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Egg-shaped   Listen
adjective
egg-shaped  adj.  Resembling an egg in form; ovoid.
Synonyms: elliptic, elliptical, oval, ovate, oviform, ovoid, prolate.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Egg-shaped" Quotes from Famous Books



... female carries, hanging at the bottom of her ovipositor, a queer bladder-like arrangement, an opaline capsule, the size of a large pea and roughly subdivided into a small number of egg-shaped vesicles. When the insect walks, the thing scrapes along the ground and becomes dirty with sticky grains of sand. The Grasshopper then makes a banquet off this fertilizing capsule, drains it slowly of its contents, and devours it bit by bit; for a long time she chews and rechews the gummy ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... his shoulders, removed its protective outer shield and began to assemble the organic surveyor, an egg-shaped ball of white carponium secured to a segmented forty-foot rod. While Brandt and I raised the rod with the aid of an electric fulcrum, Mason carefully placed his control cabinet on a piece of outcropping rock and ...
— The Long Voyage • Carl Richard Jacobi

... Brown from first to last; thick skinned, very scaly and shaggy; at first egg-shaped, then swollen, finally expanded, a little point in the centre becoming prominent; always ...
— Mushrooms of America, Edible and Poisonous • Anonymous

... asked, and he began to unbar the great door, and a heavy, thick-set man, weary of limb and mind, staggered into the gallery, and stood looking from one to the other, as if trying to guess which of the three would be most likely to welcome him. His large and bowed shoulders made his bald, egg-shaped skull (his turban had fallen in his flight) seem ridiculously small; it was bald to the ears, and a thick black beard spread over the face like broom, and nearly to the eyes; thick black eyebrows shaded ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... the cunning pins and rivets, and one which has its place still, in perfectly accomplished metal-work, as in the equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Coleoni, by Andrea Verrocchio, in the piazza of St. John and St. Paul at Venice. In the British Museum there is a very early specimen of it,—a large egg-shaped vessel, fitted together of several pieces, the projecting pins or rivets, forming a sort of diadem round the middle, being still sharp in form and heavily gilt. That method gave place in time to ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... was rounded and turned up at the end, and it had a high sharp ridge down the middle. This was known as the old English shape, and was in common use for half a century. About the period of our Revolutionary War a shape nearly like the one in ordinary present use became the mode; the bowl became egg-shaped, and the end of the handle was turned down instead of up. The rat-tail, which extended down the back of the bowl, was shortened into a drop. Apostle spoons, and monkey spoons for extraordinary use were occasionally made, and a few are still preserved; examples of five ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... clock that no ordinary happening would have had the power to distract him. What occurred now was by no means ordinary, and it distracted him like an electric shock. As he sat on the floor, passing a tender hand over the egg-shaped bump which had already begun to manifest itself beneath his hair, something cold and wet touched his face, and paralysed him so completely both physically and mentally that he did not move a muscle ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... required for clear vision of near objects, and frequently even of distant ones. This state occurs congenitally, or at a very early age, often in several children of the same family, where one of the parents has presented it.[16] Secondly, myopia, or short-sight, in which the eye is egg-shaped, and too long from front to back; the retina in this case lies behind the focus, and is therefore fitted to see distinctly only very near objects. This condition is not commonly congenital, but comes on in youth, the liability ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... labor has begun its work of delivery. You now place patient on her back, propped to an easy angle of near thirty degrees, with rubber blanket in place. After you find os, dilated to nearly the size of a dollar, then relax nerves at pubes. Soon you will find in mouth of womb an egg-shaped pouch of water, which you must not press with fingers till very late in labor, for fear of stopping labor for perhaps many hours. Remember the head can and does turn in pelvis to suit the easiest passage through the ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... the feeling that it would be extremely pleasant to bring something down with a whack on Conrad's egg-shaped head. Tommy stroked his own head tenderly, and gave himself up to the pleasures of imagination. Finally a bright idea flashed across his brain. Why not convert imagination into reality? Conrad was undoubtedly the tenant of the house. The others, with ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie

... places. Sometimes the plants are scattered, sometimes two or three in a cluster, but usually large clusters are formed where ten to twenty or more are crowded closely together (Fig. 39). The stems are shorter than those of the shaggy-mane and the cap is different in shape and color. The cap is egg-shaped or oval. It varies in color from a silvery grey, in some forms, to a dark ashen grey, or smoky brown color in others. Sometimes the cap is entirely smooth, as I have seen it in some of the silvery grey forms, where the delicate fibres coursing down in lines on the outer ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... chopped meat into hash, vary it, by rolling the same mixture into egg-shaped pieces, or flat cakes, flouring them, and frying them nicely in very hot fat; pieces of pork or bacon fried and laid round will help out the dish, and be an improvement to what is ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen

... scooter I was shown at the rental agency didn't do much to raise my opinion of this mode of transportation. The thing was a good ten years old, the paint scraped and scratched all over its egg-shaped, originally green-colored body, and the windshield—a silly term, really, for the front window of a craft that spends most of its time out where there isn't any wind—was scratched and pockmarked to the point of translucency by years of exposure ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake

