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Lap   Listen
verb
Lap  v. t.  
1.
To fold; to bend and lay over or on something; as, to lap a piece of cloth.
2.
To wrap or wind around something. "About the paper... I lapped several times a slender thread of very black silk."
3.
To infold; to hold as in one's lap; to cherish. "Her garment spreads, and laps him in the folds."
4.
To lay or place over anything so as to partly or wholly cover it; as, to lap one shingle over another; to lay together one partly over another; as, to lap weather-boards; also, to be partly over, or by the side of (something); as, the hinder boat lapped the foremost one.
5.
(Carding & Spinning) To lay together one over another, as fleeces or slivers for further working.
To lap boards, To lap shingles, etc., to lay one partly over another.
To lap timbers, to unite them in such a way as to preserve the same breadth and depth throughout, as by scarfing.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Lap" Quotes from Famous Books



... the same room with the dead come to life. No care of motherhood had marked her face, but on the white, even forehead was a sign of peace; and drifting over her hands and on the white apron across her lap the firelight pooled dim ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... Ware! Could she have meant Justin? His connection with the apple company made this seem almost certain, and yet it was inconceivable that Lena Hornblower should refer to his coming with such nonchalant certainty when she herself was in the dark. Persis' capable hands dropped to her lap. For the minute she was a girl again, parting from the boy who loved her, lifting her tear-wet face for the comfort of his kisses. Twenty years! Twenty long hard years! And now Justin Ware ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... of His people by Jehovah. Even under Samuel the Philistines were with God's help driven across the border, and as long as he lived they were not seen within it again. The piety of a praying assembly was suitably acknowledged by Jehovah, who dropped into its lap a success such as in after times the sword of warlike kings sought long and ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... in the natural order of sequence. They say bright things on all possible subjects, but their zigzags rack you to death. After a jolting half-hour with one of these jerky companions, talking with a dull friend affords great relief. It is like taking the cat in your lap after holding a squirrel. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... the surging springtime, and covereth all the earth with new life! He that is the storm upon the sea, the wind upon the mountains, the sun upon the meadows! He that poureth the races from his lap! He that made the ages, the suns and the systems throughout all space—he that maketh them forever and smiteth them into dust again for play! He that is infinite, unthinkable, all-glorious, all-sufficient—He hath ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair

... slender, naked wrist pass to my face and gently turn me into the position desired, with my face down and a little at one side, resting in her lap above her knees. Her skirt was already wet with the blood of the wound, and where my head lay it was damp with blood. Belknap took my hands and pulled them above my head, squatting beyond me. Between Orme's legs ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... came over her, all the misery of desolation fell upon her, and as she sank upon the stone bench outside the gate-house to wait for the inhabitants who must presently return, the tears again flowed from her eyes and fell in heavy drops on her hands as they lay in her lap. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... time of life has come when I must stop and think, I ask myself: "What did you do with the wonderful gifts Life laid in your lap—the love of a good man, domestic happiness, the chance to know ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... a book lay in her lap, but it may be that, after all, she had not done more than skim its pages—an old "Life of Nelson" that had been a favorite of her grandfather's. Sylvia rose, put down the book, marked it carefully as on that first occasion ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... piping. So, when she had once passed the Slap, Kirstie was received into seclusion. She looked back a last time at the farm. It still lay deserted except for the figure of Dandie, who was now seen to be scribbling in his lap, the hour of expected inspiration having come to him at last. Thence she passed rapidly through the morass, and came to the farther end of it, where a sluggish burn discharges, and the path for Hermiston accompanies it on the beginning of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... life into us, and we towed the load with such gusto that we covered the second lap of the distance in fine style. When we reached the camp and were dismissed, the incident about the doctor's munificence flashed through to its four corners like lightning. It became the one topic of spirited conversation. ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... evening as well as in the morning. The water for the bath of a young baby should be warm, and the temperature can be judged by testing it with the elbow, which is more sensitive than the hand. Lay a small blanket on the lap, cover the child with a flannel and sponge it under the clothes. This prevents it from taking cold from exposure, The room should not be cooler than 68 deg. F., and the door must be kept closed ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... was he sov'reign, when destruction caught The madd'ning rage of Florence, in that day Proud as she now is loathsome. Your renown Is as the herb, whose hue doth come and go, And his might withers it, by whom it sprang Crude from the lap of earth." I thus to him: "True are thy sayings: to my heart they breathe The kindly spirit of meekness, and allay What tumours rankle there. But who is he Of whom thou spak'st but now?"—"This," he replied, "Is Provenzano. He is here, because He reach'd, with grasp presumptuous, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... radius of the firelight a girl leaned forward, her eyes fastened upon a drawing she held in her lap. One could see only vague outlines. The light danced over the figure of the girl, her bright, reddish-gold hair, cut short and held in place with an amber comb, her slender shoulders, the unconsciously graceful ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook

... sunk beside her. Softly smoothing back the disordered hair, the young nurse failed to perceive the entrance of Dr. Bryant, and only looked up when a beautiful bouquet of flowers was laid upon her lap. The feverish glow deepened on her cheek as she warmly ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans

