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Fin   Listen
noun
Fin  n.  
1.
(Zool.) An organ of a fish, consisting of a membrane supported by rays, or little bony or cartilaginous ossicles, and serving to balance and propel it in the water. Note: Fishes move through the water chiefly by means of the caudal fin or tail, the principal office of the other fins being to balance or direct the body, though they are also, to a certain extent, employed in producing motion.
2.
(Zool.) A membranous, finlike, swimming organ, as in pteropod and heteropod mollusks.
3.
A finlike organ or attachment; a part of an object or product which protrudes like a fin, as:
(a)
The hand. (Slang)
(b)
(Com.) A blade of whalebone. (Eng.)
(c)
(Mech.) A mark or ridge left on a casting at the junction of the parts of a mold.
(d)
(Mech.) The thin sheet of metal squeezed out between the collars of the rolls in the process of rolling.
(e)
(Mech.) A feather; a spline.
4.
A finlike appendage, as to submarine boats.
5.
(Aeronautics) A fixed stabilizing surface, usually vertical, similar in purpose to a bilge keel on a ship.
Apidose fin. (Zool.) See under Adipose, a.
Fin ray (Anat.), one of the hornlike, cartilaginous, or bony, dermal rods which form the skeleton of the fins of fishes.
Fin whale (Zool.), a finback.
Paired fins (Zool.), the pectoral and ventral fins, corresponding to the fore and hind legs of the higher animals.
Unpaired fins, or Median fins (Zool.), the dorsal, caudal, and anal fins.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fin" Quotes from Famous Books



... nature of fishes, but only when dead sleep taketh them, and then under a warm rock, laying his boat upon the land, he lieth down to sleep. Their weapons are all darts, but some of them have bow and arrows and slings. They make nets to take their fish of the fin of a whale; they do all their things very artfully, and it should seem that these simple, thievish islanders have war with those of the main, for many of them are sore wounded, which wounds they received upon the main ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt

... grasping his paddle, exerted himself to the utmost, while we also did our best to make for shore. But we were a good way off, and the log being, as I have before said, very heavy, moved but slowly through the water. We now saw the shark quite distinctly swimming round and round us, its sharp fin every now and then protruding above the water. From its active and unsteady motions, Jack knew it was making up its mind to attack us, so he urged us vehemently to paddle for our lives, while he himself set us the example. Suddenly he shouted, "Look out! ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... Mr. Carruthers she would have preferred, to me, she admitted, as being more solid, more "range," "plus a la fin de ses betises," but, no doubt, "milor" was charming too, and for certain one day mademoiselle would be duchess. In the meanwhile what kind of coronet would ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn

... English (by birth or service) overflowed from France into Italy after the peace of Bretigny in 1630. Yet the exclamation of Muratori (Annali, tom. xii. p. 197) is rather true than civil. "Ci mancava ancor questo, che dopo essere calpestrata l'Italia da tanti masnadieri Tedeschi ed Ungheri, venissero fin dall' Inghliterra nuovi ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... "In tough Welsh parsley, which in our vulgar tongue, is Strong hempen altars."—Beaumont and Fletcher, Elder Brother, Act. 1. ad fin. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 18. Saturday, March 2, 1850 • Various

... the rites and ceremonies,) amongst appendages to an altar is enumerated "une credance ou niche dans le mur a poser les burettes et le bassin," p. 536. And in another place, "au coste de l'Autel il y faut une petite niche a poser les burettes et le bassin, et y faire un trou en facon de piscine a fin que l'eau se perde en ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam

... well on the wind, though hard to pull against a strong head sea. A fin-shaped centre-board takes the place of a keel. It can be quickly removed from the trunk, or centre-board well, and stored under the deck. The flatness of her floor permits the sneak-box to run in very shallow water while being rowed or when sailing before the wind without the centre-board. ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... flashed like Ganga sent From heaven above the firmament.(505) The birds of every wing had flocked To stately trees by breezes rocked: These bowed their wind-swept heads and said: "My lady sweet, be comforted." With faded blooms each brook within Whose waters moved no gleamy fin, Stole sadly through the forest dell Mourning the dame it loved so well. From every woodland region near Came lions, tigers, birds, and deer, And followed, each with furious look, The way her flying shadow took. For Sita's loss each lofty ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... And if some nice and liquorous appetite Desired more dainty dish of rare delight, They scaled the stored crab with clasped knee, Till they had sated their delicious eye: Or search'd the hopeful thicks of hedgy rows, For briary berries, or haws, or sourer sloes: Or when they meant to fare the fin'st of all, They lick'd oak-leaves besprint with honey fall. As for the thrice three-angled beech nutshell, Or chestnut's armed husk, and hide kernel, No squire durst touch, the law would not afford, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... I mean it! As for your not having any right, ain't we all there is? You've got to be mother and sister and aunt and everything to me. I ain't as young as I have been, Mattie, and I miss she-ways terrible at times. Now put out your fin like a good pardner, and here goes for no more rhinecaboos for Chantay Seeche Red—time I quit drinking, anyhow," he slipped a ring off his little finger. "Here, hold out your hand," said he, "I'll put this on for luck, and the sake of the promise—by the same token, I've got a noose on you ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips

... every butterfly that crossed our view With joyful shout was greeted as it flew, And moth and lady-bird and beetle bright In sheeny gold were each a wondrous sight. Then as we paddled barefoot, side by side, Among the sunny shallows of the Clyde, Minnows or spotted par with twinkling fin, Swimming in mazy rings the pool within, A thrill of gladness through our bosoms sent Seen in the power ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... product of the marriage of Art and Fashion of this fin-de-siecle age. Other ages have given us wit, beauty allied with esprit, dignity of demeanor, and a nobility of principle; this end of the nineteenth century has ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... gentle and refined Plutarch, or the critic who has usurped his name in the 'Comparison of Aristophanes and Menander.' The old Attic Comedy has been variously compared to Charivari, Punch, the comic opera of Offenbach, and a Parisian 'revue de fin d'annee.' There is no good modern analogue. It is not our comedy of manners, plot, and situation; nor yet is it mere buffoonery. It is a peculiar mixture of broad political, social, and literary satire, and polemical discussion ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... di sotto la nostra Tramontana, che chiascuno scrittore et Cosmographo di questi et de passati tempi fin'hora vi ha messo e mette mare congelato, et che la terra corra continuamente fino a 90. gradi verso il Polo: sopro questa mappa-mondo all' incontro si vede che la terra va solamente vn poco sopra la Noruega et Suetia, e voltando corre poi Greco e Leuante nel paese della Moscouta ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt

... Rick said. "I lit the fuse. I didn't jump back far enough, though. The tail fin clipped me ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... twelve-year-old girl, naked as Eve and, I've no doubt, thrice as handsome, stood watching us from the mid-decks in a perfection of immobility, an empty milk tin propped between her brown palms resting on her breast. Twenty fathoms off a shark fin, blue as lapis in the shadow, cut the water soundlessly. The hush of ten thousand miles was disturbed by nothing but that ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... all prelim'nary; it's so Gran' Jurors here Fin' a true bill, a hendier way than ourn, an' nut so dear; So arter this they sentenced me, to make all tight 'n' snug, Afore a reg'lar court o' law, to ten years in the Jug. I didn' make no gret defence: you don't feel much like speakin', When, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... sardine in his oily den, his little house of tin, Headless and heedless there he lies, no move of tail or fin, Yet full as beauteous, I ween, that press'd and prison'd fish, As when in sunny seas he swam unbroken to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various

... them all to come back to the studio for some music, but even as he made the arrangement to drive Valentia, he remembered that, a la fin des fins, he would have to leave her at her husband's house. Would Romer be sitting up? What an ass he was! What rot the whole dinner was! It was all through Van Buren. Van Buren ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson

... Body ovoid, only slightly flattened dorsally and ventrally (Fig. 1); body only slightly deeper than wide; eyes directed dorsolaterally and slightly protuberant; nostrils small. Tail long and slender; greatest depth of tail-musculature two-thirds greatest depth of tail-fin; tail-musculature extending ...
— Descriptions of Two Species of Frogs, Genus Ptychohyla - Studies of American Hylid Frogs, V • William E. Duellman

... of the submarines show but a foot or two above the surface—a sinister black spot on the water, like the dorsal fin of a shark, that suggests but does not reveal the cruel power below; for an instant the knob lingers above the surface while the steersman gets his bearings, and then it sinks in a swirling eddy, leaving no mark showing in what direction ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday

... Professor would take another handful of mud and fin the tin, after which he would punch a hole in the lid of the tin and put it over the top of the bomb, the fuse sticking out. Then perhaps he would tightly wrap wire around the outside of the tin and the bomb was ready to send over ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey

... minutiae in order to teach singing? I think the answer must ever be in the negative. You might as well talk to a gold-fish in a bowl-and say: 'If you desire to proceed laterally to the right, kindly oscillate gently your sinister dorsal fin, and you will achieve the desired result.' Oh, Art, what sins are committed in ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... Although many breeds exist, it is a singular fact that the variations are often not inherited. Sir R. Heron (8/54. 'Proc. Zoolog. Soc.' May 25, 1842.) kept many of these fishes, and placed all the deformed ones, namely, those destitute of dorsal fins and those furnished with a double anal fin, or triple tail, in a pond by themselves; but they did "not produce a greater proportion of deformed offspring ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... "And fishy fin where should be paw, And beaver-trowel tail, And snout of beast equip'd with teeth Where ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... upon manners, and the fortune of the volume was secured. The early poems of De Maupassant like those of Paul Bourget, are not without sterling merit as poetry, but their main interest is that they reflect the characteristics of their author's mind. Such pieces as "Fin-d'Amour," and "Au Bord de l'Eau," in the 1880 volume, are simply short stories told in verse, instead of in prose. In this same year, Guy de Maupassant, who had thrown in his lot with the Naturalist Novelists, contributed a short tale ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... geometrie qui soit plus asseure que cette proposition.—LEIBNIZ, 1688, ed. Rommel, ii. 197. Il y a toujours eu de la malignite dans la grandeur, et de l'opposition a l'esprit de l'Evangile; mais maintenant il y en a plus que jamais, et il semble que comme le monde va a sa fin, celui qui est dans l'elevation fait tous ses efforts pour dominer avec plus de tyrannie, et pour etouffer les maximes du Christianisme et le regne de Jesus-Christ, voiant qu'il s'approche.—GODEAU, Lettres, ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton

... fish, snapping at a fly, leaped clear of the water, making a silver streak in the air, gone in an instant as he fell back into the stream. The glimpse pleased Henry. It, too, was a part of his kingdom, stocked with fur, fin and feather, beyond that of any other king, and far ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... sown with salt. 'Ah! Je le repete sans cesse, il n'y a qu'un malheur, celui d'etre ne.' The grasshopper had become a burden; and yet death seemed as little desirable as life. 'Comment est-il possible,' she asks, 'qu'on craigne la fin d'une vie aussi triste?' When Death did come at last, he came very gently. She felt his approaches, and dictated a letter to Walpole, bidding him, in her strange fashion, an infinitely restrained farewell: ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... the water below our feet of the colour of lead. Not a ripple disturbed its mirror-like surface, except when now and then a covey of flying fish leaped forth to escape from their pursuers, or it was clove by the fin of a marauding shark. We knew that we were not far off the coast of Africa, some few degrees to the south of the Equator; but how near we were we could not tell, for the calm had continued for several days, ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... fin' it slow, so she ax de boy to go Somet'ing better dan a mile on fifteen minute, An' he's touch heem up, Guillaume; so dat horse he lay for home, An' de nex' t'ing Victorine she know ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee

... from the whale's flukes across the back, which apparently paralyzed it. It was killed and hauled on board the boat without difficulty, while the whale and calf went off towards Coromandel with splashings and plungings. The whale's blow had almost knocked off the back fin of the swordfish, and heavily bruised the flesh around it. ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... sol si oscura, E in fin la terra Il sen disserra Per grand dolor; Morto e il Signore! O Peccatore, Se tu non piangi, Sei ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... by crystal dews and light Beyond the realm of scale and fin, Incarian Thought flits Fancy wings To hazards where a crimson urn Makes scarlet this eternal height Of sunless suns and reigning sin,— Flame-decked this plain of warring kings Where poisoned fumes and beacons burn! And thro' the hyoids, huge and red, Past portals black ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque

... too; but the last must be dug for, like potatoes. There have been no miraculous draughts of the fishes, of late years, in the Otsego, ladies and gentlemen; but it needs the scientific touch, and the knowledge of baits, to get a fin of any of your true game above the water, now-a-days. Well, I have had the head of the sogdollager thrice in the open air, in my time; though I am told the admiral actually got hold of him once ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... led the chorus of approval at each subtle speech, and they said 'Ah oui! que c'est fin!' when she said it, for they did not trust their own judgment. The Duke of Zollern leaned his chin on the back of his hands, which he had crossed over the porcelain handle of his stick. He was not amused; ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... this place where there no traffic except by night—for the trench is blocked just there by the earth-fall and inaccessible by day—every one treads on that hand. By the searchlight's shaft I saw it clearly, fleshless and worn, a sort of withered fin. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... Through skin and flesh and bone it smote And rent asunder head and throat. Down with the sound of thunder rolled The head adorned with rings of gold, And crushed to pieces in its fall A gate, a tower, a massive wall. Hurled to the sea the body fell: Terrific was the ocean's swell, Nor could swift fin and nimble leap Save the crushed creatures ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... of the new-comers were fishing off the rocks, west of the hotel, a shark came close in shore. Hearing their outcries, I looked out of my chamber window, and saw the dorsal fin and the fluke of his tail stuck up out of the water, as he moved to and fro. He must have been eight or ten feet long. He had probably followed the small fish into the bay, and got bewildered, and, at one time, he was ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... a man my brother is, Mr. Blattergowl, for a wise man and a learned man, to bring this Yerl into our house without speaking a word to a body! And there's the distress of thae Mucklebackitswe canna get a fin o' fishand we hae nae time to send ower to Fairport for beef, and the mutton's but new killedand that silly fliskmahoy, Jenny Rintherout, has taen the exies, and done naething but laugh and greet, the skirl ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... passionately. "When you go, Ol' Sophy'll go; 'n' where you go, Ol' Sophy'll go: 'n' we'll both go t' th' place where th' Lord takes care of all his children, whether their faces are white or black. Oh, darlin', darlin'! if th' Lord should let me die fus', you shall fin' all ready for you when you come after me. On'y don' go 'n' leave poor Ol' Sophy all 'lone in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... throw a harpoon over the side of a canoe without going over the other side myself, I'd give up fishing and try farming. Now just paddle softly in the wake of that big fin. Know what it is? I thought not. Well, it's the bayonet fin of the tarpon, my son, and if you'll paddle quietly and stay inside the boat, you shall have ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock

... concealing the hideous struggle underneath. Then as this cloud slowly settled away, it could be seen that a human form was no longer there, but in its place might be observed some mangled remains, with the sail-like fin of the shark projected above the surface or gliding ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... for it. At length, by lowering the head of the rod, and thus not having so much of the ponderous weight of the fish to encounter, I towed him a little sideways; and so, advancing towards me with propitious fin, he shot through the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... the seaside, you will catch cunners and other fish that need skinning. Let no one persuade you to slash the back fins out with a single stroke, as you would whittle a stick; but take a sharp knife, cut on both sides of the fin, and then pull out the whole of it from head to tail, and thus save the trouble that a hundred little bones will make if left in. After cutting the skin on the under side from head to tail, and taking out the entrails and small fins, start the skin where the ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould

... a splendid time for our friends, the labrus, but we did not get a bite. We persevered, however, fresh baiting the hooks, and throwing out again and again, with not a fin to flash after them through ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... the fish did not move a fin. Then one bold firm snatch, and the hook was holding well in the flesh, and in another moment Briscoe, as he threw himself back on to a thwart, would have had the fish over the side and in the ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... the recess, as it flitted past in the sunshine—the black heaving bulk of the grampus, as it threw up its slender jets of spray, and then, turning downwards, displayed its glossy back and vast angular fin—even the pigeons, as they shot whizzing by, one moment scarce visible in the gloom, the next radiant in the light—all acquired a new interest, from the peculiarity of the setting in which we saw them. They ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... pousser des gemissemens; on alloit meme jusqu'a se flageller et se donner des coups. Le dernier jour de ce deuil, on faisoit des sacrifices funebres en l'honneur de ce dieu. Le jour suivant, on recevoit la nouvelle qu'Adonis venoit d'etre rappele a la vie, qui mettoit fin a leur deuil."—Recherches sur les Myst. du ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... down The filthy remnant of a cup of physic That thicked in odour all the while he stayed. His eyes were sad as fishes that swim up And stare upon an element not theirs Through a thin skin of shrewish water, then Turn on a languid fin, and dip down, down, Into unplumbed, vast, oozy deeps of dream. His stomach was his master, and proclaimed it; And never were such meagre puppets made The slaves of such a tyrant, as his thoughts ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare

... name from the hill of Allen, or "Dun Almhain," on which was the residence of the famous old Irish chief, Fin MacCual, or Fingal, as he is called in Ossian's Poems. He was the king of the Fians, the name of the ancient Irish tribes who lived by hunting. He must have been handsome as well as heroic, for he was, it seems, a wonderful favorite with the ladies. It is related that when he concluded ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood

... wide controls; There Earth- and Heaven-Love play for aureoles; There Sweetness out of Sadness breaks at fits, Like bubbles on dark water, or as flits A sudden silver fin through its deep infinites; There amorous Thought has sucked pale Fancy's breath, And Tenderness sits looking toward the lands of death There Feeling stills her breathing with her hand, And Dream from Melancholy part ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson

... is opening his mouth again, the fat monster! Watch the 'I' leap out! If he plays again I shall die in a fit; he handles the bow like the fin of a ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs

... attack a shark, and rip open his bowels at the moment when he turns on his side to give the deadly bite. But on that coast this dreaded fish appears singly; it is rare to see two of them together; while Santiago harbor seems to swarm with them, the dark dorsal fin of the threatening creatures just parting the surface of the sea, and betraying their presence. Lying at anchor between our ship and the shore was a trig Spanish corvette,—an American-built vessel, by the way, though belonging to the navy of Spain. ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... dead beat, that he could make but a short duck under the fish's back and come out at his tail. The shark did not follow him this time, but cunning as well as ferocious slipped a yard or two inshore, and waited to grab him; not seeing him, he gave a slap with his tail-fin, and reared his huge head out of water a moment to look forth. Then George Fielding, grinding his teeth with fury, flung his heavy stone with tremendous force at the creature's cruel eye. The heavy stone missed the eye by an inch or two, but it struck the fish on the nose and teeth with a ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... called to Terry, who in parrying the rush of a stump a couple of yards in advance, did not notice one that was coming broadside on, its presence betrayed by a tiny branch that protruded a few inches above the surface like the fin of a shark. Fred did his utmost to avoid it, but he was too slow, and a second later the pointed log not only struck the side of the canoe, ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... the books printed by the publishers of Belgium, are pirated from their French neighbors. There is, however, such a thing as a Belgian literature, though it is not very extensive, and one of its chief ornaments is Professor BORGNEL, of Liege, best known as the author of a Historie des Belges a la fin du dix-huilieme Siecle, published some six years since, to which he is about to bring out an addition, carrying the history back to the beginning of the same century. He has also been occupied for several years with the history of the Flemish Provinces, under the domination of the Spaniards, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... then. Nobody felt anxious. Vessels were often delayed for days and mebbe weeks. The Royal William was a week overdue—and then two—and then three. And at last we began to be frightened, and it got worse and worse. Fin'lly I couldn't bear to look into John Selwyn's eyes. D'ye know, Mistress Blythe"—Captain Jim lowered his voice—"I used to think that they looked just like what his old great-great-grandmother's must have been when they were burning her to ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... employed by the Latin author—virtus, frugalitas, and more especially corcillum,—which have been misunderstood by every one of these translators. Virtus is applied to mental as well as bodily superiority (Cic. Fin. v. 13.).—The sense in which frugalitas is employed by Petronius may be collected from a preceding passage in the same chapter, where Trimalchio calls his pet puerum frugalissimum—a very clever lad—as he explains the epithet by ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 26. Saturday, April 27, 1850 • Various