... that grew thickly over its magnificent head. Its trunk was full twenty-feet in diameter, rising to more than that height without a branch, and then spreading off into numerous limbs that stretched far out in a horizontal direction. Through the thick foliage Von Bloom could perceive shining egg-shaped fruits as large as cocoa-nuts; and upon these the parrots and several other kinds of birds ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... divorce at an early stage and leaves the nuptial roof before the children's rations are massed and kneaded into shape. Nevertheless, on both sides, there is the same big outlay on a cellarful of egg-shaped pills, whose neat rows call for long and watchful supervision. The similarity of the produce leads one to believe in similarity of manners; and this is ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... sailing balloon was built in 1784 by Guyot, who made his balloon egg-shaped, with the smaller end at the back and the longer axis horizontal; oars were intended to propel the craft, and naturally it was a failure. Carra proposed the use of paddle wheels, a step in the right direction, by mounting them on the sides ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... "Mr. Stephenson asked whether such a design was practicable, and whether I could accomplish it: and it was ultimately arranged that the subject should be investigated experimentally, to determine not only the value of Mr. Stephenson's original conception (of a circular or egg-shaped wrought-iron tube, supported by chains), but that of any other tubular form of bridge which might present itself in the prosecution of my researches. The matter was placed unreservedly in my hands; the ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... they had been walking along the streets of the Blue City, where many of the Blueskin inhabitants stopped to gaze wonderingly at the sailor and the boy, whose strange appearance surprised them. They were a nervous, restless people, and their egg-shaped heads, set on the ends of long, thin necks, seemed so grotesque to the strangers that they could scarcely forbear laughing at them. The bodies of these people were short and round and their legs exceptionally ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum

... with a long white face, which, broadened at the base by a big double chin, appeared egg-shaped in the fringe of thin greyish whisker, the great personage seemed an expanding man. Unfortunate from a tailoring point of view, the cross-folds in the middle of a buttoned black coat added to the impression, as if the fastenings of the garment were tried to the utmost. From the head, set upward ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... masked by the overlapping damper. We will call this the window. This opening gives access to a cavity or sound-chamber, deeper than the "chapels," but of much smaller capacity. Immediately behind the attachment of the posterior wings is a slight protuberance, almost egg-shaped, which is distinguishable, on account of its dull black colour, from the neighbouring integuments, which are covered with a silvery down. This protuberance is the ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... many hostesses have introduced a variety on the menu of the five o'clock tea table. Tea is a doubtful beverage in many hands, and is wholly abjured by many women as injurious to the complexion, hence a big, egg-shaped urn, beneath which a tiny alcohol jet burns, is set up in the corner of the drawing-room. The urn is filled with chicken bouillon, served piping hot in small silver cups, and with an invigorating dash of sherry for those who prefer it so. With the bouillon are served platters of toasted ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... the same time. Embedded in the bluish earth was a small, egg-shaped piece of light-coloured stone. And protruding from its upper surface was a tiny, blood-red pebble, no bigger ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... or three quarters of an inch thick, and is so porous that water passes directly through it. It has a flat bottom on which to stand, and this enables it to retain its position, while making the drain, better than would be done by the round pipe. The orifice through which the water passes is egg-shaped, having its smallest curve at the bottom. This shape is the one most easily kept clear, as any particles of dirt which get into the drain must fall immediately to the point where even the smallest stream of water runs, and are thus removed. An orifice of about two inches is sufficient for the smaller ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring

... where cut off gives the circumference of an egg-shaped board, representing a cross section of the neck at that point in a vertical line. The neck standard is sawed off at the proper place and angle and made fast to the board by nails and screws. With a very short neck it will be necessary to depress the nose considerably that the antlers ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham

... fog is too thick, on gas. The curiosity about it, in the eyes of this incisive Gaul, was "not the divinity, but the worshipers." All day long a crowd filed solemnly by it under the supervision of a detachment of police, each pilgrim bestowing upon the fetish, "an egg-shaped lump of glass," half a second's adoration, and then moving reluctantly on. Thousands of far more beautiful things were around it, but none embodying in so small a space so many dollars and cents, and none therefore so brilliant ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... their ancient castle, work of the viceroy, Pedro of Toledo. Many turrets of dark rose color were crowded together upon this narrow, egg-shaped island, where, in other days, the pusillanimous Spanish garrison was locked in the fortress for the purpose of aiming bombards and culverins at the Neapolitans when they no longer wished to pay taxes and imposts. Its walls had been raised upon the ruins of another castle in which Frederick ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... content for the moment to drink in the beauty about him and then Galatea returned bearing a crystal bowl of the strange fruits. They were piled in colorful disorder, red, purple, orange and yellow, pear-shaped, egg-shaped, and clustered spheroids—fantastic, unearthly. He selected a pale, transparent ovoid, bit into it, and was deluged by a flood of sweet liquid, to the amusement of the girl. She laughed and chose a similar morsel; biting a tiny puncture in the end, she squeezed the contents into her mouth. ...
— Pygmalion's Spectacles • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum

... Berselius was a little man in a frock-coat, rather worn, and slippers. He had evidently been in neglige and, to meet the visitor, slipped into the frock-coat, or possibly he was careless, taken up with abstractions, dreams, business affairs, plans. He was rather stout, with an oval, egg-shaped face; his beard, sparse and pointed and tinged with gray, had originally been light of hue; he had pale blue eyes, and he had ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... is large for the size of the bird, being a loosely-woven cup, which is egg-shaped and has a hole at or near the narrow end. It is composed of fine grass stems and is often lined with soft material. It is usually placed in the middle of a bush, sometimes in a tussock of grass. From six to fourteen eggs ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar

... beginning with the aniseed cordial. The liquid nearly always drew away the materials with it, or rather they stuck together at the bottom; at other times they were mistaken as to the amount of the ingredients. Around them shone great copper pans; egg-shaped vessels projected their narrow openings; saucepans hung from the walls. Frequently one of them culled herbs on the table, while the other made the ball swing in the suspended bowl. They stirred the ladles; they ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... characterized by devotion to Madonna. He was a singular child. On every Christmas eve, for seven successive years, ghostly knockings were heard upon his chamber door; and, every night, when he awoke from sleep, the darkness above his bed was illuminated by a mysterious egg-shaped globe of light.[223] His eccentricity in later life amounted to insanity, and at last he gave himself up wholly to the demon of the gaming-table. Domenichino obeyed only one passion, if we except his passion ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... observed, its uses are manifold: the fibre of its leaves can be manufactured into thread, cordage, and cloth; fences are constructed of the growing plant, and thatch of the blades when cut; its sap, distilled, furnishes the fiery but not unwholesome mezcal; and the large egg-shaped core or stem is eaten for food. Tribes of Indians—Lipans, Comanches, and Apaches—use it extensively as an article of diet. One branch of the great Apache nation are distinguished—"Mezcaleros" (eaters of the mezcal-plant). ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... cheese makes an attractive salad when formed into egg-shaped balls and served in a nest of shredded lettuce. To prepare this salad, which is known as Easter salad, shred lettuce finely and place it in the shape of a nest on salad plates. Make tiny egg-shaped balls of cream cheese moistened with sufficient cream to handle. Place three or four of these ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... a depressed little quartet was left on the platform—our two selves, a lean schoolmaster, and an egg-shaped man who never spoke a word. We found a clerk sitting in an office. He said we could not leave our bags in his room, but as we made him own that we could not put them anywhere else he looked the other way while we dropped ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon

... is egg-shaped, and of two parts, the large brain (cerebrum), and the little brain (cerebellum). These are composed of a white and gray substance, which in the large brain is so folded and wrinkled that it looks like the meat of an English walnut; in the little ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis

... not but be delightful, so there was a certain leap of the young heart when the invitation was accepted for her; and she let Sir Ralf put the token into her hand, and a choice one it was. Everybody pressed to look at it, while she stood blushing, coy and unwilling to display the small egg-shaped watch of the kind recently invented at Nuremberg. Sir Ralf observed that the young lady showed a comely shamefast maidenliness, and therewith bowed himself out of ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... was recently made near Mancos, Colorado, where a party of explorers found in some old cliff dwellings graves beneath graves that were entirely different from anything yet discovered. They were egg-shaped, built of stone and plastered smoothly with clay. They contained mummies, cloth, sandals, beads and various other trinkets. There was no pottery, but many well-made baskets, and their owners have been called the basket ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... shawl girdles; and their silver-mounted pistols; the grave turban replaced by a many-tasseled cap. Their accommodation is the stable of a khan, or serai, shared with their camel. Their refreshment is coffee, thick, black and bitter, served by the khanji in tiny egg-shaped cups. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... quite dark there—just as dark as night itself—and we could not see six feet beyond our noses in any direction but soon the fire blazing up, enabled us to note our new quarters more particularly. We could see above our heads the long egg-shaped fruit hanging down from among the large leaves, while strewed over the ground were many that had fallen from over-ripeness, and the shells of others that had opened, and shed their seeds, and were ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... orchestra was sunk sufficiently below the level of the floor to conceal the performers from all but the occupants of the upper tiers. In the hope of attaining improved acoustic effects the floor of the orchestra was laid upon an egg-shaped sound-chamber of masonry. The innovation did not meet with the approval of Signor Vianesi, the first musical director at the opera house, and, after an experimental rehearsal, the floor was raised so that the old conditions obtained when the ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... shorebirds, and marine wildlife; closed to the public Johnston Atoll: Johnston Island and Sand Island are natural islands, which have been expanded by coral dredging; North Island (Akau) and East Island (Hikina) are manmade islands formed from coral dredging; the egg-shaped reef is 34 km in circumference; closed to the public Kingman Reef: barren coral atoll with deep interior lagoon; closed to the public Midway Islands: a coral atoll managed as a national wildlife refuge and open to the public for wildlife-related recreation in the form of wildlife observation ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... eggs, put them into a stewpan, and add the cream, butter, and seasoning; stir in as much flour as will bring it to the consistency of dough; make it into balls, either round or egg-shaped, and fry them in butter; put them in the tureen, and pour the boiling ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... replaced them by "reverberatory" furnaces, which in turn were superseded in 1646 by aludel or Bustamente furnaces. There is an anonymous description of the working with xabecas as practiced at Almaden in 1543, and later accounts in 1557 and 1565. The ore was put into egg-shaped vessels with a lid, the mineral being covered over with ashes. The vessels were packed in a furnace heated with wood, about 60 pounds being used per pound of quicksilver made. This system was also applied at the Guancavelica mines, discovered in Peru ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various

