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Knee-deep   Listen
adjective
Knee-deep  adj.  
1.
Rising to the knees; knee-high; as, water or snow knee-deep. "Grass knee-deep within a month."
2.
Sunk to the knees; as, men knee-deep in water. "Where knee-deep the trees were standing."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Knee-deep" Quotes from Famous Books



... in Astro's voice, Roger began packing up his equipment and in a few moments the three boys had their gear slung over their shoulders and were slogging through water already knee-deep. ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell

... in many cases of a light loess, and some of red limestone rock, with a few li of paved roads. Many of the main roads over the loess are altered by the rains. Two days of heavy rain will produce in some places seas of mud, often knee-deep, and this will again dry up quite as rapidly with the next sunshine. They become undermined, and crumble away from the action of even a trickling stream, so as to become always ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... the seven reflected moons died out and a chill wind began to blow, a grey light grew and grew, the birds stirred and twittered, and the marble slipped away from the children like a skin that shrivels in fire, and they were statues no more, but flesh and blood children as they used to be, standing knee-deep in brambles and long coarse grass. There was no smooth lawn, no marble steps, no seven-mooned fish-pond. The dew lay thick on the grass and the brambles, and it was ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... to use it up, which he did religiously over his own precious self, in my after-cabin, as far from the end of the ship where the danger was as he could get. Some one else disinfected el proa, not he! Abundant as the stuff was, I had to look sharp for enough to wash out forward while aft it was knee-deep almost, at three dollars a jar! The harpy that alighted on deck at Maldonado sent in his bill for one ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... was waist-deep in the gulches. On the benches, in the snow, holes appeared, as though red-hot stones had been thrown upon the surface. The little settlement by the mouth of the Minook sat insecurely on the boggy hillside, and its inhabitants waded knee-deep in soaking tundra moss ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... hast ever done amiss It was, O Southey, but in this, That, to redeem the lost estate Of the poor Muse, a man so great Abased his laurels where some Georges stood Knee-deep in sludge and ordure, some in blood. Was ever genius but thyself Friend or ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... tops are eaten as greens. The plant grows about two feet high, and has an arrow-shaped leaf larger than one's hand. Like rice, it grows in shallow pools of water, and a patch of it looks like an inundated garden. As we passed along we saw half-clad natives standing knee-deep in mud and water pulling the full-grown plants or putting in young ones. Reaching higher ground, we cantered along a hard, smooth road bordered with short green grass. On either side were dwellings of wood ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... upon us Thy rain-clouds of grace!' He spake and hardly had he made an end of speaking, when the heavens clouded over and there came a rain, as if the mouths of waterskins had been opened; and when we left the oratory, we were knee-deep in water,"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... vegetation or a single stick of timber. The only thing to greet the eye was the logs of which the huts were constructed. Nevertheless the scene was to a certain extent enlivened by the spectacle of two peasant women who, with clothes picturesquely tucked up, were wading knee-deep in the pond and dragging behind them, with wooden handles, a ragged fishing-net, in the meshes of which two crawfish and a roach with glistening scales were entangled. The women appeared to have cause of dispute between themselves—to ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... him. Then he acknowledged that he'd seen those knees before. He'd stumbled on Olga and her brother knee-deep in mud and cow manure, treading a mixture to plaster their shack with, the same as the Doukhobors do. It left me less envious ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer

... stream again climbed heavily up the slope. Our horses were now so weak we could only climb a few rods at a time without rest. But at last, just as night began to fall, we came upon a splendid patch of bluejoint, knee-deep and rich. It was high on the mountain side, on a slope so steep that the horses could not lie down, so steep that it was almost impossible to set our tent. We could not persuade ourselves to pass it, however, and so made the best of it. Everywhere we could see white mountains, to ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland

... five hundred had pushed their march through forest and quagmire, through swollen streams and inundated savannas, toiling knee-deep through mud, rushes, and the rank, tangled grass,—hacking their way through thickets of the yucca or Spanish bayonet, with its clumps of dagger-like leaves, or defiling in gloomy procession through the drenched forest, to the moan, roar, and howl of the storm-racked pines. As they bent before ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... a mighty rush for Mineola. Nobody who caught the infection stopped to reason. Some of them had to wade through water, which in places was knee-deep. They came from various directions, and united in a yelling mob. They meant to carry the ark with a rush. They would not be denied. As the excited throngs neared the great vessel they saw its huge form rising like a mount of safety, ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... just enough hard usage to give a stirring show of the war's heroic reality. The General, on a beautiful cream-colored horse, wore long yellow gauntlets and a yellow sash; from throat to waist the sunlight glistened upon the over-abundant gold lace of his new uniform, his legs were knee-deep in shining boots, and his soft gray hat was looped up on one side and plumed according to Regulations with one drooping ostrich feather. Behind halted in pleasing confusion captains and captains, flashing with braids, bars, buckles, buttons, bands, sword-knots, swords and brave ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable

... at the posts, even while he spoke—we four with our hands, the carpenters with their tools. It was the work of a moment to lay a dozen of these; another moment and the first score of us were knee-deep in the snow piled to one side of the guard-house door. There was a murmur from behind which caused us to glance around. The body of Campbell's troops, instead of pressing us closely, had lingered to take down more pickets. Somebody—it may have been I—said, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... him. Helen, who had strolled a few yards away, was knee-deep in the golden brown bracken, picking some gorgeously coloured leaves from a solitary bramble bush. Lessingham had thrown his cap onto the ground, and his wind-tossed hair and the unusual colour in his cheeks were both, in their way, ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... all. Nursling of the mountain sky, Leaving Dian's choir on high, Down her cataracts laughing loud, Ockment leapt from crag and cloud, Leading many a nymph, who dwells Where wild deer drink in ferny dells; While the Oreads as they past Peep'd from Druid Tors aghast. By alder copses sliding slow, Knee-deep in flowers came gentler Yeo And paused awhile her locks to twine With musky hops and white woodbine, Then joined the silver-footed band, Which circled down my golden sand, By dappled park, and harbor shady, Haunt of love-lorn knight and lady, My thrice-renowned sons to greet, With rustic song and ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... says my guide. 'Pop!' remarks a third person just in front. 'A sniper,' says my guide; 'take a look through the periscope.' I do so. There is some rusty wire before me, then a field sloping slightly upwards with knee-deep grass, then rusty wire again, and a red line of broken earth. There is not a sign of movement, but sharp eyes are always watching us, even as these crouching soldiers around me are watching them. There are dead Germans in the grass before ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle

... wade knee-deep in tragedy, in spite of the state of the weather. The fare is, however, too good for any change in the carte. "Werner" forms a substantial standing dish. The "Boarding School" makes a most palpable entree; while "Bob Short," and "My ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... better," assented Alex, who stood knee-deep at the edge of the lake, and who now calmly removed his moccasins and spread them on the thwart of the boat before he stepped lightly in to take his place at the stern of the Jaybird. The boys noticed that when he stepped aboard he hardly caused ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough

... into the snow, knee-deep now, he sought Mukee, the half-breed. Mukee had suffered a lynx bite that went deep into the bone, and Cummins' wife had saved his hand. After that the savage in him was enslaved to her like an invisible spirit, and when Jan slipped ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... like long graves dug for the living, where the weary, listless men stood knee-deep in mud, hoping for wounds that would relieve them from the ghastly monotony of their existence; the holes of muddy water where the dead things lay, to which they crept out in the night to wash a little of ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... in tattered uniforms, with grimy hands and faces, and boots knee-deep in stains of mud, stood about or sat in the empty carts, talking, gesticulating, giving sundry, confused and contradictory accounts of the great battle—describing Napoleon's decisive victory—Wellington's rout—the prolonged absence of Bluecher and the Prussians, ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... of Apemama was our daily resort. The coast is broken by shallow bays. The reef is detached, elevated, and includes a lagoon about knee-deep, the unrestful spending-basin of the surf. The beach is now of fine sand, now of broken coral. The trend of the coast being convex, scarce a quarter of a mile of it is to be seen at once; the land being so low, the horizon appears within a stone-cast; and the narrow prospect enhances the sense ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... giving nor did he of claiming it. At last, hearing my steps close upon him and my breathing at his very shoulder, he sprang wildly through the reeds and dashed into the treacherous morass. Ankle-deep, knee-deep, thigh-deep, waist-deep, we struggled and staggered, I still gaining upon him, until I was within arm's-reach of him, and had whirled up my sword to strike. It had been ordained, however, my dear children, that ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... beds and through the wet, tall, scented herbs, through the night stock and the nicotine and the clusters of phantom white mallow flowers and through the thickets of southern-wood and lavender, and knee-deep across a wide space of mignonette. He came to the great hedge and he thrust his way through it, and though the thorns of the brambles scored him deeply and tore threads from his wonderful suit, and though burs ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... oaks, a single branch of which would have made a fine tree; the ponds of Boulogne; the varied views of the Seine, with the gay and sunny slopes from the walks running parallel to the river. Then the mill and its surrounding fields, quiet at times with browsing cows knee-deep in the rich grass, or at other times alive with merry mowers and hay-makers. Several views of Mont Valerien, looming in the haze of the after-glow, or in dark contrast with the splendor of the afternoon sunshine, also caught my husband's attention; ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... tugging, wrenching, dragging it after him. Part of it floated because of the air imprisoned beneath it, but gradually sank as it became soaked. Standing knee-deep, he held fast to one corner of it and waited during one precious minute while it absorbed as much of the water as it ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... the higher land of Lincolnshire, through primeval glades of mighty oak and ash, holly and thorn, swarming with game, which was as highly preserved then as now, under Canute's severe forest laws. The yellow roes stood and stared at him knee-deep in the young fern; the pheasant called his hens out to feed in the dewy grass; the blackbird and thrush sang out from every bough; the wood-lark trilled above the high oak-tops, and sank down on them as his song sank ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... was down, knee-deep in water, holding on with his left hand to the reedy growth of the bank and reaching out to snatch ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... with the sand and gravel and ran knee-deep out into the running stream. In his eagerness he splashed over a part of his material with the wash, but he, excused himself by thinking that this was his first pan, and that with the rest he would be more careful. He began to notice now that all of the sand ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood

... boughs, That build amid the glare a shadowy house, And with a Paradisal freshness brims Amid cool-rooted reeds with glossy blade; The antic water-fly above it skims, And cows stand shadow-like in the green shade, Or knee-deep in the ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne

... than the plains, nor night so gloomy as that dumb sunlight," wrote Lummis in 1893, approaching the Gran Quivira across the desert. "The brown grass is knee-deep, and even this shock gives a surprise in this hoof-obliterated land. The bands of antelope that drift, like cloud shadows, across the dun landscape suggest less of life than of the supernatural. The spell ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... Knee-deep, through clover, to the poplar grove, I waded, where my pets were wont to rove: And there I found the foolish mother hen Brooding her chickens underneath a tree, An easy prey for foxes. "Chick-a-dee," Quoth I, while reaching for the downy things ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... Honesty, like most dispositions of mind, is divided into two classes—negative and positive. La Cibot's honesty was of the negative order; she and her like are honest until they see their way clear to gain money belonging to somebody else. Positive honesty, the honesty of the bank collector, can wade knee-deep through temptations. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... Benedicto also entered, the framework of our vessel absolutely disappeared under water and only the short necks of the bottles showed above the surface. As we sat astride on the narrow longitudinal platform we were knee-deep in water. We took another small trip in mid-stream, and then decided that we would put the baggage on board and start at once on our ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... monogram of the original owner. On one side of the house there was a vast pile of building, comprising stables and coach-houses, barns and granaries, arranged in a quadrangle. The gate leading into this quadrangle was open, and Gilbert saw the cattle standing knee-deep in ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... floes, which the frost soon locked together into a solid mass. Towards the close of the storm snow fell in great abundance, and when the mariners ventured again to put their heads up the opened hatchways, the decks were knee-deep, the drift to windward was almost level with the bulwarks, every yard was edged with white, every rope and cord had a light side and a dark, every point and truck had a white button on it, and every hole, corner, crack, and crevice was ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... delicate and skilful art. They live in the shallows near the beach, digging their holes in the sand under two or three feet of water. When the wind ruffles the surface, it is impossible to see the holes, but on calm days we waded knee-deep in the clear water, stepping carefully and peering intently for the homes of the sea-centipede. Finding one, we cautiously lowered into the hole a spool fitted ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... the dance Cad Sills put herself in his path for the second time and this time she gave him short shrift. He was pushing forward, near sundown, to take the impulse of an eddy at the edge of Pull-an'-be-Damned when he saw that predatory, songful woman balanced knee-deep in rushing water, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... hall-door, was engaged in washing the dogs. The mother, who had been the first victim, was morosely licking herself, shuddering effectively, and coldly ignoring her oppressor's apologies. The daughter, trembling in every limb, was standing knee-deep in the bath; one paw, placed on its rim, was ready for flight if flight became practicable; her tail, rigid with anguish would have hummed like a violin-string if it were touched. Fanny, with her shirt-sleeves rolled up to her elbows, scrubbed in the soap. ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... a sea of shallow mist was rolling; and the trees in the valley, like browsing cattle, stood knee-deep in whiteness, with all the air above them wan from an innumerable rain as of moondust, falling into that white sea. Then the moon passed behind the lime-tree, so that a great lighted Chinese lantern seemed to hang ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Buto bore down straight upon Tarzan, across the few yards of knee-deep grass which separated them. Accident started him in the direction of the ape-man, and then his weak eyes discerned the enemy, and with a series of snorts he charged straight for him. The little rhino birds ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... in every crisis, and he never lets me down. And, what's more, he can always be counted on to extend himself on behalf of any pal of mine who happens to be to all appearances knee-deep in the bouillon. Take the rather rummy case, for instance, of dear old Bicky and his ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... down the Peninsula in a white ambulance, which mules dragged through knee-deep mud and over flowing, corduroy roads. He had fever in his whole body, anguish in one leg, and hardly a wish to live. But at Fort Monroe the breezes came hurrying from the sea, like so many unfailing doctors, and blew his fever back inland where it belonged. He lay under a live-oak ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris

... has made all our lives horribly real. What you have told me seems to belong to another state of our existence." His eyes were far away from either Margaret or Millicent; they were with his comrades in the trenches. "When I was knee-deep in mud in the trenches I often thought that our hut-home in the silent Valley was a dream, a beautiful dream, one of those dreams we can never forget, however long we live, but ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... of his angry voice grew fainter; but so did the roars of the Firedrake. Presently they sounded more like groans; and at last the Remora slipped up his legs above the knees, and fastened on his very heart of fire. Then the Firedrake stood groaning like a black bull, knee-deep in snow; and still the Remora climbed ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang

... into the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw deeply furrowing the brown moorside; I waded knee-deep in its dark growth; I turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened granite crag in a hidden angle, I sat down under it. High banks of moor were about me; the crag protected my head: the sky ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... citizens look down on the soldier. I had to entertain that trooper. The old lady from Chicago would have none of him; so we loafed alone together, now across half-rotten pine logs sunk in swampy ground, anon over the ringing geyser formation, then pounding through river-sand or brushing knee-deep ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling

... warm, sunny South, and were for ever skimming over the brook, just dipping their wings into its limpid waves, then off again with the joyous 'Twit, twit, twit.' The meadows, too, were yellow with buttercups, in which the cows waded knee-deep. Talk of the Field of the Cloth of Gold! Francis the First would have been a clever man could he have made such an one!—no earthly king could create golden ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer

... and greater grew the confusion of the continually appearing boxes and bundles, and, knee-deep, Mother McNeil surveyed them, hands on her hips, and once or twice ...
— How It Happened • Kate Langley Bosher

