... fire glowing in her tiny grate when she came in, and when her lamp was lighted under its home-made shade of crimson Japanese paper, its cheerful air, combining itself with the singing of her little, fat, black kettle on the hob, seemed absolute luxury to a tired, damp woman. ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... smiled through her tears; smiled with withered face and young eyes, till her countenance was irradiated with the light of the smile. Then she bathed my head and face and hands in an icy cold, colourless liquid, which smelt a little of damp earth. Immediately I was able to sit up. She rose and put some food before me. When I had eaten, she said: "Listen to me, my child. You must ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... of the troubles of Ellwood's patron and friend. He had been home only three weeks when "the said Philip Palmer" seized him again, dragged him out of bed, sent him, without any cause shown, to Aylesbury gaol, and kept him a year and a half prisoner "in rooms so cold, damp, and unhealthy, that it went very near to cost him his life, and procured him so great a distemper that he lay weak of it several months. At length a relation of his wife, by an habeas corpus, removed ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood

... subject, which have been brought forth and expired within the compass of their short season, there are too many, who, instead of applauding the hazardous boldness of the measure, and for the sake of its public utility standing forward in its encouragement and support, will endeavour to damp it by premature censure, ascribe the undertaking to vanity, or unworthiness, and if it should fail, be ready to aggravate the disappointment of the projectors with the galling imputation of temerity, impudence, or overweening self-conceit. The sympathy which mankind in general think it handsome ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... wanders about the park and the woods in the evenings. "Damp evenings for choice. She calls it the Celtic twilight. I've no use for the Celtic twilight myself. It has a tendency to get on the chest." The Duke, annoyed by this love of fairies, has blundered, in his usual way, on an absurd compromise between the real and the ideal. A conjuror is to come ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... known that afternoon that not only was Jim going to keep Helen from him, but that he had the proof with which to ruin him forever. He had planned to have it out with Jim at the country-club, knowing it would be a cold damp night and that few people would be out there. He had emphatically stated that Jim should come alone and should be there promptly at half-past eight. All those facts pointed to the man's guilt ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny

... cried he, "am I not deceived? Is it you whom I behold? May I flatter myself that it may be in my power to restore you to the sultan your father, who is inconsolable for the loss of you? But will he not have some one to lament? Are you all here alive? Alas! the death of one of you will suffice to damp the joy I feel for ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.

... we found three rooms containing chairs and tables in profusion, but not a bed or sofa. Of course we were expected to supply our own bedding, and need not be particular about a bedstead. The worst part of the affair was the wet condition of our furs. My sheepskin sleigh robe was altogether too damp for use, and I sent it to be dried in the kitchen. Several of my fur garments went the same way. Even my shooba, which I carried in a bag, had a feeling of dampness when I unfolded it, and in fact the ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... contrasting our surroundings with those of the poor folk at home shivering in all the dreariness of an English mid- winter, when, if it isn't freezing or snowing or hailing, it is bound to be raining—a cold, raw, nasty sort of rain—and damp and foggy and dirty, at all events, such being the pleasurable conditions of our delightful climate usually at ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... a quarrie of stones, excellent for paveing halls, staire-cases, &c; it being pretty white and smooth, and of such a texture as not to be moist or wett in damp weather. It is used at London in Montagu-house, and in Barkeley-house &c. (and at Cornberry, Oxon. JOHN EVELYN). This stone is not inferior to Purbac grubbes, but whiter. It takes a little polish, and is a dry stone. It was discovered but about 1640, yet it lies not above four ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey

... against the breast of the Peaks; and the summer heat grew terrible. At noon the cloud turned black and mounted up, its fluffy summit gleaming in the light of the ardent sun; the wind whirled across the barren mesa, sweeping great clouds of dust before it, and the air grew damp and cool; then, as evening came on the clouds vanished suddenly and the wind died down to a calm. For a week the spectacle was repeated—then, at last, as if weary, the storm-wind refused to blow; the thunder-caps no longer piled up against the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... was about a quarter of a mile long, and no more than a good stone's throw across from pines to pines. Though the level of the ground was several feet above the creek, the ground, like the creek bottoms generally, was spongy and damp, with dry islands ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... wholesome, excessive personality that only hugs itself is under all circumstances chief among unclean things. Thus even Rousseau's finest monument of moral enthusiasm is fatally tarnished by the cold damp breath of isolation, and the very book which contained so many elements of new life for a state, was at bottom the apotheosis of ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... the Bear. It had been gone for years, but he found pleasure in passing the place. At the corner of Pemberton and Grand streets, according to a schoolboy tradition, a Skunk had been killed years ago and could still be smelled on damp nights. He always stopped, if passing near on a wet night, and sniffed and enjoyed that Skunk smell. The fact that it ultimately turned out to be a leakage of sewer gas could never rob him of the pleasure ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... entered a tavern one bleared May morning, ragged, rough-bearded, hunger-stricken, and asked for breakfast; having a Latin Horace about him was suspected and haled to prison, breakfast unfinished; fainted by the way with exhaustion; was flung into a damp cell, and found next morning lying dead on the floor"; his works are voluminous, and the best known is his "Exquisse du Progres de l'Esprit Humain"; he was not an original thinker, but a ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... this report are the fourteen lives lost on the Italian bark Giovanni near Provincetown, Cape Cod, in a storm unprecedented for its terrors. A story found its way into the papers at the time that the powder used in the mortar was damp, and that from this trifling neglect help could not be extended from the station. A strict investigation was made, and it was proved by the testimony of the people in Provincetown that all the apparatus was in perfect order and the keepers and surfmen ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... warm and damp atmospheric strata, saturated with p 219 carbonic acid, vegetation must have attained a degree of vital activity, and derived the superabundance of nutrition necessary to furnish materials for the formation of ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... of timber, and dry. On the banks it was still lower, and in many parts it was evident that the river floods swept over them, though this did not appear to be universally the case. . . . These unfavourable appearances threw a damp upon our hopes, and we feared that our anticipations had been ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... first press the border of fronts; stretch into shape, pin to an ironing-board, cover with a damp cloth and press with a fairly hot iron until the cloth is dry. This will prevent the coat from drawing up, as the ribs are inclined to do. For sewing, use a blunt-pointed needle to avoid splitting the wool. Sew up the side and shoulder-seams, taking a stitch from each edge and keeping the edges ...
— Handbook of Wool Knitting and Crochet • Anonymous

... the younger boy to her side. She was chafing his numb hands and smoothing the damp locks from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... which we all accept, and about which we do not dispute. For instance, we who are outside of the asylum all agree that water seeks its level; that the sun gives light and heat; that fire consumes; that fog is damp; that 6 times 6 are thirty-six; that 2 from 10 leave eight; that 8 and 7 are fifteen. These are perhaps the only things we are agreed about; but although they are so few, they are of inestimable value, because they ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... was turned down to a glimmering point, and the house was silent for the night. Even a cat who stole to him and rubbed herself against his leg miauwed in a sort of abortive whisper, opening her mouth wide, but emitting no sound. When he went cautiously up the staircase he carried his damp overcoat with him, and hung it in company with the tartan muffler close to the heater in the upper hall. Then he laid on his bedside table a ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... generally necessary to assist the fertilization either directly by application or by motion of the plant, this latter only being effective in the middle of a bright sunny day. In the open ground in cold, damp weather the flowers often fail of fertilization, in which case they drop, and this is often the first indication of a failing of the crop on large, strong vines. I have known of many cases where ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy

... direction was changed? He brought his affections entire and unabated into the service of his blessed Master. His zeal now burned even with an increase of brightness; and no intenseness, no continuance of suffering could allay its ardor, or damp the fervors of his triumphant exultations. Finally—The worship and service of the glorified spirits in Heaven, is not represented to us a cold intellectual investigation, but as the worship and service of gratitude and love. And surely it ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... things to do; only the day to do them in, and a journey across the continent before me in the evening. It rained with patient fury; every now and then I had to get under cover for a while in order, so to speak, to give my mackintosh a rest; for under this continued drenching it began to grow damp on the inside. I went to banks, post-offices, railway-offices, restaurants, publishers, booksellers, money-changers, and wherever I went a pool would gather about my feet, and those who were careful ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... ride. And at last he noticed on the ground certain marks which he knew to be those of a buck that had scratched in the sand for water. Overjoyed he got down from the saddle and continued the work of the buck, digging and digging with his lean sunburnt fingers till he came to damp earth, and then—to water. At that moment he saw two pigeons get up from behind a rock some little way off, and leaving his oozing water in the sand he hastened there and discovered to his supreme joy the salvation of his party—a ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie

... The morning was damp and chilly, although there was the promise of a fair day later on; and Matty's stand was placed inside when we entered the shop, and the first thing our eyes rested upon was Matty's shorn head. We all three leaped at once to the same conclusion with the Petersens. But whether it was that I ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... to have an idea. She whispers it into Marjorie's ear, slips into the house, and comes back with a hand mirror and a damp washcloth, which she proceeds to offer to Gladys, ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... monotonously and rather mournfully chanted song about a dance and a love-affair. We ourselves worked busily with our photographs and our writing. There was so much humidity in the air that everything grew damp and stayed damp, and mould gathered quickly. At this season it is a country in which writing, taking photographs, and preparing specimens are all works of difficulty, at least so far as concerns preserving and sending home the results of the labor; and a man's ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt



Words linked to "Damp" :   clamminess, damp-proof course, damp course, dankness, dampish, soften, muffle, hold in, tone down, damper, deafen, wetness, dampen, check, dampness, moist, hold, curb, deaden, weaken, contain, control, moderate, rawness, blunt, mute, dull



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