... unusual, in a way. On his lap was a portable typewriter, in the stern of the boat a bundle of brown canvas; a brass oil stove was on the bottom at the man's feet; behind him in the bow were a number of tins, ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears

... Mowgelewsky's chair of state, and watched the friends at supper. It was a revelation of solicitude on one side, and patient gratitude on the other. Morris ate hardly anything, and was soon at Teacher's knee—Izzie was in her lap—discussing ways ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... occurred to me; I saw it would not do to raise the devil, without retaining the power to lay him. Here then is the will, that settles the affair to your liking. The girl and the younker are co-heirs together; but the latter dying intestate, you understand, the whole falls into the lap of the former. Are you easy now, honest Jack? Will this ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... lady's fingers, and then lay hid in the shut fist of the poblana. "Tell him for whom—he need not know who sent it. There is money for your expenses, and some to give her; or give it to her mother, if they will accept it." Here a purse fell in Josefa's lap. "Bring me news! oh, bring me news, ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... a limpid stream, And gazed upon the tide beneath; Upon her cheek was joy's bright beam, And on her brow a blooming wreath. Her lap was filled with fragrant flowers, And, as the clear brook babbled by, She scattered down the rosy showers, With many a wild and joyous cry, And laughed to see the mingling tide ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof

... mother mountain, and kindly is she, Who nurses young rivers and sends them to sea. And, nestled high up on her sheltering lap, Is a little red house with a little straw cap That bears a blue feather of smoke, curling high, And a bunch of red roses cocked over one eye. And the eyes of it glisten and shine in the sun, As they look down on Gosh with ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis

... I holding a mere watching brief with a pistol reasonably close to Mahmoud's ear. And for a time, while Monty lived, the elders supported Kagig and insisted on the full concession of his demands. But Monty, with his head on Gloria's lap, died midway of the proceedings; and after that the elders' suspicion of Kagig reawoke, so that Mahmoud took courage and grew more obstinate. Kagig called them aside repeatedly to make them ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... went back to the terrible cabin with its endless alternating four-hour watches. Sometimes, when it was her turn and she sat by the prisoner, the loaded shot-gun in her lap, her eyes would close and she would doze. Always she aroused with a start, snatching up the gun and swiftly looking at him. These were distinct nervous shocks, and their effect was not good on her. Such was her fear of the man, that even ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London

... (vnmanerlie inough indeed) swasht him downe, meaning to thrust himselfe in betwixt the legat, and the archbishop of Canturburie. And where belike the said archbishop of Canturburie was loth to remooue, he set his buttocks iust in his lap, but he scarslie touched the archbishops skirt with his bum, when the bishops and other chapleins with their seruants stept to him, pulled him away, and threw him to the ground, and beginning to ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed

... had only had my childish memory to trust to, I do not think that I could have kept so clear a remembrance of my mother as I had. But in my father's dressing-room there hung a water-colour sketch of his young wife, with me—her first baby—on her lap. It was a very happy portrait. The little one was nestled in her arms, and she herself was just looking up with a bright smile of happiness and pride. That look came full at the spectator, and perhaps it was because it was so very lifelike ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... skirt that it still suggested the days of crinoline. She was abnormally tall, and awkwardly built; she wore cotton gloves, and her boots were those of a peasant. She carried a large bag or reticule, and her lap was piled with brown parcels. Her large thin face was crowned by a few straggling locks of what had once been auburn hair, now nearly grey, the pale spectacled eyes were deeply wrinkled, and the nose and mouth slightly ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... struck the quarter past. The dog Balthasar stretched and looked up at his master. The thistledown no longer moved. The dog placed his chin over the sunlit foot. It did not stir. The dog withdrew his chin quickly, rose, and leaped on old Jolyon's lap, looked in his face, whined; then, leaping down, sat on his haunches, gazing up. And suddenly he uttered ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... o'er a gill I gat your card, I trow it made me proud; See wha tak's notice o' the bard I lap and cry'd fu' loud. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... isn't hurt, I guess," Jan answered, feeling of her doll's head. "I forgot all about her being in my lap. Oh, aren't you going to play any more, Ted?" she asked as she saw her brother toss the big coat on a chair and ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis

... candidate. In the end, "Mr. Treasurer and Mr. Marshall, two gentlemen of the best quality," according to a "Protestant declaration" sent to England of the whole occurrence, "took Sir John Davis by the arms, and lifting him from the ground, placed him in the chair upon Sir John Everard's lap, requiring the latter to come forth of the chair; which, he obstinately refusing, Mr. Treasurer, the Master of the Ordinance, and others, whose places were next the chair, laid their hands gently upon him, and removed him out of the chair, and ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... Argos, now a place of unwholesome marshes, once upon a time there reigned a king called Acrisius, the father of one fair daughter. Danae was her name, and she was very dear to the king until a day when he longed to know what lay hid for him in the lap of the gods, and consulted an oracle. With hanging head he returned from the temple, for the oracle had told him that when his daughter Danae had borne a son, by the hand of that son death must surely come upon him. And because the fear of death was in ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes; and, moreover, I will go with ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]