... down to the clear stream, To cross the sparkling shallows; there The cattle love to gather, on their way To the high mountain pastures and to stay, Till the rough cow-herds drive them past, Knee-deep in the cool ford; for 'tis the last Of all the woody, high, well-water'd dells On Etna, . . . . . . glade, And stream, and sward, and chestnut-trees, End here; Etna beyond, in the broad glare Of the hot noon, ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... first hour the horse could not go beyond a walk, sinking knee-deep in snow; for only the Chapdelaines used this road, laid out and cleared by themselves, and not enough travelled to become smooth and hard. But when they reached the beaten highway ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... wet hides, which we were obliged to roll about in wheelbarrows; the continual stooping upon those which were pegged out to be cleaned; and the smell of the nasty vats, into which we were often obliged to wade, knee-deep, to press down the hides,— all made the work disagreeable and fatiguing; but we soon became hardened to it, and the comparative independence of our life reconciled us to it, for there was nobody to haze us and find fault; and when we were through for the day, we had only to wash and change our clothes, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... now became very anxious about the men in the trenches at Atlanta who were lying day after day, always under fire. Suffering from insufficient food, exposed to the scorching sun or equally pitiless rain, sometimes actually knee-deep in water for days. The bombardment was heavy and incessant, ceasing only for a while at sunset, when carts were hastily loaded with musty meat and poor corn-bread, driven out to the trenches, and the rations dumped there. Many of my friends were ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... carts drawn by large limbed cream-coloured oxen; and passed flocks of sheep and milch goats, tended by shepherds in picturesque dresses, and guarded by numbers of large Pyrenean dogs, whose chief duty was to protect their charge from the wolves. They saw men standing knee-deep in the water, surrounded by droves of pigs—the latter voluntarily submitting themselves to a process of washing, which resulted in producing over their skins a roseate, pinky appearance. It could be seen, too, that these pachyderms not only ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... The bridge was knee-deep in unbroken snow, for no vehicle had crossed since the late storm, and there had been no service at Poussette's church. Crabbe walked on, not without some difficulty, lifting his feet higher and higher as he neared the centre of the structure. Underneath roared and tumbled the savage fall, ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... ship, but here a spar and there a door, and on the side of a sand-hill a great dog watching over a little child that he'd kept warm all night. Dan, he'd got up at turn of tide, and walked down,—the sea running over the road knee-deep,—for there was too much swell for boats; and when day broke, he found the little girl, and carried her up to town. He didn't take her home, for he saw that what clothes she had were the very finest,—made as delicately,—with seams like the hair-strokes on that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... closely pressed to tell us what recommendation the article has, they are obliged to give up the argument in despair—to intrench themselves in the old fortress of such reasoners, and to defend what is, merely because it is. They would stand on the old ways, were they knee-deep in slush; and they would wear the old hat, were it not only of the shape, but of the material and the color ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... wasn't he a wet boy, and didn't his teeth chatter! In fact, all three of us were wet, for, in our excitement, Addison and I had gone in knee-deep, and the water had splashed over us. In that bitter cold wind we felt it keenly. Tom was nearly torpid; he seemed unable to speak, and we could hardly make him take a step. His face ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... a native of a rich pastoral country; very beautiful in running brooks, smooth meadows, and majestic parks; where the fat sleek cattle so celebrated in the London markets, graze knee-deep in luxuriant pastures, and the fallow deer browse and gambol beneath the shadow of majestic oaks through the long bright summer days. She had never seen a mountain before her visit to the North, in her life; had never risen ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... and the will-o'-the-wisps circled round him and dashed into his face, and the gnomes pursued him shouting and pelting him with fairy gold. As he ran with all this strange rout about him and distracting him, suddenly he was knee-deep in a swamp, and suddenly he was amidst thick twisted roots, and he caught his foot in ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... the Georges, had by some alchemy become one. Peace and long memories were in every line of it, and that air of a home which belongs only to places that have been loved for generations. It breathed ease and comfort, but yet had a tonic vigour in it, for while it stood knee-deep in the green valley its head was ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... every lee-roll the muzzles of the quarter-deck guns were buried in the boiling yeast that foamed and swirled giddily past to leeward, and sometimes surged in through the ports, filling the lee-scuppers knee-deep with water. And whereas we had before ridden buoyantly over the head seas, with nothing worse than an occasional shower of spray flying in over the weather cathead, the frigate now plunged her bows savagely right into the very heart of them, quivering to her keel with ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... field, strike into the back wood-road, and turn off upon an old stumpy track over which cordwood was carted years ago. Here in the hollow at the foot of a high wooded hill the winds have whirled the oak and maple leaves into drifts almost knee-deep. ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... throw it from him; he knew that he should need it presently.... The screaming had ceased now, yet he dared not stop running; Frank was in some urgent peril, and he knew it was not yet too late, if he could but find him soon. He ran and ran; the ground was knee-deep now in the feathers that had fallen from the wounded birds; it was darker than ever, yet he toiled on hopelessly, following, as he thought, the direction from which the cries had come. Then as at last he topped the rise of a hill, the screaming broke out again, shrill and frightful, ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... of the inclemency of the weather and the difficulty of finding fuel; the only vegetation which he could discover being fern and moss, which was so wet that it would not burn, while he was almost without fire, or any means of obtaining warmth, his men sinking knee-deep as they proceeded on shore in the soft slush and snow, which benumbed their limbs and dispirited them in the extreme. Through this country the unhappy remnant of the Franklin expedition, many years later, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... three great scourges: the pest of horse-sickness and fly and the calamity of rain. For after twelve hours' rain in that black cotton soil never a wheel could move until a hot sun had dried the surface of the roads again. Roads, too, were mere bush tracks in the forest, knee-deep either in dust or ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey

... more than rain—there were liquid shafts reaching from earth to sky. By noon of the second day, half the cellars in the village were flooded; coops floated in slatted wrecks over fields; the roads were knee-deep in certain places; the horses drew back—it was like fording a stream. ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... stretch of marsh between the peninsula and the cove, alternately walking on soft springy ground above a bed of coralline limestone and wading knee-deep along the watercourse, they emerged upon the left bank of the cove. The two smaller cabins were not more than twenty paces distant, and between them was a plank bridge rudely built in the form of a trestle. Dave and Billy ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler

... arrived that morning from England, and driven full of holes like a sugar-sifter. Our late room was a mass of wreckage—half the outer wall and most of the inner one blown down, tables and chairs and things overturned and broken, and the floor knee-deep in plaster and rubbish. Of the kitchen there was still less; and nothing was to be rescued from the debris except one tin plate and one tin mustard-pot. It would have taken days to clear it, for a good deal of the room above seemed to have fallen into it as well, ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen

... found the wrecks of several merchant ships that had been run ashore by the pirates. Scattered on the beach were lying their cargoes, china ware, rich drugs and spices, cloth, guns, and other articles, lying where the pirates had cast them. Men waded knee-deep in pepper, cloves, and cinnamon, such was the quantity. In shallow water were lying the remains of a fine Jeddah ship that had been taken, with thirteen lakhs of treasure on board, by a pirate named Conden, who ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph

... clover-blooms, and new hay; for the high stands of wild hay around the ponds and lakes are all being cut this year, and even the timothy along the roads, and there was a mellow undertone of mowing machines everywhere, like the distant hum of a city. Fat cattle stood knee-deep in a stream as we passed, and others lay contentedly on the clover-covered banks. One restless spirit, with a poke on her neck, sniffed at us as we went by, and tossed her head in grim defiance of public opinion and man-made laws. She ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung

... Emma, with a laugh, "but it is covered here with snow that is soft and probably knee-deep. Go on it, ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... brought the despatch should have dashed up at a gallop, clicked his spurs, saluted and begun with "The commanding General's compliments, sir," et cetera. Instead, he dragged a very tired horse up the trail, knee-deep in mud, brought to, standing with a gasp of relief, and said, as he pushed his ...
— The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris

... then rode on to Dead Horse Lake, in the hope of getting a few duck. But the weather was too fine, though I managed to bring down a couple of mallard, after one of which Susie, having removed her shoes and stockings, waded knee-deep in the slough. She enjoys that sort of thing: it's something so entirely new to the child of the city. And Susie, I might add, is already looking much better. She is sleeping soundly, at last, and has promised me there shall be no more night-caps of veronal. What is more, ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... hollow, was the beach and the irregular cluster of houses that constitutes Dymchurch. He could see the little crowd of people he had so abruptly left. Grubb, in the white wrapper of a Desert Dervish, was running along the edge of the sea. Mr. Butteridge was knee-deep in the water, bawling immensely. The lady was sitting up with her floriferous hat in her lap, shockingly neglected. The beach, east and west, was dotted with little people—they seemed all heads and feet—looking up. And the balloon, released from the twenty-five ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... disaster on the Coney Island shore. Half of it had been washed away by the sea, the report ran, with houses and people. I was sent out to get at the truth of the thing. I started in the early twilight and got as far as Gravesend. The rest of the way I had to foot it through snow and slush knee-deep in the face of a blinding storm, and got to Sheepshead Bay dead beat, only to find that the ice and the tide had shut off all approach ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... clambered over the stone walls; the bobolinks played hide-and-seek in the waving grass of the meadows; the skylarks sang and poised and soared; the hedgerows grew white with hawthorn-blossoms and musical with the chirp of sparrows; the cattle ranged through the fragrant clover "knee-deep in June." ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... wonder was that he had not carried them out. We then proceeded to Bridgeport, where we stopped for the night. From here we took horses and made our way by Jasper and over Waldron's Ridge to Chattanooga. There had been much rain, and the roads were almost impassable from mud, knee-deep in places, and from wash-outs on the mountain sides. I had been on crutches since the time of my fall in New Orleans, and had to be carried over places where it was not safe to cross on horseback. The roads were strewn with the debris of broken wagons and the carcasses ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... his eyes flashed with keen hostility. Then he vanished over the dike, and was soon splashing through the muddy shallows of the ford. The water was fast deepening, and he thought to himself, "If Monsieur the abbe doesn't hurry, he will have to swim where I am walking but knee-deep!" ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts

... banks and offices. In the munition works, in the shipyards, in the engineering shops, in the aeroplane sheds, they work in tens of thousands—risking life and health in some cases, but thinking little of it, compared with what their men are doing, knee-deep in snow and mud and water in the trenches. "Is the work heavy?" you ask. "Not so heavy as the soldiers'." "Are the hours long?" "Six days and nights in the trenches are longer." "We are going to win and you are going to help us"—and the munition girl and the land girl and the workers answer not ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser

... full of merry prattling and noisy song. Our master was overjoyed. He had never seen the brook before; nor had we, for that matter. 'Let me cool your little feet,' said the brook, and, without replying, our master waded knee-deep into the brook. In an instant we were wet through—my mate and I; but how deliciously cool it was here in the brook, and how smooth and bright the pebbles were! One of the pebbles told me it had come many, many miles that day from its ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field

... indomitable lady, having preferred the less expensive mode of walking, entering a strange world. Sauntering along the Bowery she turns down Bayard street. Bayard street she finds lined with filthy looking houses, swarming with sickly, ragged, and besotted poor; the street is knee-deep with corrupting mire; carts are tilted here and there at intervals; the very air seems hurling its pestilence into your blood. Ghastly-eyed and squallid children, like ants in quest of food, creep and swarm over ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... incommoded with mud and reeds. I sunk knee-deep into the former, and was exhausted by the fatigue of extricating myself. At length I recovered firm ground, and threw myself on the turf to repair my wasted strength, and to reflect on the measures which my future ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... and dismal shrieks and whistlings sounded in the ears. The Sea Queen sank, and a whole tide of sea rushed over the bulwarks and flooded the state-rooms. The water ran knee-deep and set the bodies of the dead awash. One struck against me in the whirlpool. It was a ghastly scene, set ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... water-proof back from her head, looked at him through the driven fog of snow. One of her hands was stretched towards him involuntarily, and it was in that attitude that he long remembered her: standing in the drift which had piled up against the gate almost knee-deep, the shabby skirt and the black water-proof flapping like torn sails, one hand out-stretched like that of a figure in a tableau, her brown face with its thin features mottled with cold and unlovely, her startled eyes fixed ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... style. The Shoshonie beauties also flaunted about in all the colors of the rainbow. Every freak of prodigality was indulged to its fullest extent, and in a little while most of the trappers, having squandered away all their wages, and perhaps run knee-deep in debt, were ready for another hard campaign ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... friend," quoth Will, knee-deep in the stream, "for no mind have I to hurt thee. So away with thy dagger like gentle, kindly Fool, and away with thee ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... was that the virgin bower of Lillie was knee-deep in a tangled mass of stuffs of various hues and description; that the sharp sound of tearing off breadths resounded there; that Miss Clippins and Miss Snippings and Miss Nippins were sewing there day and night; that a sewing-machine was busily rattling ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... rain we could dimly see the cavalry horses standing knee-deep in water, men looking out of the covered wagons, into which they had crawled for shelter, or standing, like ourselves, on the bowlders, their bodies covered with ponchos and gum blankets. Wall-tents, the sides of which had ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis

... allowed to land, the person in authority having seen something on shore to alarm him, the nature of which continued to us a mystery. The second cutter laid off, and the first remained in water about knee-deep, surrounded by a crowd of unarmed natives. The scene was at that time very animated—groups of men, women, and children, were to be seen staggering under a load of coconuts, wading out to the boats, scrambling ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... march had ever been before, or could have been supposed possible, up the rugged bed of the Tarf, and so, by the spurs of big Carryarick and the secrets of the infant Spey, now in bog and wet, now knee-deep in snow, over the mountains of Lochaber. It was on Friday the 31st of January that he began the march, and early in the evening of Saturday the 1st of February they were down at the foot of Ben Nevis ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... as a pit. In another it ran, unfenced, across a heath studded with water-pools, whence the startled moor-fowl squattered up unseen. Everywhere they stumbled: once a horse fell. Over such ground, founderous and scored knee-deep with ruts, it was plain that no wheeled carriage could move at speed; and the pursuers had this to cheer them. But the darkness of the night, the dreary glimpses of wood and water, which met the eye when the moon for a ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... brawling in the churchyard, whereupon the priest, Ruprecht, inflicted a curse upon them, that they should dance and scream for a whole year without ceasing. This curse is stated to have been completely fulfilled, so that the unfortunate sufferers at length sank knee-deep into the earth, and remained the whole time without nourishment, until they were finally released by the intercession of two pious bishops. It is said that, upon this, they fell into a deep sleep, which lasted three days, and that ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker

... this happened, the Persians who had been appointed for this purpose entered Babylon by the bed of the river, the water of which was little more than knee-deep. If the Babylonians had been before apprized of the intentions of Cyrus, or if they had learned at the moment what he was doing, they would not have suffered the Persians to enter the city, nor would the Babylonians ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... Pennsylvanian was sure to be right on the tariff, and a Louisianian was sure to be wrong. Therefore a Pennsylvanian was a much better representative than a Louisianian. Besides, SYPHER's hands were not red with loyal blood, neither had he waded knee-deep in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various

... active—cut them to pieces, root and branch. Only three French horsemen got within the stakes, and those were instantly despatched. All this time the dense French army, being in armour, were sinking knee-deep into the mire; while the light English archers, half-naked, were as fresh and active as if they were ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... discovered shore, while with uplifted sword his men are apparently consecrating the new world with a solemn vow of loyalty, some standing on a small boat which is being pushed towards the shore, while others stand knee-deep in the shoal water—the form of the ship or drakkar in the background, the costumes, swords and all the other accessories—constitute a striking and fascinating group. It portrays vividly the solemnity of the occasion ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro

... fairly launched the winds not infrequently awake, and, seeing their opportunity, pipe the flakes a lively dance. I am speaking now of the typical, full-born midwinter storm that comes to us from the North or N. N. E., and that piles the landscape knee-deep with snow. Such a storm once came to us the last day of January,—the master-storm of the winter. Previous to that date, we had had but light snow. The spruces had been able to catch it all upon their arms, and keep a circle of bare ground ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs

... o'ergorged epicure to the last morsel That stuffs him to the throat-gates, is no more. If matter be not, but as sages say, Spirit is all, and all things visible Are one, the infinitely modified, Think, Jacob, what that pig is, and the mire Wherein he stands knee-deep! And there! the breeze Pleads with me, and has won thee to a smile That speaks conviction. O'er yon blossom'd field Of beans it came, and ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... wildest imagination of the geography man. The trees was all sky-scrapers; the underbrush was full of needles and pins; there was monkeys jumpin' around and crocodiles and pink-tailed mockin'-birds, and ye stood knee-deep in the rotten water and grabbled roots for the liberation of Guatemala. Of nights we would build smudges in camp to discourage the mosquitoes, and sit in the smoke, with the guards pacin' all around us. There was two hundred men workin' on the ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... ordnance were landed, and about 200 seamen and volunteers were attached to each gun. Three of these were sixty-eight-pounder shell guns and three thirty-two-pounder solid-shot guns. Each of these guns weighed about three tons. Now each of these had to be dragged through the loose sand, almost knee-deep, for something like three miles before it could be put in the position the engineers had assigned to it. This battery, by the way, was protected by bags of sand piled on each other, and this was the first time that this device had been used. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... suggested rather than defined itself. A landscape developed such as Turner in a quiet mood might have evolved, and with it a feeling of fantasy, of remoteness, of pure, true classicism. A note of pipes was in the air, sheep bleated, and Daphne, knee-deep in the grass, surging an answer to the pipes, went down to meet ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... meadows like a lilac sea, Knee-deep, with honeyed clover, red and white, Roll billowing: the crisp clouds pass Trailing their soft blue shadows o'er the grass; The skylark, mad with glee, Quivers, up, up, to lose himself in light; And, through the forest, like a fairy ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... interest which men, even upright and honorable men, take in the aims they follow, that they believe it possible to wade knee-deep through mud, and then ascend to the temple of fame without dragging the mud with them, and befouling the white ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford

... Chinese, Japanese, and Indians—in check, they patrol the city nightly, and shut and open the city gates, on horseback. For that reason the poor infantrymen are excused from patrol duty, and from locking the gates, and thus from going about almost every night knee-deep in water, from which many diseases and deaths ensued; that has been avoided by this means. Experience has demonstrated, also, how useful and profitable these cavalrymen may be when stationed as a troop among the artillery on a campaign, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various

... rode into the timber and from the timber into a mountain meadow, knee-deep with lush grass. There was no visible trail across the meadow but the horses seemed to know which way to go. After crossing the meadow, Filaree, leading the cavalcade, turned and took a steep trail down ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... Dixie, standing knee-deep in a drift, shook himself much after the manner of his master; perhaps he, also, wished himself back at the Horseshoe Bar. He turned his head to look back, blinking at the snow which beat insistently in his eyes; he could not hold them open long enough to see anything, however, so he twitched ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower

... he slid down the cord, which yielded him an oscillatory transit from her casement to the moat, where he alighted knee-deep in mud. "Beware!—if my brother should be gazing from his chamber on the ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... mosquitoes,—"so thick," says Champlain, "that we could hardly draw breath, and it was wonderful how cruelly they persecuted us,"—their route lay through swampy soil, where the water at places stood knee-deep; over fallen logs, wet and slimy, and under entangling vines; their heavy armor added to their discomfort; the air was close and heavy; altogether it was a progress fit to make one sicken of warfare in the wilderness. After struggling onward till they ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... grassy banks to great towers of stone five hundred feet high. Other crags rose behind these. From under a mossy cliff, huge and green and cool, bubbled a full, clear spring. Wild flowers fringed its banks. Out in the meadow the horses were knee-deep in grass that waved ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... fallen from the tree. Uncle Bart's son, Cephas (Patty's secret adorer), was a painter by trade, and kept his pots and cans and brushes in a little outhouse at the back, while Uncle Bart himself stood every day behind his long joiner's bench almost knee-deep in shavings. How the children loved to play with the white, satiny rings, making them into necklaces, hanging them to their ears ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... elevation of the ground which he was traversing, his glance roved with admiration over a wide and diversified extent of country; over a prospect richly wooded and teeming with vegetation; over orchards laden with fruit and knee-deep in grass; over fields of barley bristling with golden ripeness; over distant mills, churning the water into foam, and driving gusts of meal out through the open doorway; over meadows where the sheep cropped the cool herbage, and the cattle lay in the sunshine sleeping; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... as pickets having been fired on by a detachment of the 'Berkeley Border Guard,' and returning the fire promptly. But this served only to stimulate the already keen energies of the Federal forces, who waded knee-deep through the clear Potomac, and trudged along over the 'sacred soil' with a willingness unchecked by the cold nor'wester that raged on that July morning. That portion of Berkeley County, Virginia, which lies opposite to Willlamsport, ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... was easy. In a very short time she was rowed ashore, cast loose again, and half a dozen men waded in knee-deep to run her up a few feet at a time, the water escaping through the broken-out hole, till at last she was high and—not dry, ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn

... own trail, and discover that made by the Pathfinder and the Serpent in their ascent from and descent to the river, the clue to their movements would cease at the shore, water leaving no prints of footsteps. The young man had therefore waded, knee-deep, as far as the point, and was now seen making his way slowly down the margin of the stream, searching curiously for the spot in which the canoes ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... the sides of the crag are deepest, so that each hollow is almost a cave by itself, I determined to wade through it. There was an accumulation of soft stuff on the bottom, so that the water did not look more than knee-deep; but, finding that my feet sunk in it, I took off my trousers, and waded through up to my middle. Thus I reached the most interesting part of the cave, where the whirlings of the stream had left the marks of its eddies in the solid marble, all up and down the two sides of ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Nasmyth, who kept near each other, fell over several rotting trees, and into what appeared to be crumbling drains. They floundered knee-deep through withered timothy, which is not a natural grass. For an hour or two nobody saw any deer. Then Gordon, who was cautiously skirting another drain, closed in on Nasmyth until he touched his comrade. Nasmyth heard ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... of those watching events from the shore when they saw the French flag lowered from the masthead of the visitor and in its place the German naval ensign run up. The cutters were just about reaching knee-deep water at the shore when this surprise came, and it was augmented when, with the protection of the guns of the vessel, the men in these cutters showed themselves to be ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... old farm-horse, gripping the mane with both hands, and sending up shouts of fun if she happened to tumble off. Children, in the natural state, love water, like ducks and goslings. It used to be a sight to watch them, knee-deep in the brooks, with their tenty-tointy feet shining through the ripples, as they hunted for water-cresses and sweet flag-root; but catch one of your new-fangled young ones at anything with so much human ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... Enemy grins," remarked Selwyn as he started for church with Nina and the children. Austin, knee-deep in a dozen Sunday supplements, refused to stir; poor little Eileen was now convalescent from grippe, but still unsteady on her legs; her maid had taken the grippe, and now moaned all day: "Mon dieu! Mon dieu! ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... so sincere as he would have made it, for the bowman, jumping out into the knee-deep water to keep the boat from touching bottom, had floundered like an ox, thereby proving his newness at the business. On the face of the swarthy Canuck guide who sat in the stern ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... the long folds of muslin, and they fell upon the floor knee-deep about her; she stepped out of them and walked across the old familiar living-room, with its long strips of worn rag-carpet, its old polished chairs, and smoky walls. The face of the eight-day clock stared hard at her with impassive yet kindly glance, but its voice only steadily ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... Desert-smothered caravan, Knee-deep dust that once was man, Battle-trenches ghastly piled, Ocean-floors with white bones tiled, Crowded tomb and mounded sod, Dumbly crave that prayer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... strangely near to her. Looking away, where the trees did not intercept the view, it was all green country—gently- sloping hills, and the long Eyethorne wood, and rich meadow-land, where sleepy-looking cows stood in groups or waded knee-deep in the pasture. It was like an earthly paradise to her senses, but just now her mind was clouded with a great distress. Mary's strange words to her, and the warning that she would be cast out of Mary's heart, that it would be again with her ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... there went forth from our homes hundreds of thousands of men to do battle for their country. All the poetry of war soon vanished, and left them nothing but the terrible prose. They waded knee-deep in mud. They slept in snow-banks. They marched till their cut feet tracked the earth. They were swindled out of their honest rations, and lived on meat not fit for a dog. They had jaws all fractured, and eyes extinguished, and limbs shot away. Thousands of them cried for water as ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... upon the water-soaked places, and the steam which arose, was foul-smelling. The men who were endeavoring to do the heavier portion of clearing, were knee-deep in the drift. The flood had receded, but the basement was yet full of water. The conditions were bad and would remain so for some time, regardless of the fact that everyone was doing his utmost ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird

... to hold a Fish feast immediately on the conclusion of the marriage ceremony and that a similar practice can be prove for the ancient Greeks.[54] At the present day the Jews of Tunis exhibit a Fish's tail on a cushion at their weddings.[55] In some parts of India the newly-wedded pair waded knee-deep into the water, and caught fish in a new garment. During the ceremony a Brahmin student, from the shore, asked solemnly, "What seest thou?" to which the answer was returned, "Sons and Cattle."[56] In all these cases there can be no doubt that it was the ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... gain through any fault of mine! Cursed be the cause whence Gotham's evils spring, Though that cursed cause be found in Gotham's king. Let War, with all his needy ruffian band, In pomp of horror stalk through Gotham's land Knee-deep in blood; let all her stately towers Sink in the dust; that court which now is ours 280 Become a den, where beasts may, if they can, A lodging find, nor fear rebuke from man; Where yellow harvests rise, be brambles found; Where vines now creep, let thistles ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... shoes and stockings, and, rolling up their trousers, began to wade. Very soon they found the water nearly knee-deep. ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... He grabbed the girl again, handing the goblet back to his corps of three carriers, and bowed and grinned at his worshippers behind him, surging forward, and at some others standing under the bridge, ankle-deep, shin-deep, even knee-deep in the rushing water, craning their necks upward to get a really good view of their God as he passed over. There were over a hundred of ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett

... end in the current. There for an instant poised, but one could not say uncertain, she hung shining before me—for her dress was white, and it took and took and took the rose-colour as if she were a white rose, blushing. She then plunged directly into the water, which was knee-deep at least, and waded straight ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... another source of information, which, agreeably or odiously according to the temperament of the reader, keeps us in touch with courts and what goes on there—the periodical press; while afar off in the future one can imagine the historian bent over his desk, surrounded by books and knee-deep in newspapers, selecting and weighing events, studying characters, developing personalities, and passing what he hopes may be a final judgment on the court and ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... our childhood roamed the world Knee-deep in blowing grass, And watched the white clouds crisply curled Above the mountain-pass, And lay among the purple thyme And from its fragrance caught Strange hints from some elusive clime Beyond the ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... navigated us; but, when the next day brought us up to the northwest corner of Andros, we found ourselves face to face with a variety of difficulties: glimmering sandbars, reaches of moon-white shoals, patches of half-made land with pines struggling knee-deep in the tide; here and there a mile of mangroves, and delusive channels of blue water; beauty everywhere spreading out her sweeping laces of foam—a welter of a world still in its making, with no clear passages for any craft drawing more than a canoe. Loveliness everywhere—again ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne

... the weather. Now they could observe Logwood better, and its surroundings. The roughly built "shanty-town" was dropped down on the edge of the lake, in a clearing. Much of the stumpage around the place was still raw. The only roads were timber roads and they were now knee-deep in fresh snow. ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson

... must rustle for the shore. So I did, paying out the pole behind me so as not to tear the hook free; and the minute I scrambled knee-deep, with a big swing I hustled that trout in and landed him in the brush ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin

... foe Creeping and crawling up below; And, when thou canst no farther go, See thee crouch for the fearful leap Off the top of the old well-sweep, Then, with a swift and dizzy sweep, Plunge in the crusty snow knee-deep. Nor, for a lameness gotten so, Shall ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... up on the sand Wulf tried in vain to resist the backward rush of the water; he and Osgod were borne out again. When the next wave again swept them up Wulf saw the earl standing knee-deep in the water, and as he was swept past, Harold seized him and Osgod, and with tremendous strength lifted them right out of the water. "Keep still!" he shouted; "your weight will help me to keep my feet." Wulf felt his supporter quiver as the water rushed out, for he was waist-deep ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... was a sounding box on the ear; but Olly minded it not, for while Garnet was speaking, as he stood knee-deep in the water close to the boat, he had observed an axe lying on one of the thwarts near to him. The instant he was set free, therefore, he seized the axe, and, flourishing it close past Garnet's nose, with a cheer of defiance ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne



Words linked to "Knee-deep" :   knee-high, ankle-deep



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