... on a low shrub, chiefly in the valleys of the coast, and on the eastern declivity of the Andes. It is of the form and size of a small apple. The rind is bright, yellow, and thin. The pulp is either white or red, and is full of little egg-shaped granulations. Its flavor is pleasant, but not remarkably fine. In Lima it is not a favorite, for numerous insects lay their eggs in it, and, when the fruit is ripe, larvae are found ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... buds—huge, smooth, egg-shaped things—seem on the point of bursting at any moment. We call it the 'Mystery,' and it is my special care. Mr. Saunderson has shown me how to attend to its simple needs, and if it proves to be a new species—which is almost certain—he is going to exhibit it, and name it after ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer

... desolation. The slow rocking step of the camels was most irksome, and, despite the heat, I dismounted to examine the Satanic bombs and cannon shot. Many of them were as perfectly round as though cast in a mould, others were egg-shaped, and all were hollow. With some difficulty I broke them, and found them to contain a bright red sand. They were, in fact, volcanic bombs that had been formed by the ejection of molten lava to a great height from active ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... green and blue and black and striped bombs; egg-shaped, barrel-shaped, conical, and concave bombs; bombs that were exploded by pulling a string and by pressing a button—all these to be thrown by hand, without mentioning grenades and other larger varieties to be thrown by mechanical means, which would have made a Chinese ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... week after the above conversation the united trustees of St. Asaph's and St. Osoph's were gathered about a huge egg-shaped table in the board room of the Mausoleum Club. They were seated in intermingled fashion after the precedent of the recent Tin Pot Amalgamation and were smoking huge black cigars specially kept by the club for the promotion ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock

... between twenty-five and fifty. His thick, plum-coloured hair was brushed up on his forehead in a butcher-boy's curl. His teeth glittered with dentist's gold. He wore a tweed suit of bright pea-soup colour, a rainbow tie and yellow boots. Over the bulge of an egg-shaped stomach hung a massive gold watch-chain blossoming into a semi-heraldic charm, which might be a masonic emblem or a cycling club badge. His breastpocket appeared to hold a ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... signed to them to enter their villages, where they would find food in abundance. "And all the canoes, and those in them, had their arms, which consisted of shields, bundles of throwing-sticks, slings, and egg-shaped stones.... They leave the body quite uncovered. They are tall, robust, well built, and apparently of great strength. The women, too, are very tall, and wear only a cord tied about the waist, and to the cord they hang some grass or leaves from the trees, whereby ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair

... of the Middle Ages, gorgeous perhaps in colour, but heavy, miserable, grotesque, nay, sometimes ludicrous in form; citizens in lumpish robes and long-tailed caps; ladies in stiff and foldless brocade hoops and stomachers; artizans in striped and close-adhering hose and egg-shaped padded jerkin; soldiers in lumbering armour-plates, ill-fitted over ill-fitting leather, a shapeless shell of iron, bulging out and angular, in which the body was buried as successfully as in the robes of ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee

... pepper should be offered with these by the waitress. Watermelon is usually cut in wedges or circles. It should always be served very cold, on a large fruit plate, and with fruit knife and fork. If half-melons are served, with the rind, the host cuts egg-shaped pieces from the fruit, and places it on individual plates for ...
— Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration • Lillian B. Lansdown

... tightly packed (an "oblate spheroid" would be the physicist's brief description), seeks the society of other men who share his illusion; and the company of them take arms against the opposing faction, which is confirmed in the belief that the ball is egg-shaped, that the bulge, in fact, ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford

... quality. To test a needle, try to break it; if it resist, and then break clean in two, the steel is good; if it bend without breaking, or break without any resistance, it is bad. Never use a bent needle, it makes ugly and irregular stitches, and see that the eye, whether round or egg-shaped, be well-drilled, that it may not fray or cut the thread. Long or half-long needles are the best for white work, long ones for dress-making, and longer ones still, with long eyes, for darning. A stock of each, from No 5 to 12, is advised. The needle should always be a little thicker than the thread, ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont

... for these are situated in the surface layer of the bank; they are irregular in form, rough inside and barely protected, by their thin earthen partitions, against external enemies. The Osmia's larvae, in fact, contrive to enclose themselves in an egg-shaped cocoon, dark brown in colour and very strong, which preserves them both from the rough contact of their shapeless cells and from the mandibles of voracious parasites, Acari,[5] Cleri[6] and Anthreni,[7] those manifold enemies whom we find prowling in the ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... Muslin tomb among the leaves ahead, a small white cube, with egg-shaped dome atop of it, having in its shade a place for the repose of wayfarers. Thither he conducted the Emir, and both sat down. Iskender toyed with his fingers in the crevices of its rough pavement. He wished to enjoy his ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... some thick bush, and is firmly wedged in between the twigs and shoots. It is composed internally of dried bamboo-leaves, grass, and vegetable fibres, outside which bamboo-sheaths are bound on with creepers and fibres of different kinds. The nest is more or less egg-shaped, with the longer diameter horizontal, some 7 inches or so in length and 5 inches in height, and with the entrance at one end, measuring some 3 inches in diameter. Four or five eggs are laid, elongated ovals, somewhat pointed towards the small end, pure white, ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... careful not to use your left hand, and unless you eat fast you'll get less than your share—there came five men on camels out of a wady—a shallow valley that lay like a cut throat with red rocks on its edge something over a mile away beyond the egg-shaped rock. They were armed—as everybody is in those parts who hopes to live—and ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy

... uproar of thunder and wind, blinding flashes of lightning, and torrents of rain. Then as the first thick darkness began to pass away, we saw that the air was white with falling hailstones of an extraordinary size and appearance. They were big as fowls' eggs, but not egg-shaped: they were flat, and about half-an-inch thick, and being white, looked like little blocks or bricklets made of compressed snow. The hail continued falling until the earth was white with them, and in spite of their great size they were driven by the furious ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... and children, naked and all but defenseless, emerged from their egg-shaped shelters, some fighting as best they could, others flying, and all apparently surrounded by a band of ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown

... cavern would thus appear to be something of the shape of an egg, with the longer axis vertical, and the entrance about half-way up the side. The lower end of this egg-shaped cavity in the rock is filled with ice, which in some parts shrinks from the rock below the surface, though, as far as outward appearance goes, it fills the cavern to its farthest corners. The depth of this ice at one side is ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... following every winding-crouching, too, like hunters after deer. The first man he saw was a Hellene, but the ranks behind were no Hellenes. There was no glint of bronze or gleam of fair skin. They were dark, long-haired fellows, with spears like his own, and round Eastern caps, and egg-shaped bucklers. Then Atta rejoiced. It was the Great King who was turning the flank of the Hellenes. They guarded the gate, the fools, while the ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... a badly lighted store a circle of white men and boys had formed around an old-fashioned, egg-shaped stove. Near by, on some meal-bags, sat two negroes, one of whom wore a broad grin, the other, ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... the most complicated of all in its internal arrangements, and its quiet was therefore a little deceptive. Most prominent was the balloon-shaped body in the middle, with six smaller bodies in two horizontal rows and one large egg-shaped one in the midst, contained in it. Some chemical atoms were seen in which the internal arrangement of these contained bodies was changed and the two horizontal rows became vertical; this change seemed to be connected with a greater activity of the whole body, ...
— Occult Chemistry - Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements • Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater

... From two to four times longer than broad and with sides nearly parallel. OBTUSE. Blunt or rounded at the end. OIDES. A Greek ending, meaning like, or like to, as polypodioides—like to a polypody. OOeSPHERE. The egg-cell in fern reproduction—becoming the ooespore when fertilized. OVATE. Egg-shaped with the broader end downward. PALMATE. Having lobes radiating like the fingers of a hand. PANICLE. A loose compound cluster of flowers or sporangia with irregular stems. PEDICEL. A tiny stalk, especially the stalk of the sporangia. PELLUCID. Clear, transparent. PERSISTENT. Remaining on the plant ...
— The Fern Lover's Companion - A Guide for the Northeastern States and Canada • George Henry Tilton

... suet, currants, candied peel, sugar, and nutmeg, grated, and stir these ingredients until they are thoroughly mixed. Beat up the eggs, moisten the pudding with these, and put in the brandy; beat well for a few minutes, then form the mixture into round balls or egg-shaped pieces; fry these in hot butter or lard, letting them stew in it until thoroughly done, and turn them two or three times, till of a fine light brown; drain them on a piece of blotting-paper before the fire; dish, and serve with ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... it well, because of two things. First, that Jem got five of the largest hips we had ever seen off a leafless dog-rose branch which stuck far out of the hedge, and picked the little green coronets off, so that they were smooth and glossy, and egg-shaped, and crimson on one side and yellow on the other; and then he got an empty chaffinch's nest close by and put the five hips into it, and took it home, and persuaded Alice our new parlourmaid that it was a robin redbreast's nest with eggs in it. And she believed it, ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... found in the garden a tiny egg-shaped shell made of gold-coloured lattice work. When they put it under the microscope they saw inside it a thing like a green egg. Every day they watched it; it put out two green horns, and a ridge grew down the middle of it, and one morning they found the golden shell broken. ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... little, old, bald-headed lecturer and mesmerist, thumbing the egg-shaped head of a young man I remembered to have met that afternoon in some law office; "Phrenology," repeated the professor—"or rather the term phrenology—is derived from two Greek words signifying mind and discourse; hence we find embodied in phrenology-proper, the science of intellectual ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley

... frequently the case on the river. Yet it had been plenteous enough to keep off the "rust," from which the dryer upland plantations were now suffering. Neither the "boll-worm" nor the dreaded "army-worm" had molested the river-fields; so the tall pyramidal plants were thickly set with "squares" and green egg-shaped bolls, smooth and shining as with varnish. On a single stalk might be seen all stages of development—from the ripe, brown boll, parted starlike, with the long white fleece depending, to the bean-sized ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... are to be given we should observe the following directions: In shape they should be cylindrical, of the size above mentioned, and soft enough to be easily compressed by the fingers. If made round or egg-shaped, if too long or too hard, they are liable to become fixed in the gullet and cause choking. Balls may be given with the "balling gun" (obtainable at any veterinary instrument maker's) or by the hand. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... studded with large rubies glittered in the light,—from his belt hung a great sheathed sword, together with all manner of hunting implements,— and beside him, on a velvet-covered stand, lay a short sceptre, having at its tip one huge egg-shaped ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... governess was darning a hole in a small stocking. She was as close as possible to the green-tile stove, and she was looking very unpleasant; for the egg-shaped darner only slipped through the hole, which was a large one. With an irritable gesture she took off her slipper, and, putting one coarse-stockinged foot on the fender, proceeded to darn by putting the slipper into the stocking ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... unlocked with great solemnity. During this operation he fell to muttering many prayers; and with an air of great reverence he took out a richly-embossed casket, which being opened, there was displayed a fair crystal of an egg-shaped form, on which he gazed with a long ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... the public treasury repaired all the public buildings and all the roads, cleaned out the sewers, and sailed through them underground into the Tiber. And seeing that in the hippodrome men made mistakes about the number of turns necessary, he established the system of dolphins and egg-shaped objects, so that by them the number of times the track had been circled might be clearly shown. Furthermore he distributed to all olive oil and salt, and had the baths open free of charge throughout the year for the use of both men and women. In the many festivals of all kinds which he gave ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio

... and Winslow making the most of his little stock of Indian words directed her to bruise some of the maize in her stone mortar, and meantime calling for one of the egg-shaped earthen stew-pans used by the natives, he half filled it with water, and settled it into the hot ashes of the open air fire. The maize ready, he winnowed it in his hands, blowing away the husks and chaff, and poured the ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... soothsayer Lampon explained the portent to the effect that, of the two men, Pericles and Thucydides, who contended for the leadership of Athens, one should prove victorious. Anaxagoras, on the other hand, had the ram's head cut open and showed that the brain did not fill up the cranium, but was egg-shaped and lay gathered together at the point where the horn grew out. He evidently thought that abortions also, which otherwise were generally considered as signs from the gods, were due to natural causes. Beyond this, nothing is said ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann

... Island that lies between Sicily and the Coast of Africa, and is of an Egg-shaped figure, about twenty miles long and twelve broad. The City of Malta is divided into three parts, which are properly so many Rocks jutting out into the Sea, with large Harbours between them. That called ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... knitted are stout, and the structure is not likely therefore to be torn by the beaks of insectivorous birds; while its pendulous position makes it doubly secure against their attacks, as the apparatus gives way when they peck at it. There is a small orifice at each end of the egg-shaped bag, to admit of the escape of the moth when it changes from the little chrysalis which sleeps tranquilly in ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... egg-shaped head, bald, with some white hair fluffed about the sides of it. He had a pink face with large blue eyes, behind his spectacles, benevolent to ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock

... appear to have had no labor expended upon them except the chiselling of a groove around the middle for the purpose of attaching a withe to serve as a handle. In a few instances, I have noticed small hammers, usually egg-shaped, without a groove; and the battered or worn appearance at one end was all that induced the belief that they were ever used ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... finally the invert form, leaving the steel shell in place to hold the concrete until hard. The strip of steel was then removed by pulling on one end until it unwound like cord from the inside of a ball of twine. Steel strips 6 ins. wide and 1/24 in. thick were used successfully in constructing a 5-ft. egg-shaped sewer in Washington, D. C. The forms were made in sections 16 ft. long, and were taken out as soon as the ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... beautiful as the trees. Those of the Palma real are of a brilliant white, rendering them visible from a great distance; but, generally, the blossoms are of a pale yellow. To these succeed very different forms of fruit: in one species it consists of a cluster of egg-shaped berries, sometimes seventy or eighty in number, of a brilliant purple and gold colour, ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... and most sightly of salads. Arrange crisp lettuce or Romaine leaves on individual plates. Cut a cold ripe cantaloupe into halves, take out the seeds, and with a large vegetable scoop or teaspoon scoop out balls or egg-shaped pieces. Heap a half dozen of these on the lettuce leaves, and, at serving time, baste them well with French dressing, and serve. Watermelon may ...
— Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings Together with - Refreshments for all Social Affairs • Mrs. S. T. Rorer