... of imbibing knowledge in the very lap of the Earth Mother, was Lilamani Sinclair's impracticable idea of 'giving lessons'! Shades of Aunt Jane! Of ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... Courage had the time to indulge in this, the desire of his heart, something fell upon the top of his lean head which certainly never grew on the elm tree overhead. Having struck his lanky hair the object fell straight into his lap. ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... take it that the officiating ministers, priests, or elders, first placed their hands and feet against the hands and feet of the bridegroom, then the bride laid her head on his shoulder and he was made to say to her: "I am the son of nobles, silver and gold shall fill your lap, you shall be my wife, I will be your husband. Like the fruit of a garden I will give you offspring." Then there is a wide gap. But in the next column we seem to have a further part of the wedding-ritual. ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... prepared to expect, and would, perhaps, have spoken to me more than she did, had not a look of her husband silenced her. Madame Louis Bonaparte was still more condescending, and recalled to my memory what I had not forgotten how often she had been seated, when a child, on my lap, and played on my knees with her doll. Thus they behaved to me when I saw them for the first time in their present elevation; I found them afterwards, in their drawing-rooms or at their routs and parties, more shy and distant. This change ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... crushed them together behind her, and swiftly fastened them once more. Adele Rossignol sat down upon the floor, took the girl's feet upon her lap, and quietly wrenched off ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason

... in my lap as I sat on the ground, and by the light of a blazing pine-knot proceeded to examine her condition. I found the mouth and feet of the poor animal full of the spines of the cholla cactus, a growth which is simply a mass of fine thorns. This cactus grows in patches, and ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis

... just what a man in your position wants and needs. You have a lot of writing to do here, and nowhere to do it; now with this machine you don't require any table or desk; you can hold this typewriter right in your lap." ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy

... heard from the cotton. Uncle David had sent it to England, and it had brought a good price. In he came one day and tossed a little packet into my lap and into Lil's. We opened them, and out tumbled ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... soul a certain excitement and perturbation which disable from calm realising of the greatness of the change which has passed. And it is well when that excitement is quieted down and succeeded by meditative reflection on the treasures that have been poured into the lap, almost as in the dark. No man understands what he has received when he first receives Christ and Christ's gifts. It occupies a lifetime to take possession of that which we possess from the first in Him, and the oldest saint ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... well for people who have been reared in the lap of luxury, and tenderly nurtured; but neither of these half-clad Kan-kiang navigators was born with the traditional silver spoon. From infancy they have had to thrive the best way they could on rice, turnip-tops, peanuts, and delusive expectations of pork and fish; their ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... deterred them from visiting me on the day of my arrival, when they knew I was fatigued by the long ride. I would willingly have excused their visit today also, for neither the rich nor poor Arabs have much idea of cleanliness. They, moreover, would put the little dirty children into my arms or on my lap, and I did not know how to relieve myself of this pleasure. Many of them had Aleppo boils, and others sore eyes and skin diseases. After the women and children had left, my host came. He was, at least, clean in his dress, and conducted himself ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... and Lucinda's new pearl-colored silk, that I paid five dollars a yard for, in your lap. You miserable, ill-tempered, sulky thing; if you have soiled it, I'll make you starve it out, and take it out of your ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... over her cheeks and ears, and, shedding a soft indolence over her whole body, was reflected in a dreamy languor in her pretty eyes. She was almost unable to work; her hands seem to fall naturally into her lap. She scarcely walked at all, and was constantly sighing and complaining with ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... political happiness. Many afterward sighed for former times, when Vancouver Island, proud beauty of the North, sat laving her feet in the genial waters of the Pacific, her lap verdant with beautiful foliage and delicious fruits; her head raised with peerless majesty to brilliant skies, while sunbeams playing upon a brow encircled by eternal snows reflected a sheen of glorious splendor; ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... refuge of some rural shade, Where all his long anxieties forgot Amid the charms of a sequester'd spot, Or recollected only to gild o'er And add a smile to what was sweet before, He may possess the joys he thinks he sees, Lay his old age upon the lap of ease, Improve the remnant of his wasted span. And having lived a trifler, die a ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... noble lady, hastening near. Stayed him that would have fallen, with quick arms; And, sitting on the earth, laid her lord's head Tenderly in her lap. So bent she, mute, Fanning his face, and thinking 't was the day— The hour—which Narad named—the sure fixed date Of dreadful end—when, lo! before her rose A shade majestic. Red his garments were, His body vast and ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... a chair even as she spoke, and Mr Farrell made no objection. The Times lay on his lap, his thin hands crossed above it, while his sunken eyes were fixed upon the girl's ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... came in, and steady the little hand stretched out for her letters; must meet and turn off all Mrs. Bywank's looks and words; must dress and go out, and dress and receive people at home. Ah, how hard it was!and no one to whom she could speak, no lap where she could lay down her head, ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... young woman with a pretty face, that, however, looked as if it had been prematurely sapped of color and vitality, here laid aside some white sewing she had in her lap, ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte

... formerly occupying the ground floor. Danvers and his wife sat down upon the sandstone steps leading, in bygone days, to the wide hall door. The three little girls were at play in the paths of the ruined shrubbery; Evaleen's baby boy lay asleep on the lap of Lucrece. ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... the voice of church-bells. Their tone was so faint and far away that at the first stroke of the bow they seemed to die, and the lovely strain rose upon the air pure and unmingled with another sound. Rachel ceased her emphatic noddings and her mincing whisper, and sat with her hands folded in her lap to listen. Ezra, with his gaunt hands folded behind him, stood with his habitual stoop more marked than common, and stared at the grass at his feet. Ruth, from her old station by the apple-tree, looked from one to the other. She had heard Sennacherib's story from her father, and ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray

... the contents of his bag suddenly in the old lady's lap, laughed at the shriek she gave, and walked off to devour his cake, while Norman and Rifle collected the curious white larvae in a tin to set them aside for a private feast of their own, no one caring to venture upon a couple that were ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn

... becoming sodden with sleepiness, climbed into Lydia's lap. Sally, after exchanging a conscious undertone with young Joe, slipped through the dining-room door with him, and happily joined the working forces in the kitchen. In her mind Sally knew that the ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... asleep; and the long summer day Drifts slowly past the girls and the warm roses, Giving in dreams its hours away. Now Stella throws her head back, and Phillis disposes Her strong brown hands quietly in her lap, And Rose's slender feet grow restless and tap The turf to an imaginary tune. Now all this grace of youthful bodies and faces Is wrought to a glow by the golden weather of June; Now, Love, completing grace of all the graces, Strong in these hearts thy pure streams rise, Transmuting what they ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... heavily hour after hour, with his hooded head sunk upon his knees, and his rifle lying across his lap, while over him shrieked the coldest wind of the great northwestern plains. The surface of the frozen ground presented a gleaming sheet like ice, over which the wind acquired new strength and a sharper edge, but the ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... his relatives and presented at court. But the rich sister, the beautiful Madame Delphine de Nucingen, is dying with envy, the victim of jealousy. She is a hundred leagues lower in society than her sister. They renounce each other as they both renounced their father. Madame de Nucingen would lap up all the mud between the Rue Saint-Lazare and the Rue de Crenelle to gain admission to my salon." What the duchesse did not reveal was that Anastasie had a lover, Count Maxime de Trailles, a gambler and a duellist. To pay the gambling ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... rain stops as suddenly as it began, and an awful silence ensues, scarcely broken even by the lap of the water alongside, for the terrific downpour has completely beaten down the swell, and, save for an occasional gentle heave, the raft ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... pulpy soft-hands—one of those people who irresistibly remind one of a white mouse. She was neither clever nor wise, but she was very sweet-tempered. She had loved Dr. Grey all her life. From the time that she, a big girl, had dandled him, a baby, in her lap; throughout her brief youth, when she was engaged to young Mr. Gascoigne, who died; up to her somewhat silly and helpless middle- age, there never was anybody, to Miss Grey, like "my brother Arnold." Faithfulness is a rare virtue; let us criticise ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... dear Jeannette," I reply; "I should think you had," and I draw her down gently into my lap and kiss her again and again for the sake of the conviction it will carry. She says I am smothering her, which means she ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... and as he tramped down the drive, he began to form theories. It must be a fanatic of some kind who lived here, and he inclined to consider the owner as probably an eccentric old lady with a fad, and a large number of lap-dogs. ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... the girl's hand and, drawing her hand across her eyes, sank back into her chair. Miss Dowson, with trembling fingers, dropped the half crown into her lap, and, with her head in a ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs

... heads under their wings. And when he came into the palace, the flies were sleeping on the walls; the spit was standing still; the butler had the jug of ale at his lips, going to drink a draught; the maid sat with a fowl in her lap ready to be plucked; and the cook in the kitchen was still holding up her hand, as if she was going to beat ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... two hours seemed interminable, but they rarely spoke. Elizabeth did not change the position she had assumed when they took their seats. She leaned lightly against her father's broad shoulder and her hands were clasped in her lap. ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... creature," his mother continued. "Such personality, such life! And wasn't it a remarkable offer for a Southern woman to make? They feel so bitterly, and—and I do not blame them." The good lady put down on her lap the night-shirt she was making. "I saw how it happened. The girl was carried away by her pity. And, my dear, her capability astonished me. One might have thought that she had always been a nurse. The experience was a dreadful one for me—what must it have been for ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... be mixed for himself, in an old battered silver cap, a generous draught of bombo; then, with the drink in his hand, walked heavily across the uncarpeted floor to his armchair, which creaked under his weight as he sank into its leathern lap. He put down the rum and water with so unsteady a hand that the liquor spilled, and when he refilled his pipe half the contents of his tobacco box showered down upon his frayed and ancient and unclean coat and breeches. ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... of tears would have burst out in an instant at this the third disappointment, if I had not sat down on the door-step, and, taking her in my lap, whispered that auntie was going to ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... Adams passed as he went down the walk to the street from the Van Dorn home, put a telegram into Mrs. Van Dorn's lap. It was from Washington ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... instance, she told me (in confidence, mind you) That Captain BLANK CARTRIDGE, when playing at Nap, Has an odious habit of getting behind you, And calling according to what's on your lap. (By the way, we have only just heard that the Major, Who gave Lady B. such a beautiful horse, Is a perfect Don Juan, and quite an old stager At playing a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various