... is the Chapon fin. When you speak to some elderly gentleman with fastidious gastronomical tastes and an acquaintance with southern France of your intention of going to Bordeaux, he murmurs reminiscently: "Ah, yes! There is a restaurant there..." He means the Chapon fin. It was famous ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... down the masts without moving, except every now and then, as they slowly rolled from side to side to give a loud thundering clap, and once more to subside into sullen silence. The sea, smooth as a mirror, shone like burnished silver, its surface ever and anon broken by the fin of some monster of the deep, or by a covey of flying fish, which would dart through the air till, their wings dried by the sun, they fell helpless again into ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston

... bare-footed boys, with dusky faces and gleaming teeth, proffered nosegays at every corner. The Aiken nosegay has this peculiarity,—the flowers are wedged together with unexampled tightness. Truly enough may the little venders boast, "Dey's orful lots o' roses in dem, mister; you'll fin' w'en you onties 'em." No one of the pedestrians appeared to be in a hurry; and under all the holiday air of flowers there was a pathetic disproportion of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various

... an' he swo' dat w'en he wuz twenty-one he would come back an' he'p me run erway, er else save up de money ter buy my freedom. An' I know he'd 'a' done it, fer he thought a heap er me, Sam did. But w'en he come back he didn' fin' me, fer I wuzn' dere. Ole marse had heerd dat I warned Sam, so he had me whip' an' sol' down ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... which was indeed the only really habitable part of the ship. If anything went wrong, the engineers went aft along a rope ladder beneath the frame. The tendency of the whole affair to roll was partly corrected by a horizontal lateral fin on either side, and steering was chiefly effected by two vertical fins, which normally lay back like gill-flaps on either side of the head. It was indeed a most complete adaptation of the fish form to aerial conditions, the position ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... shark-ridden waters, to the great disapproval of the ship's officers, some of whom would stand on the well-deck, revolver in hand, while more than once a swift bullet was sent shrilling over our heads at some great fin rising out of the sea beyond. On our trip to and from Bongao, one of the Tawi Tawi Islands, on a wrecking expedition to save the launch Maud, stranded there on a coral reef, all the Signal Corps officers were at liberty, too, which made ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... de la conservation de la paix qui, aux dires de Szapary, est precieuse a l'Autriche au meme degre qu'a toutes les Puissances, il serait necessaire de mettre au plus tot possible une fin a la situation tendue du moment. Dans ce but il me semblerait tres desirable que l'Ambassadeur d'Autriche-Hongrie fut autorise d'entrer avec moi dans un echange de vues prive aux fins d'un remaniement en commun de quelques articles ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History

... EPHESUS. A crow without feather; master, mean you so? For a fish without a fin, there's a fowl without a feather: If a crow help us in, sirrah, we'll ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... speculatively to the tiny cigar-shaped boat in which the dead guard had flown down to them. Its smooth gray-gleaming surface was devoid of wings or other lifting devices. Only a fan-shaped fin projected from the stern like the tail of a fish. The cockpit, if such it could be called, was tiny, just ample enough to accommodate the Mercutian's girth. The sunlight dazzled back from a bewildering jumble of tiny lenses ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner

... Pelayo (Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Am., I, p. lv) says: "Al fin espanoles somos, y a tal profusion de luz y a tal estrepito de palabras sonoras no hay entre ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various

... records the curious case of a man that had lived many years in a leprous country, and while dressing a fish had received a wound of the thumb from the fin of the fish. Swelling of the arm followed, and soon after bullae upon the chest, head, and face. In a few months the blotches left from this eruption became leprous tubercles, and other well-marked ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... majesty lived in every line of the scene! The very suggestion of tremendous power in it was, to my imagination, immeasurably increased by its unutterable loneliness, its seemingly total absence of life; for not a fin rose above the surface, not a wing brushed the air overhead. The sun, sinking slowly behind the rim of sand, shot one golden-red ray far out into that tumbling waste, forming a slender bridge of ever-changing light that seemed ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish

... win'lass. We'll heave in on our cable, an' if we kin git close enough to climb aboard, we'll reason it out wid dat English cappen, who can't fin' his way roun' ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... And twisted off his horn, nor feared to squeeze The viscous poison from his glowing gums. Nor wanted there the root of stunted shrub Which he lays ragged, hanging o'er the sands, And whence the weapons of his wrath are death: Nor the blue urchin that with clammy fin Holds down the tossing vessel for the tides. Together these her scient hand combined, And more she added, dared I mention more. Which done, with words most potent, thrice she dipped The reeking garb; ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor

... [Referring to the guide book]. Murray says that a huge stone, probably of Druidic origin, is still pointed out as the die cast by Fin in his ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw

... simply amusing. If "a neglected disciple of Truth" had met him out a-sketching, and asked him for help, or a peep, he would have shut up his book with a slap, and said, like the celebrated laird, "Puir bodie! fin' a penny for yer ain sel'." In the second place, this Elijah never dropped his mantle on the soi-disant Elisha. Search over the whole range of walls where (with their color somewhat the worse for time) Turner's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... advance, Cast the long line and aim the barbed lance; Load the deep floating barks, and bear abroad To every land the life-sustaining food; Renascent swarms by nature's care supplied, Repeople still the shoals and fin the fruitful tide. ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... seen ma Shanghai rooster?" queried the black man, plaintively. "I suah can't fin' ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... had just struck four. Bedient had finished clearing away tiffin things, and stepped on deck. The planking was like the galley-range he had left, and the fresh white paint of the three boats raised in blisters. The sea had an ugly look, yellow-green and dead, save where a shark's fin knifed the surface. The crew was lying forward under the awnings—a fiend-tempered outfit of Laskars and Chinese. Captain Carreras appeared on deck through the companion-way still farther aft and nodded to ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... In shipping such as this, the Irish kern, And untaught Indian, on the stream did glide: Ere sharp-keel'd boats to stem the flood did learn, Or fin-like oars did ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... technical descriptions, the Priestly Code comes to stand on the same line with the Chronicles and the other literature of Judaism which labours at an artificial revival of the old tradition [VI.I.2 VI.III.2., VI.III.3. ad fin.]. Of a piece with this tendency is an indescribable pedantry, belonging to the very being of the author of the Priestly Code. He has a very passion for classifying and drawing plans; if he has once dissected a genus into different species, we get all the species named to ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... go; 'n' where you go, Ol' Sophy'll go: 'n' we'll both go t' th' place where th' Lord takes care of all his children, whether their faces are white or black. Oh, darlin', darlin'! if th' Lord should let me die firs', you shall fin' all ready for you when you come after me. On'y don' go 'n' leave poor Ol' Sophy all ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... weel happit (covered)," it said. "But a grave never luiks richt wantin' a stane, an' her auld cousin wad hear o' nane bein' laid ower her. I said it micht be set up at her heid, whaur she wad never fin' the weicht o' 't; but na, na! nane o' 't for her! She's ane 'at maun tak her ain gait, say the ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... muzzle, showers of bullets were directed on the quarter-deck; where the distinguished hero stood, fearlessly giving his orders, and chearfully abiding every peril. His heart was animated, and his spirits were gay. The stump of his right arm, which he always pleasantly denominated his fin, moved the shoulder of his sleeve up and down with the utmost rapidity, as was customary when he felt greatly pleased. Captain Hardy, apprehensive that Lord Nelson's peculiar attire pointed him out as too obvious a mark, advised the hero to change his dress, or cover himself ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... be that he jammed a fin in his haste to escape from his cubby, but I see him often, and always with that sideways gait. I hope he is cured forever of making of himself a pester and ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever

... this kind, within axe-stroke, is hardly conducive to calm scientific investigation, and I can answer for it that the discrimination of genuine sea-snakes in their native element from long-bodied fish is not always easy. Further, that "back fin" troubles me; looks, if I may ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... leddy, no like thae English folk, but a woman o' understandin', an' mair by token I'm thinkin' she'll be gleg aneugh to ken a body that'll serve her weel, an' see to the guidin' o' thae feckless queens o' servant lasses, for bad's the best o' them ye'll fin' hereawa'. Nae fear but her an' me'll put it up weel thegither, an' a' gude be wi' ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... bone; it will come out whole, leaving none behind. Dissolve a little fresh butter, pass the inner side of the fish through it, sprinkle pepper and salt lightly over, then roll it up tightly with the fin and tail outwards, roll it in flour and sprinkle a little pepper and salt, then put a small game skewer to keep the herring in shape. Have ready a good quantity of boiling fat; it is best to do the herrings ...
— Nelson's Home Comforts - Thirteenth Edition • Mary Hooper

... boom and the flapping of the sails was the only answer. Kitchell turned to Wilbur in triumph. "I guess she's ours," he whispered. They were now close enough to make out the bark's name upon her counter, "Lady Letty," and Wilbur was in the act of reading it aloud, when a huge brown dorsal fin, like the triangular sail of a lugger, cut the water between the dory ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... alone, caught fast in the thorn-bushes. Abra- ham took this and laid it on the pyre with great zeal, 2930 in place of his own son, brandished the sword, and dec- orated the burnt-offering, the smoking altar, with the blood of the ram, offered that oblation to God, [and fin- ally] gave thanks for these blessings and for all those[42] mercies which, late and early, the Lord ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous

... donc reprendre ma planche et rester inconnu jusqu'a la fin des choses, puisque je n'aurais pas ete invente par la Gazette ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... the other. "They're just being soft-hearted. I take it," he spoke over the other agent's sputtering to Rip, "that you're worried about leaving us fin down—That's it, ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... Pete! get out de way, you niggers! Get away, Mericky, honey,—mammy'll give her baby some fin, by and by. Now, Mas'r George, you jest take off dem books, and set down now with my old man, and I'll take up de sausages, and have de first griddle full of cakes on your plates in less ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... to procure competence for himself. How inferior in wit, in acuteness, in stratagem, was Douce to Vargrave; and yet Douce had gulled him like a child! Well said the shrewd small philosopher of France—"On peut etre plus fin qu'un autre, mais pas plus fin que tous ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book XI • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... thicket, the squirrel lay snug in its nest in the hollow of a tree, and the bird in the shelter of the foliage ceased to sing. The only sounds were those of the elements, and the world seemed to have returned to the primeval state that had endured for ages. It was the kingdom of fur, fin and feather, and, so far as the casual eye could have seen, man ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... And logos, speech, whence, tropologia, i.e. the [moral] application of the language. Hugo. As to this see 76 dist. jejunium. in fin.] ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton

... quasi fatali constellatione . . . ut Constantium dimicantem cum Persis fortuna semper sequeretur afflictior.—Amm. Marc. xx. 9, ad fin. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... Acerina; Subgenus, Cernua, Flem. or Ruffe; Species, Cernua bidyana mihi, or Bidyan ruffe. Colour, brownish yellow, with the belly silvery white. The three middle pectoral rays are branched. The dorsals confluent. The first dorsal fin has 11 spines, the ventrals having 1 6 rays, and the anals 3 6. See Plate 9. Observation: Bidyan is the ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... for, they tumbled about on the shingle and apparently with difficulty assumed the normal position which is their habit when on land—that of standing upright on their feet. These latter are set too far back for their bodies to hang horizontally; so, with their fin-like wings hanging down helplessly by their sides, they look ashore, as Fritz said to Eric, "just the very image of a parcel of rough recruits" going through their first drill in the ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... examination or (alternatively) producing evidence of having passed a public examination at a university; their subsequent call to the bar depends on their keeping twelve terms (of which there are four in each year), and passing certain further examinations (see ENGLISH LAW ad fin.). A term is "kept" by dining six times (three for a student whose name is on the books of a university) in hall. This is a relic of the older system in which examinations were not included, the only requisite being a certificate ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... bit bite tap tape pan pane rod rode fad fade fat fate hat hate mad made can cane pin pine rat rate not note rob robe pet Pete man mane din dine dim dime cap cape fin fine spin spine hid hide mop mope kit kite hop hope plum plume rip ripe tub tube cub ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams

... Overview: Some fishing takes place in adjacent waters. There is a potential source of income from harvesting fin fish and krill. The islands receive income from postage stamps produced ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... it "fin d'ete": the ending of the summer; not the absolute end, nor yet the ultimate departure, but the tender lingering of a friend obliged to leave us anon, yet who fain would steal a day here and there, a week or so in which to stay with us: who would make that last pathetic ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... work has been on the market many years, and this continued popularity is indeed encouraging. It argues that the taste for the legitimate, the sane in literature, has not yet been drowned in the septic sea of fin de siecle slop—that, despite the enervating influence of an all- pervasive sensationalism, or sybaritism, there be still minds capable of relishing the rugged, strong enough to digest the mental pabulum furnished by a really masculine writer. Carlyle ranges ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... may be bound to his Good Behaviour, fin'd, and deliver up his Sword, what say you, Brother? ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... away in fright as a man in sudden onslaught scaled its face. A pair of cotton-tails bobbed from one thicket to another in wildest terror as he came breaking through. A trout, floating in a rocky basin of the brook, fled with a dexterous flip of fin and tail to the protecting shelter of an overhanging root, as the placid pool was agitated by the passage of an enemy, following the course of the stream as ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... spears. The very otter scarcely exceeds them in power over the finny race, and so true is the aim of these savages, even under water, that all the fish we procured from them were pierced either close behind the lateral fin, or in the very centre of the head, It is certain, from their indifference to them, that the natives seldom eat fish when they can get anything else. Indeed, they seemed more anxious to take the small turtle, which, sunning themselves on the trunks or logs of trees ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... couple of fathoms of the boat, when to his horror he saw a dark fin, just rising above the water. It was stationary, however. Perhaps the savage brute was merely surveying the boat, and wondering what strange creature ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... maint conte Que maint conterre vous raconte, Conment Paris ravi Eleine, Le mal qu'il en ot et la paine ... Et fabliaus, chansons de geste ... Mais onques n'oistes la guerre, Qui tant fu dure et de grant fin Entre Renart ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... Apuleius is one of the most superficial of ancient writers. It has been well said of him by M. Paul Monceaux, 'Apulee est un de ces esprits encyclopediques, apres a la curee de toutes les connaissances, qui se rencontrent au commencement et a la fin des civilisations.' For the acquisition of his extraordinary reputation he needed an age and an audience in which learning and literature alike were decadent, though far from forgotten. He has none of the scientific spirit. He does not really understand the ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... the ship; principally fulmars (Procellaria glacialis) and shearwaters (Procellaria puffinus) and not unfrequently saw shoals of grampusses sporting about, which the Greenland seamen term finners from their large dorsal fin. Some porpoises occasionally appeared and whenever they did the crew were sanguine in their expectation of having a speedy change in the wind which had been so vexatiously contrary but they were disappointed in ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... the problem of evil and the destiny of humanity becomes clearer if the Legende is read in connexion with the two poems mentioned in the Preface to the volume of 1859, as designed to form with it an immense trilogy: Dieu and La Fin de Satan. Neither was published till after the poet's death, and the latter was left in an unfinished condition. But they were both planned in the days when, isolated on his rock and severed from active life, the ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo

... yer's al'ays fin'in' somethin' mean," she said, as the long peeling dropped into the pan, and she proceeded to stone the peach, which looked as though pared by machinery. "What's de matter ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various

... the river of Tigris, and Tobias went out for to wash his feet, and there came a great fish for to devour him, whom Tobias fearing cried out with a great voice: Lord, he cometh on me, and the angel said to him: Take him by the fin and draw him to thee. And so he did and drew him out of the water to the dry land. Then said the angel to him: Open the fish and take to thee the heart, the gall, and the milt, and keep them by thee; they be profitable and necessary for medicines. And when he had done so he roasted of ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... when you did," he remarked solemnly, "I should have been devoured by sharks. Already I had noticed a black fin circling about the island—I mean a LEAN, black fin,—or is it a low, rakish, black fin? No; that's a craft,—a low, rakish, black craft. It was a ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson

... r'ared an' she pitch', but Mars Sam helt on like grim death. Mis' Polly wouldn' give in neither, an' so she fin'lly went away. Dey made some kind er 'rangement afterwa'ds, an' Miss Polly tuck Mis' 'Livy ter her own house. Mars Sam paid her bo'd an' 'lowed Mis' Polly somethin' fer takin' keer ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... my stroke, I lunged with the knife, but I hardly think it entered the invisible fin, or tail, or paw of the monster; but it moved away from the screaming man, and the next moment I received a blow in the face that sent me aft six feet, flat on ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... man, woman, or child has not heard of our renowned Hibernian Hercules, the great and glorious Fin M'Coul? Not one, from Cape Clear to the Giant's Causeway, nor from that back again to Cape Clear. And, by-the-way, speaking of the Giant's Causeway brings me at once to the beginning of my story. Well, it so happened that Fin and his men were all working at the ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... written upon 48 sets of 4 double leaves. The text is in a fair Syrian hand, but not so flowing as that of No. 1716, by Shawish himself, which the well-known Arabist, Baron de Slane, described as Bonne ecriture orientale de la fin du XVIII Siecle. The colophon conceals or omits the name of the scribe, but records the dates of incept Kanun IId. (the Syrian winter month January) A.D. 1772; and of conclusion Naysan (April) of the same year. It has head-lines disposed ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... You fin' you'self so blame indifferend—s'pose you so indifferend not to say nothing 'bout this, when my swamper fellah git in. I don' wish to go snac' wis him. I don' ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... cielo estaba sombro, No vislumbraba una estrella, Silbaba lgubre el viento, Y all en el aire, cual negras Fantasmas, se dibujaban [25] Las torres de las iglesias, Y del gtico castillo Las altsimas almenas, Donde canta o reza acaso Temeroso el centinela [30] Todo en fin a media noche Reposaba, y tumba era De sus dormidos vivientes La antigua ciudad que riega El Tormes, fecundo ro, [35] Nombrado de los poetas, La famosa Salamanca, Insigne en armas y letras, Patria de ilustres varones, Noble archivo de las ciencias. [40] Sbito rumor de ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... A la fin de la guerre, le docteur West le vendit au Docteur Robert Dove, de la Nouvelle-Orleans, qui l'employa comme son second. Dans cette condition, il gagna si bien la confiance et l'amite de son maitre, que celui-ci consentit a l'affranchir deux ou trois ans apres, et a des conditions moderees.—Derham ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... qui a vecu en Odeur de Saintete dans sa Religion, vers la Fin du premier et le Commencement du second Siecle," no part of which, except the "Philosophe," can apply ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam

... does not delay us, we start in a quarter of an hour after the last bugle-sound. This operation is under charge of Lieutenant Amir, who does his best to introduce Dar-Forian discipline: the camels being first charged with the Fints ("metal water-barrels"), then with the boxes, and lastly with ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton



Words linked to "Fin" :   ventral fin, decoration, quintet, shoe, fish, ornament, quint, stabilizer, vertical fin, vane, spline, cinque, Little Phoebe, ornamentation, louver, fivesome, pelvic fin, automobile, ray, water sport, break water, tailfin, aquatics, five, fin keel, stabiliser, appendage, phoebe, equip, swim, v, machine, fin whale, fin de siecle, long-fin tunny, digit



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