... stones when they are worn irregularly, or substitute new ones for those which are worn through. The mechanical action of the washing process on the blocks is of course very rapid and severe, requiring complete renewal of them once in eight to ten weeks. Some miners prefer a pavement of egg-shaped stones set like a cobble-stone flooring, the gold being deposited in the interstices. Most of the sluiceways are, however, paved with rectangular wooden blocks, with or without stones as described. Standing at the mouth of one of the long tunnels ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various

... simple earthenware vessels for boiling rice were made by Kayans, Kenyahs, Ibans, and some of the Klemantans. Those who made no pots boiled their rice and sago in bamboos. The earthenware cooking pot is a simple egg-shaped vessel, one end of which is open and surrounded by a low everted lip or collar (Fig. 8, ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... this arrangement disappears; a fifth tower upon the north side deranges the symmetry. The great egg-shaped court is a mosaic of incongruous masonry; above the porch, a wall of pebbles from the Gave, and of red bricks crossed like a tapestry design; opposite, fixt to the wall, a row of medallions in stone; upon the sides, doors of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... particularly concern the surgeon. The individual plants are so minute that it takes in the neighborhood of ten or fifteen hundred of them grouped together to cover a spot as large as a full stop or period used in punctuating an ordinary newspaper. This rough estimate applies to the globular and the egg-shaped bacteria, to which is given the name "coccus" (plural, cocci). The cane or rod shaped bacteria are rather larger plants. Fifteen hundred of these placed end to end would reach across the head of a pin. Because of the resemblance ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... his famous experimentation upon himself, the only appliance available for the purpose was the old-fashioned bulb syringe, which is simply a flexible rubber tube with an egg-shaped receptacle in the center. One end of the tube is inserted in the rectum, while the other end is immersed in a vessel of water, the injection of the fluid being accomplished by alternately compressing and relaxing the bulbous portion. It is needless to say that the process of "flushing the colon" ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell

... made by lamps behind the narrow paper-paned doors, and by the paper-lanterns hanging outside,—one at every door. You look down the street between two lines of these lanterns,—lines converging far-off into one motionless bar of yellow light. Some of the lanterns are egg-shaped, some cylindrical; others four-sided or six-sided; and Japanese characters are beautifully written upon them. The street is very quiet,—silent as a display of cabinet-work in some great exhibition after closing-time. This is because the inmates are mostly ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... corner, as it were; it was an abrupt corner to be sure, with the upper half of its narrow door filled with small panes of glass; its modest threshold was somewhat worn; but upon the platform before it a large egg-shaped jar of unmistakable Chinese origin encased the roots of a flowing cactus that might have added a grace to the proudest palace in the Misty City. This was the modest portal of the Eyrie; ivy vines sheltered it like a dense thatch; ivy vines clung fast to a deep bay window that nearly filled one side ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... manage, turned their paper-white, long, expressionless faces toward me for an instant, then were gone, on the trail of the mole-man. Beneath those robes must have been a body as attenuated as a skeleton, as different as an insect's from man's. Within those odd egg-shaped heads must have been a mind as alien to ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell

... of maize, and the better half of a roast fowl. All these lay together upon a large wooden dish, rudely carved from the wood of the tulip-tree—of such a fashion as I had often observed about the cabins of the negro quarter. Beside this dish lay several immense egg-shaped bodies of dark-green colour, with other smaller ones of a yellow hue. These were water and musk melons,— not a bad prospect ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... the egg open and stepped out while the others followed. Dave tried to crawl out, but something held him back. It wasn't until Bork's big hand reached in to help him that he made it. When all were out, Bork tapped the egg-shaped object and caught it as it shrank. When it was ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey

... Company, for the purpose of testing and illustrating the mode of raising sunken ships by means of the apparatus patented by Mr. William Atkinson, naval engineer, of Sheffield. The machinery employed consists of the necessary number and size, according to the power required, of oval or egg-shaped buoys constructed of sheet iron, having an internal valve of a simple and effective character. Captain Hales Dutton, the dock master, who assisted during the operations, had placed his small yacht at the inventor's service for the occasion. The vessel was moored in the basin, and a ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various

... forefinger. Very often he grabbed hold of nettles and sharp thistles, and the backs of his hands were swollen and covered with stings. Blue butterflies twirled in front of his face, pale moths flew out. When his hat fell off he had no time to get it. The sweat ran down his egg-shaped forehead to his long, square, hairy chin (though he could shave himself on Sundays, he looked a ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... widely known in Egypt, is egg-shaped, and has the same meaning; its wings indicate its divine nature and prevent it from being confused with the physical germ. "Easter eggs" which are offered in spring, at the rebirth of Nature, commemorate this ancient symbol ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal

... seems no excuse for detailing the next three hours. From three o'clock until sunset the mirages slowly fade away into the many-tinted veils of evening. I know that because I've seen it; but never would I know it whilst an inmate of a gasoline madhouse. We carried our own egg-shaped aura constantly with us, on the invisible walls of which the subtle and austere influences of the desert beat in vain. That aura was composed of speed, bumps, dust, profane noise, and an extreme and exotic busyness. It might be that in a docile, tame, expensive automobile, garnished with a sane ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... MELICOCCA BIJUGA.—This sapindaceous tree is plentiful in tropical America and the West Indies, and is known as the Genip tree. It produces numerous green egg-shaped fruits, an inch in length, possessing an agreeable vinous and somewhat aromatic flavor, called honey berries or bullace plums. The wood of the tree is hard ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders

... strong, buffeting wind tugged at ribbons and capes, hats and bonnets, so furiously that walking was hazardous; it gave one such an uneasy sensation of giddiness and unstable equilibrium generally, that the temptation to fly over the edge of the cliff was hard to resist. A huge egg-shaped boulder, twenty-five feet in height and as large as a house, poised rather unsteadily on its rounded base, was quite near and gave promise of protection from the violence of the wind. With one accord our party scrambled towards ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... ovaries are the essential parts of the generative system of the human female in which ova are matured. There are two ovaries, one on each side of the uterus, and connected with it by the Fallopian tubes. They are egg-shaped, about an inch in diameter, and furnish the {239} germs or ovules. These germs or ovules are very small, measuring about 1/120 of an inch ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... in answer to his startled question, a weird object drifted over the treetops and poised directly above them, about fifty feet up. An egg-shaped thing, six or seven feet in length, and seemingly made of white metal. It swayed there gently, without visible means of support, and they could make out a transparent disk on its side, back of which there was a human head with eyes ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent

... he used to say afterwards, felt as if he was in a dream, and without another word went down the ladder into the well, which was about ten feet deep, and found himself facing the opening of a regular egg-shaped drain, carefully bricked round, and ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn

... of an airship is to be found in General Meusnier's design in 1784 for an egg-shaped balloon driven by three screw propellers, worked, of course, by hand. The chief interest in his design, though it never materialized, lies in the fact that it provided for a double envelope and was the precursor ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes

... southern sun, the scorched sands, the palms, the shimmering torrid air, we might believe these Algerian megaliths belonged to our own land, so perfect is the resemblance, so uniform the design, so identical the inspiration. The same huge boulders, oblong or egg-shaped, formidable, impressive, are raised aloft on massive supporting stones; there are the same circles of stones hardly less gigantic, with the same mysterious faces, the same silent solemnity. Following this line, we find them again in Minorca, Sardinia and Malta; everywhere under warm blue skies, ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... 2in. to 21/2in. across when expanded, but usually they are cup-shaped. The six sepals are egg-shaped but pointed, of much substance, and covered with a silky down on the outside, causing them to have changeable hues according to the play of wind and light. The stamens are very numerous, the anthers being closely arranged and ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood

... some of the most noted diamonds in the world. The largest one known, that of the Rajah of Matan, in Borneo, weighs three hundred and sixty-seven carats. It is egg-shaped and is of the finest water. Two large war-vessels, with all their guns, powder, and shot, and one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in money, were once refused for it. And yet its weight is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... does differ in being more truncated in Bantams, and more rounded in certain breeds, as in Cochins. The outline of the ischiadic foramen differs considerably, being nearly circular in Bantams, instead of egg-shaped as in the Bankiva, and more regularly oval in some skeletons, as in the Spanish. The obturator notch is also much less elongated in some skeletons than in others. The end of the pubic bone presents the greatest ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... [184] the gourd-shaped berry of the climbing shrub (Ignatia amara, L. Strychnos Ignatii, Berg. Ignatiana Philippinica. Lour.) contains twenty-four irregular egg-shaped seeds of the size of an inch which, however, are not so poisonous as the Ignatius beans, which taste like crack-nuts. In these seeds strychnine was found by Pelletier and Caventou in 1818, as it subsequently was in crack-nuts. The former contained twice as much of it as the latter, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... items Miles told me," Redell went on. "This Navy expert said the saucer actually looked elliptical, or egg-shaped. And while it was being tracked it suddenly made a steep climb—so steep no human being ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe

... flattened face, and the uncanny looking eyes, they had by this time developed something which might be called a forehead, while the curious projection of the heel had been considerably reduced. In one branch of this seventh sub-race, the head might be described as almost egg-shaped—the small end of the egg being uppermost, with the eyes wide apart and very near the top. The stature had perceptibly decreased, and the appearance of the hands, feet and limbs generally had become more like those ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot



Words linked to "Egg-shaped" :   rounded, elliptic, ovoid, elliptical



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