... their wonted year, The seasons alter; hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose; And on old Hyems' chin, and icy crown, An od'rous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mock'ry set. The spring, the summer, The chiding autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries; and the 'mazed world, By their increase, ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... Alma, or across the fatal plain of Balaklava, athwart the corpses of their comrades, upon the deadly throats of Russian guns. A nobler feeling, a more heavenly thought was needed (and when needed, thanks to God, it came!) to keep each raw lad, nursed in the lap of peace, true to his country and his Queen through the valley of the shadow of death. Not mere animal fierceness: but that tattered rag which floated above his head, inscribed with the glorious names of Egypt or Corunna, Toulouse ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley

... should be measured on this fold, and the material cut from the end of the selvage to this point, in order to slope the front of the apron. When the waist measure is taken, 3 inches should be added to it (1 for the lap and 1 at each end, for finishing). This makes a strong piece at each end for the button and button-hole. Two pieces of this length and 2-1/2 inches wide should be cut lengthwise of the material for the belt. A measure should be made from the middle ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... expert hieroglyphist or a rhetorician of commanding quality. Perhaps I should do more wisely if I were to accept the advice of my great-grandson Ham, who, overhearing my remark to a caller last Sunday evening that the work I have undertaken is one of considerable difficulty, climbed up into my lap and in his childish way asked me why I did not hire a boswell to do it for me. I had to tell the child that I did not know what a boswell was, and when I questioned him on the subject more closely, I found that it was only one of his childish fancies. If there were such a thing as that rather ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs

... I entered and ascended the moon-lit staircase. The door of the inhabited room was ajar: looking in, I saw Lucy sitting as at work at the table on which the light stood; the implements of needlework were about her, but her hand had fallen on her lap, and her eyes, fixed on the ground, shewed by their vacancy that her thoughts wandered. Traces of care and watching had diminished her former attractions—but her simple dress and cap, her desponding attitude, and the single candle that cast its light upon ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... pretty, peaceful scene impress itself upon his mind, to be remembered afterward for the cheer of bleak boarding-house Sunday afternoons. Then there was a sudden glancing up, a cry of joyful consternation, and the pan of currants rolled from Amy's lap like a broken necklace of rubies across the uncarpeted floor, while Arthur held mother and sister in a double embrace. And when at length the kissing had all been done, he established himself in his familiar boyish ...
— Hooking Watermelons - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... scold! So bitter and so bold! Shake the windows with your tap, tap, tap! With half-shut, dreamy eyes The drowsy baby lies Cuddled closely in his mother's lap. ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate

... all subsided into silence for a while. There was no sound except the monotonous lap of the waves. The sea-gulls and cormorants had flown past at sunset and gone to roost. The absolute quiet, and the dark shadows, and the silver light of the moon gave such an eerie atmosphere to the scene that presently Fay could ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil

... look jolly!" cried the Inspector as he entered. "Cameron, you lucky dog, do you really imagine you know how jolly well off you are, coddled thus in the lap of comfort and surrounded with all the enervating luxuries of an effete and forgotten civilization? Come now, own up, you are beginning to take this thing as ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... on with his talk; and the man sat there, still glancing from time to time mechanically towards his wife, who was there in the shadow with steady white face and hands in her lap, watching the two men. The magistrate's voice seemed to the bewildered man to roll on like a wheel over stones; interminable, grinding, stupefying. What was he saying? What was that about his wife? She had sent to him the day before, had she, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... opposite seat, anxious to continue the conversation, but divided in mind. Merry was trying to hide her tears, and kept her head obstinately toward the window. Olympia, with her mother's head pillowed on her lap, strove to fan a current of air into circulation. She gave the young man a reassuring glance, and he resumed his seat in front of her, beside ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... a flood of tears. As she lay there, sobbing bitterly, she was startled by a noise outside the hut, and ere she could spring from her recumbent position, Chimo darted through the open doorway, with a cry between a whine and a bark, and laid his head on Edith's lap. ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... desperate effort. She wrung her handkerchief hard in her lap, and let off the name as if she had been letting off a loaded ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... of Huendchen (little dog); pot for Topf (pot); dot for dort (yonder). On the other hand, both children used wehweh for Schmerz (pain); caput for zerbrochen (broken to pieces); schoos, sooss for "auf den Schooss moecht ich" (I want to get up in the lap); auf for "hinauf moechte ich gehoben werden" (I want to be taken up); toich for Storch (stork); tul for Stuhl (chair). A third child in my presence called his grandmother mama-mama, i. e., twice-mamma, in distinction ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer

... you are quite right," said the old lady decisively, dropping her tortoise-shell lorgnon into her lap, and suppressing a yawn. "Only, it is you who are charming! I must go to the Grosvenor as soon as it opens to see if your clever husband, who seems to be able to paint everything and everybody, has done you justice.... But you mustn't sit talking to an old grumbler like me any longer. Go back ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... offensive patrols, each of which escorted us while we were on its beat. It was curious that no activity could be noticed on enemy aerodromes. Until we passed Mossy-Face on the last lap of the homeward journey we saw no Hun aircraft. Even there the machines with black crosses flew very low and did ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... satisfied; And upward, downward, dark eyes look and rest, Finding their home in likeness. Lifting then Her hair upon her white arm heavily, The overflowing of her beauteousness, Her hand that cannot trespass, singles out Some of the curls that stray across her lap; And mingling dark locks in the pallid light, She asks him which is darker of the twain, Which his, which hers, and laugheth like a lute. But now her hair, an unvexed cataract, Falls dark and heavy round his ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald

... head from her lap, rested it on the silks; arose, eyes wrathful, her little hands closed in fists as ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... her lap, came up to the level of the table top and in its palm he saw the shining barrel of a small automatic pistol. Again he laughed ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... rather as if it were a dream, and kept his eyes closed for fear the dream would vanish. The hand softly bathed his head, which consciously lay in a woman's lap. He remembered but one hand—his mother's—that had soothed him thus, and the sweet souvenir provoked ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... third. I find that good, fresh cow's milk, diluted one-quarter with warm water, is the nearest approach to their natural food. After three weeks they can be fed less frequently with a spoon, and can readily be taught to lap up the milk. Where it is practical, it is always advisable to have two or more bitches whelp together, and then the pups are ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell

... up the young man easily and placed him in the big chair before the guest realized what was doing, and then turned and took the ten dollar bill between his thumb and finger and flipped it down in the young man's lap. ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... a picture, the subject of which is the dead Christ in the embrace of his sorrowing mother, accompanied by sorrowing women and angels; that sculptured by Michael Angelo, in St. Peter's at Rome, representing the Virgin at the foot of the cross, and the dead Christ in her lap. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... A running knot—lap it well round, and finish off! There! That is right! You are no novice, I see, ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... would lie contentedly in the room with people near by, but would fret if left alone. But by the end of the month she was apt to fret when she was laid down on a chair or lounge, and to become content only when taken into the lap. This was not yet distinct memory and desire, but it showed that associations of pleasure had been formed with the lap, and that she felt a vague discomfort ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... loaves of bread, preserves, a boiled ham, sugar, coffee—oh, any amount of stuff! The niggers simply helped themselves and laid it to the ha'nt. One of the carriages was left out one night, and in the morning the cushions were gone and two lap robes. At the same time a water pail was taken and a pair of Jake's overalls. And then to end up came the robbery ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster

... 'em too snaky for the snake-editor up front," he returned, rising and dusting tobacco from his lap and shirtfront, for he was in his shirt-sleeves. Then he expectorated not in but to one side of a handsome polished brass cuspidor which contained not the least evidence of use, the rubber mat upon which it stood being instead most disturbingly ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... get his legs from under the table, Roddy shoved the table and everything on it into the lap of Peter. With one spring Roddy was beside the man, and as he struck him on the chin, with his other hand he beat at the weapon. There were two reports and a ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis

... and face he knows and loves better than any; but at last the predestined moment arrives, the two minds meet, and the child understands the parent. Hester threw herself on her knees, and buried her face in her mother's lap. The same moment she began to discover that she had been proud, imagining herself more awake to duty than the rest around her. She began, too, to understand that if God has called, he will also open the door. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... Bernard sold all his rich stuffs and his house and his land; and Peter sold all his precious books; and they carried all the gold to a square in front of the old church of St. George, and St. Francis sat on the steps with his lap full of money, and gave away great glittering handfuls to all the poor people ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay

... loving him, if mother did say I mustn't. He used to talk to me about keeping clean, and once I tried a whole week, and I only dirtied four dresses and three pair of pantalets in all that time. Oh, how handsome and funny his eyes looked when I told him about it. He took me in his lap, and said that was more than he thought a little girl ought to dirty. Did you ever see any boy you loved as well ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes

... only indulge her with forgiveness, as she hoped to inherit heaven she would never incur her anger by committing the same fault again. Satisfied with this assurance, the Honourable Miss Delmar softened down, and not only forgave, but actually took the child into her lap that Bella might read the Bible which she had presented her with. Reader, the child who had this great honour conferred upon him, who actually laid in the immaculate lap, on the apron of immaculate snowy whiteness of the immaculate Honourable Miss Delmar, was no other person than the narrator ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... females!... The devil always follows after petticoats like a lap-dog.... They are the ruination of ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... Wilkes's 1143! This, he said, was flying in the face of all law and freedom: a robbery of the liberty of freeholders; and making the birthrights of Englishmen a mere farce. He then represented Colonel Luttrell as sitting in the lap of John Wilkes, and the majority of the house as being turned into a state engine. He added, in conclusion, "I am afraid this measure originated too near the throne. I am sorry for it; but I hope ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... to see if but the faintest breath came from the parted lips of her only daughter. There had been born to her that night another grandchild—a little, helpless girl, which now in an adjoining room was Hagar's special care; and Hagar, sitting there with the wee creature upon her lap, and the dread fear at her heart that her young mistress might die, forgot for once to repine at her lot, and did cheerfully whatever was required ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... night it was nearly six months before the old fellow got his flesh and healthy coat of hair and his spirit back again. That night, having eaten, it looked about the room, found the Judge, went to him, and, laying his head in his lap, looked up at him out of his two sorrowful eyes. I knew then, by the smile of the Judge's mouth and the way he put on his tortoise-shell glasses, that "Laddie" would never be sent away. Just then, though, the master, after he had looked at ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... cattle, son, and then ride in home." We did finally turn homeward, and at a leisurely gait, but not until it was too dark to see cattle, and it was several hours after darkness when we sighted the lamps at headquarters, and finished the last lap in our afternoon's ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... was present at this concert (if I may so call it), and Madam Dacier sat in his lap. He asked much after Mr. Pope, and said he was very desirous of seeing him; for that he had read his Iliad in his translation with almost as much delight as he believed he had given others in the original. I had the curiosity to inquire whether he ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding

... household 'rules and regulations' left unfulfilled, hastened to the inner library, a small octagonal room communicating with the larger apartment, and there found her mistress sitting on a low stool, with her lap full of visiting-cards which ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... but it's all his own stuff. Only last week we was playing Paoli's in Bridgeport, and when I was putting Bruno through the hoops, Ikey runs to the stage-box and grabs a pound of caramels out of a girl's lap-and swallows the box. And in St. Paul, if the trombone hadn't worn a wig, Ikey would have scalped him. Say, it was a scream! When the audience see the trombone snatched bald-headed, and him trying to get back his wig, and Ikey chewing it, they ...
— The Nature Faker • Richard Harding Davis

... the man; 'there has been no lady in this coach, except the old woman, who got out at the last stage.' And Giglio thought he had been dreaming. But there was the bag which Blackstick had given him lying on his lap; and when he came to the town he took it in his hand and ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray

... horse car, Leave you near, or take you far. Take a seat upon my lap, Cling on, swing on by the strap; Here a stop, and there a start— Let me off, I'll take ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... he's encompassed round with such delight; To the ear, the nose, the touch, the taste and sight? When Venus would her dear Ascanius keep A prisoner in the downy bands of sleep, She odorous herbs and flowers beneath him spread, As the most soft and sweetest bed; Not her own lap would more have charmed his head. Who that has reason and his smell Would not among roses and jasmine dwell, Rather than all his spirits choke, With exhalations of dirt and smoke, And all the uncleanness which does ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... the child on her lap, and, pressing her close, she began to clean her head. The little thing babbled incoherently, she looked feverish; she rubbed her eyes with her small fists and presently went to sleep, still sobbing convulsively from time ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... hanged!' shouted Caper, breaking through the crowd, and running up-stairs two steps at a time, he nearly walked into the lap of a tall female model, named Giacinta, dressed in Ciociara costume, who was calmly seated on the stair-case, glaring at another female model, named Nina, who stood leaning against the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... door of Elsie's room standing wide to admit the air—for the weather was now growing very warm indeed—and looking in, she perceived the little girl half reclining upon a sofa, her head resting on the arm, her hands clasped in her lap, and her sad, dreamy eyes, tearless and dry, gazing mournfully into vacancy, as though her thoughts were far away, following the wanderings of her absent father. She seemed to have been reading, or trying to read, but ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley

... away a moment ago," she said; "years away, I mean—a little girl again, with two stiff yellow braids, trying to pretend that a big arm-chair was my mother's lap and that I could hear her whispering to me. And there I sat, on a day like this, listening, pretending, cuddled up tight, and looking out at the first rain of the year falling in the backyard. There was an odour like ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... into her arms, feeling that no harm could come to her in such loving shelter. It was long before she was calm enough to tell all that had happened, but at length sitting by her mother's side with her head on her lap, ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... Venetian merchant, guarded in the disguise of a soldier, till Nicetas could save, by a precipitate flight, the relics of his fortune and the chastity of his daughter. In a cold, wintry season, these fugitives, nursed in the lap of prosperity, departed on foot; his wife was with child; the desertion of their slaves compelled them to carry their baggage on their own shoulders; and their women, whom they placed in the centre, were exhorted to conceal their beauty with dirt, instead of adorning it ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... more than the devotion of a genius. She had admitted, before marriage, that her "Creole nonchalance" shrank wearily away from his keen and ardent nature; and now, when torn away from the salons of Paris, she seems to have taken refuge in entertainments and lap-dogs.[82] Doubtless even at this period Josephine evinced something of that warm feeling which deepened with ripening years and lit up her later sorrows with a mild radiance; but her recent association with Madame Tallien and that giddy cohue had accentuated her habits of feline complaisance ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... nice to see Science confirming wot I always held. Blow me tight, If I don't rayther cotton to HUXLEY; he's racy, old pal, and he's right. The skim-milk of life's for the many, the lardy few lap up the cream, And all talk about trimming the balance is rubbish, a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various

... dressing-gown, "of red-brown (MORDORE) velvet; black breeches, and boots which came quite up over the knee. His hair was not dressed. Three little benchlets or stools, covered with green cloth, stood before him, on which he had his feet lying [terribly ill of gout]. In his lap he had a sort of muff, with one of his hands in it, which seemed to be giving him great pain. In the other hand he held our Sentence on the Arnold Case. He lay reclining (LAG) in an easy-chair; at his left stood ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... raven still held it fast, and hopped here and there so nimbly that she was unable to catch him. At length, when he had exhausted her patience, he alighted on Mistress Nutter's shoulder, and dropped it into her lap. Engrossed by her own painful thoughts, the lady had paid no attention to what was passing, and she shuddered as she took up the fragment of mortality, and placed it upon the table. A few tufts of hair, the texture of which showed they had belonged to a female, still adhered to the scalp. ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... deeps; the bay seemed rather like a great transparent crystal, as one sees them in a lapidary's shop; there was naught to show that it was water but an internal trembling, a hovering within of sun-glints and netted shadows, and now and then a faint lap and a dying bubble round the edge. The shadows of the rocks lay out for some distance at their feet, so that my own shadow, moving, pausing, and stooping on the top of that, reached sometimes half across the bay. It was above all in this belt ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his love-making he stuck so fast to the world. It is almost incredible: you may well refuse to believe it—that any young man in love, and especially a young gentleman of Mr. Brisk's breeding, would approach his mistress with the question how much she could earn a day. As Mr. Brisk looks at Mercy's lap so full of hats and hosen and says it, I can see his natty cane beginning to lengthen itself out in his soft-skinned hand and to send out teeth like a muck-rake. Give Mr. Brisk another thirty years or so and he will be an ancient churl, raking to himself the sticks ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte

... are to me the most astonishing of men," said the count, noticing how he patted the puppy and settled it in his lap as the carriage resumed its even rolling down the broad, beautiful avenue. "One moment upholding the rights of birth, the next rebelling against the injustice of it. Are your sympathies with the unfortunate so keen, monsieur, that even this stray ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... women can, through this brutal, bloody war. I thought of the widows away in our own land as I looked at her sitting there, so silently and sadly, with her thin white hands clasped on the black folds of her lap. On one hand I plainly saw the gold circle shining, which a few months ago had meant so much to her; now, alas! only the outward and visible sign of all she had been and of all that she had lost. Behind her the snow-white ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... century, infant schools still existed and samplers were wrought by infant fingers. Eighty-five years ago, I myself was in one of a row of little chairs in the infant school, with a small spread of canvas lying over my lap and being sewn to my skirt by misdirected efforts. My box held a tiny thimble and spools of green and red sewing silk, and I tucked it under alternate ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler

... the arm-chair, and beckoned to Le Gros to have his easel in readiness. Then with a tender voice she called Napoleon to her, and opening both arms she drew him down on her lap, and in this way she induced him to sit down quietly a few moments and allow the painter the sight of his face, thus enabling him to sketch the portrait. [Footnote: "Memoires et Souvenirs du Comte Lavalette," vol. ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... hunt going on in this world, and women are the ones only a short lap ahead. Can we turn and make good the fight—or won't we be torn to death? It has come to this it seems: women must either be weak, and cling so close to man that she can't be struck, keep entirely out of the range of his fists and arms,—or develop ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... it is!" and the excited boy thrust one hand into his pocket and triumphantly pulled out the small buckskin bag; and, swiftly turning the bag bottom side up, dumped its contents into his mother's lap; and the next moment, the two women and the two girls were as excitedly examining the big nugget and the rude skin map as ever they had been ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil

... of the general relaxation of singing, offerings of respectful sympathy began to make their appearance at her shrine. Living Perkins, who could not sing, dropped a piece of maple sugar in her lap as he passed her on his way to the blackboard to draw the map of Maine, while Alice Robinson rolled a perfectly new slate pencil over the floor with her foot ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... that will strike you, will be how that piece of timber is to be placed across that yawning chasm. It is quite long enough to reach across—for they calculated that before making it—and there are several feet to lap over at each end; but how on earth is it to be extended across? If any one of the party was upon the opposite side, and had a rope attached to the end of the pole, then it would be easy enough to manage it. But as there could be ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid

... heart. But he did not perceive Jurand and Danusia at once, because the room was not only "crooked" but dark also. But after a while he saw the fair head of the girl, who was sitting on her father's lap. They did not hear him when he entered; therefore e stopped near the door, and ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... Steadfast and very stout of heart mounted the shameful tree, Brave in the sight of many there, when man He fain would free. I trembled when He clasped me round, yet groundward durst not bend, I must not fall to lap of earth, but stand ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey

... is the greatest of all lures and which may be seen nowhere save in woman's eyes. Her sled-dogs clustered about her in hirsute masses, and the leader, Wolf Fang, laid his long snout softly in her lap. ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London

... afternoon, nearly a week later. Elsie sat alone by the window with a writing-tablet in her lap, gazing out at the row of houses across the street. But though the new-fallen snow on roof, cornice, and iron grating transformed the familiar scene, and though snow in such profusion and splendor was a new and wonderful experience to her, ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray



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