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Lather   Listen
verb
Lather  v. i.  To form lather, or a froth like lather; to accumulate foam from profuse sweating, as a horse.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Lather" Quotes from Famous Books



... are always long, the first page taken up in congratulations upon "big heart," "wide influence," "Christian sympathies," and so on, winding up with a solicitation for five dollars, more or less. We always know from the amount of lather put on that we are going to be shaved. The postal card will soon invade even that verbosity, and the correspondent will simply say, "Poor—very—children ten—chills and fever myself—no quinine—desperate— your money or your life—Bartholomew Wiggins, ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... freely, was covered with dust and dripping with sweat, which showed a creamy lather on his flanks, and where the bridle reins touched his neck. The rider wore a blue flannel shirt, open at the throat, corduroy trousers, tucked in long boots, and a black slouch hat, with the brim turned up in front. At his belt hung two heavy revolvers, and across the saddle he held a Winchester ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright

... 'twere brought forward toward us by the beams! And this Sword swayed by thee, and with thy skill and strength and the hardihood of hand that is thine, wullahy! 'twould shear him now, this moment, taking the light of Aklis for a lather.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... me—the shaving water being warmish and containing, so far as I could tell, no deleterious substances. And if the bathroom were occupied at the time I would shave myself with the coffee. I judge it might work up into a thick and durable lather. It is certainly not adapted ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... Desire—couldn't call him Pretty Gellatly, for there was Pretty Pierre who had right of possession to that title—would like to ask him what soap he used for his complexion—'twasn't this yellow bar- soap of the barracks, which wouldn't lather, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the Goths. My face was in a lather, the time of the first invasion, and I suspended my razor in mid-air to gaze out on my beloved field. At the far end I saw a little girl and a little boy, their arms filled with yellow spoil. Ah, thought I, an unwonted benevolence burgeoning, what a delight to me is their delight! ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... forgot to lather the lawn, but any way it was the hardest shave I ever had anything ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh

... rein, and left him to gallop alone. Accordingly, he made the round of the hill and came back, his horse covered with lather and its tail trembling. "There," said he to Lucy, with an air of radiant self-satisfaction, "he clapped on sail without orders from quarter-deck, so I made him carry it till his bows ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... length of time, and when she drew rein again before her father's house, the black was flecked with foam from his clamped bit, and there was a thick lather under the stirrup leathers. She threw the reins to the servant who answered her call and went slowly ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... he come gallopin' up, wi' his big black horse all a lather, to where we was layin' in the scrub cursin' the flies an' the department an' the ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... dumb, and others were not. One day in the spring Gudrid was sent for. She was in the wash-house, up to the elbows in lather and foam, in no state for company. All the girls stopped work, and one said, "A wooer for Gudrid," and another, "Thorstan has found his voice." But they all helped her to make herself tidy, and wished her joy. She went out with all her colours flying. Her father was by the ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett

... being included in a load of wood? No, no, it is the wood-cutter's turn now. To the ass immediately, or you know the consequences." The barber was then obliged to prepare a great quantity of soap, to lather the beast from head to foot, and to shave him in the presence of the caliph and of the whole court, whilst he was jeered and mocked by the taunts and laughing of all the bystanders. The poor wood-cutter was then dismissed with an appropriate present of money, and all Bagdad ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... among women-barbers, a relatively large proportion. It is not difficult to understand this, bearing in mind the close physical association between the barber and his client. "W.G. was a barber's assistant," writes one of my subjects, "and I took an immense fancy to him at first-sight. He used to lather me, and the touch of his fingers was a delight. Later on he shaved me and I always looked forward to going to the barber's. If he were not able to attend to me I felt an incredible sinking of heart. The whole day seemed dull ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... operate in person, Cazaban began to stir up the lather and strop the razor. He had glanced rather nervously, however, at the cassock worn by Pierre, who without a word had seated himself in a corner and taken up a newspaper in the perusal of which ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... milk, and once I dropped just a little milk on the window-sill for them. Oh, how they enjoyed it! You would have laughed to see what they did after that; they sat up, and rubbing their wet hands together, made what looked like a soapy lather, and washed their faces. ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter

... the lather-flecked bodies of their horses when they drew rein, at last, at the goal of their long, fierce ride; and Haw-Haw slunk behind the broad form of Mac Strann when the latter strode into the hotel. Then the two started for the room in which, they ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand

... while he listens through his left ear to vaudeville that caricatures the posterity of his proteges. Italy, Poland, the former Spanish possessions and the polyglot tribes of Austria-Hungary have spilled here a thick lather of their effervescent sons. In the eccentric cafes and lodging-houses of the vicinity they hover over their native wines and political secrets. The colony changes with much frequency. Faces disappear from the haunts to be replaced by others. Whither do these uneasy birds flit? For half of the answer ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... moment Dawson and his assistant appeared with the horses the girls had ridden. Notwithstanding the cool crispness of the morning, Lady Belle was in a lather where her harness rested. The Senator was blowing like a grampus; Jack-o'-Lantern's bit was foam-flecked and Natalie's pretty little "Madam Goldie" ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... from blistering, it is a good plan to soap the inside of the stocking before setting out, making a thick lather all over it. A raw egg broken into a boot, before putting it on, greatly softens the leather: of course the boots should be well greased when hard walking is anticipated. After some hours on the road, when the feet are beginning to be chafed, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... turned his horse, white with lather, over to Jesse; made sure that the Marquis was in the bar; and then, with the help of Manners, rapidly ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold

... do you want to know for?' his lather had angrily asked. 'What concern is it to you, in any way? Pitt, I wish you would take all the time you have and use it to make yourself agreeable to Miss Frere. Where ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... kits and letting down biscuit tins would draw up a supply of the brackish fluid, which we would pour into little holes dug in the sand and covered with a waterproof sheet. Then a leisurely undressing and a hopeless effort to soap oneself—soap will not lather in brackish water—and a delicious coolness as a comrade poured a tinful down one's back. Under garments would be rinsed and beaten out, and the party would hasten back to the bivouac, and let someone else have a go. But there were long periods ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... been a hot one even for the southern edge of the Libyan desert. The cream coloured oxen stand with their heads down, lazily whisking away with their tails the flies that torment them. The horses standing near suffer more; the lather stands on their sides, their flanks heave, and from time to time they stretch out their extended nostrils in the direction from which, when the sun sinks a little lower, the ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty

... George. She would go sweetly in a steeple-chase, if she didn't break her heart with impatience before the start. But on the road she is impossible. If you make her walk, she is all over lather in five minutes, and she'd spoil that sweet habit with flecks of foam. My lady has a way of tossing her head, and covering you all over with ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... luck to catch her in the act of a practical demonstration of her dislike for her fellow-creatures. Now that the train had puffed out of the station the station-master, a silver-haired old man with a red face on which amiability clung like a lather, had come to Marion's side and was saying that he had not seen her for a long time, and asking how Richard was and when he was coming back. Ellen thought this was very kind of him, but Marion evidently found it tiresome, and ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... to the fur, over the area selected for inoculation, with a wad of cotton-wool, and lather freely by the aid of warm water; shave carefully and thoroughly; ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... island where, for two paradisiacal weeks, she and Rodney had made their camp. Here she beached her canoe and went ashore; crept into a little natural shelter under a jutting rock, where they had lain one day while, for three hours, a violent unheralded storm had whipped the lake to lather. The heap of hemlock branches he had cut for a couch ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... about in his chair, his face white with lather, a towel under his chin. At first I thought he was angry. Sweeping the barber away he leaned forward, and, placing one ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... white with lather and crimsoned with blood, the wagon as full of holes as a sieve, they pulled in to the commanding ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... the waves breaking white round them, and advanced on the floe like an old-time fleet under full sail. A berg that seemed ready to carry the world before it would ground helplessly in deep water, reel over, and wallow in a lather of foam and mud and flying frozen spray, while a much smaller and lower one would rip and ride into the flat floe, flinging tons of ice on either side, and cutting a track half a mile long before it was stopped. Some fell like swords, shearing a raw-edged canal; and ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... position they remained a minute, when Mr John Forster, who heard the scream and subsequent exclamations, and had taken it for granted that his brother had been guilty of some contre temps, first wiped the remaining lather from his half-shaved chin, and then ascended to the housekeeper's room from whence the noise had proceeded. When he opened the door, he found them in the position we have described, both kneeling in the centre of the bed embracing and sobbing. They were so wrapped in each other, that ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... sweat, his hind-legs outstretched, fretting under the ministrations of the groom, the Ambler stayed the whisking of his head to look at his owner, and once more George met that long, proud, soft glance. He laid his gloved hand on the horse's lather-flecked neck. The Ambler tossed his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... horses' legs had been thickening for want of exercise, we got out into a very muddy menage with what we called the "young horse ride." I was mounted on a most unmanageable, untrained beast, and before the work was over he was in a lather from nose to tail, and I was encased in mud from the spur to the chrome-yellowed button on the top of my forage cap. It was the custom, after having unsaddled one's mount, to pass a hasty oil-rag over ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... Alexa, and wondered what reception her lather would give his patient, for to Potlurg he must go! Suddenly she came to herself, and sat up, gazing wildly around. "Out of breath, Miss Fordyce; nothing worse!" said the doctor, ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald

... days. Then the blackberries and thimble-berries will be ripe, and the pink salmon-berry in the redwoods. Perhaps you will look for and dig up the soaproot, that onion-like bulb of one of the lily family with which the Indians make a soapy lather to wash their clothes. Let us hope you will know and keep away from the "poison-oak," the low bush with pretty red leaves, for its leaves are apt to make your skin swell up and blister ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton

... aggressor, literally burying the boat beneath his vast bulk. Now, one would have thought surely, upon seeing this, that none of that boat's crew would ever have been seen again. Nevertheless, strange as it may appear, out of that seething lather of foam, all six heads emerged again in an instant, but on the OTHER side of the great creature. How any of them escaped instant violent death was, and from the nature of the case must, ever remain, an unravelled ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... basin which hung beneath the mirror and, collecting his shaving materials, began to lather his face. ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... short-lived, for in a few moments the cowboy called Nails dashed into the basin, his pony in a lather. ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster

... "I'm sure the champagne will be quite unmanageable after all this shaking up. And just look what a lather your horse is in!" ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... enough to spread easily, yet thick enough so it won't drop. Rub well into the face with the brush, then with the fingers. The longer you lather and the more you rub, the easier ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... pulled rein and brought Old Jack to a walk he could see or hear nothing of the Mexicans. The great horse was a lather of foam, his sides heaving and panting, and Ned sprang to the ground. He reloaded his rifle and pistol and then walked toward the west, leading Old Jack by the bridle. He reckoned that the Mexicans would go toward the north, thinking that he would naturally ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler

... git through on that road," put in the customer, wiping the lather from around his mouth so he could talk. "The bridge is shut off—they're fixin' it—went ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer

... came right in the middle of my shaving. They have orders not to call me before breakfast for anything less than a national calamity. I pressed "Accept," too startled to take the lather from my face. ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker

... sort," said Reginald carelessly. "Lots of the needful, you know, and free with it. Not very fond of the grind, but always up to date when there are any good times going. What do you suppose put Sultan in such a lather, John? I was so afraid father would catch me that I came across the fields, and it was just as much as he could do to take the last fence. I made sure he was going ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black

... reassured me with the remark, "Stick to him and make him obey you, or kill him." Well, it took just about one hour to conquer him, at the end of which time I had ploughed up several acres of ground, my horse was in a white lather, and I was in the same condition. When he quit, he did so at once, and went on as cleverly as though nothing had happened. The cause of this freak I never understood, he never having done so before, ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock

... Staines a little uneasy, and he went to his friend Fitzroy, and said, "Now, look here: I am at the service of you experienced and humorous mariners. I plead guilty at once to the crime of never having passed the line; so, make ready your swabs, and lather me; your ship's scraper, and shave me; and let us get it over. But Lord Tadcaster is nervous, sensitive, prouder than he seems, and I'm not going to have him driven into a fit for all the Neptunes and Amphitrites ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... away, and fell silent. It was the first time she had spoken of either of her parents, but Cap'n Ira did not notice her sudden confusion. He prepared for the ordeal, making his own lather ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... one of whom was throwing oranges to a companion on the ground below; while two others were enjoying a game of leapfrog, one jumping over the other's back. Three other boys were engaged in the fascinating game of blowing bubbles—one making the lather, another blowing the bubbles, while a third was trying to catch them. There were also three more boys—one of them apparently pretending to be a witch, as he was riding on a broomstick, while another was giving a companion ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... Hicks and daughter, nine years of age, were hung for selling their souls to the devil; and raising a storm at sea by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap. In England it has been estimated that at least 30,000 were hung or burned. The last victim executed in Scotland was 1722. She was an innocent old woman who had so little idea of her condition, that she rejoiced at the sight of the fire destined to ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... eight on the morning indicated, Amarilly's ring at the door of the studio was answered by Derry, whose face was covered with lather. ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates

... Horace seen their father so wrought up, and they wisely held their peace while the cowboy who had brought the news of the raid busied himself removing the saddle and bridle and wiping the lather from his pony. ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster

... whirring sound lulled the senses into dreamy receptiveness, as the stone wheel heavily turned with soft swiftness, giving the impression that here hard matter was controlled to a nicety by airy forces; and a fragrance floated from the wet marble lather, while the polishing of our newly picked up mementos from the ruins went on, which was as subtle as that of flowers. A man or two, hoary with marble-dust and ennobled by the "bloom" of it, stood tall and sad about the wheel, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... father always had himself shaved over night, that on Sunday morning he might dress for church at his ease,—we sat on a footstool behind the stove, and muttered our customary imprecations in a tolerably low voice, while the barber was putting on the lather. But now Adramelech had to lay his iron hands on Satan: my sister seized me with violence, and recited, softly enough, but ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... beggar can't march, why, we kills 'im an' rattles 'im into 'is grave. You've got to stand up to our business an' spring without snatchin' or fuss. D'you say that you sweat with the field-guns? By God, you must lather with us—'Tss! 'Tss! For you all love ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling

... her quick intelligence to respond to my written message. I thrust it through the narrow opening above the sill, and the moment it disappeared within, stole swiftly back to my own room. The action had not been seen, and yet I had scarcely a moment to spare. Before I could lather my face, standing before a small cracked mirror, bracing myself to the roll of the bark, the steward returned, bearing in his hands tobacco ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... know there was a girl wanst set to washin', and she had it in her moind to do a good job, too. The first thing she got hold of was a pillow case with lace on the ind of it—wide lace. And what does she do but lather that clean lace with soap and put in her best licks on it, and all to no purpose at all only to wear the lace to strings, and then, don't you think, she quite skipped the body of the case where the head had ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger

... suppose [at] Bahia we certainly shall be able to write to England. Since writing the first part of [this] letter nothing has occurred except crossing the Equator, and being shaved. This most disagreeable operation consists in having your face rubbed with paint and tar, which forms a lather for a saw which represents the razor, and then being half drowned in a sail filled with salt water. About 50 miles north of the line we touched at the rocks of St. Paul; this little speck (about 1/4 of a mile across) ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... alarm and passed the Test Act, 1673, by which all Catholics were shut out from holding any government office or position (S477). This act broke up the "Cabal," by compelling a Catholic nobleman, who was one of its leading members, to resign. Lather, Parliament further showed its power by compelling the King to sign the Act of Habeas Corpus, 1679 (S482), which put an end to his arbitrarily throwing men into prison, and keeping them there, in order to stop their free discussion of ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... authorizes a startling story of some well-known statesman with the words: "My dear old chap, I know it for a fact. I heard it at the club to-day from a friend of his," then we know that once again the barber's assistant has been gossiping over the lather. ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne

... fine fellow,' thinks I, 'what you posing here for?—and why's that mare in a lather?' But before ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... gintlemen with razier, soap, and lather, A shaving most respectfully the POPE, our Holy Father. And now the dread consperracy I'll quickly to you show, Which them sanguinary Prodestants did ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... river of Cariaco we saw the Indian women washing their linen with the fruit of the parapara (Sapindus saponaria, or soap-berry), an operation said to be very injurious to the linen. The bark of the fruit produces a strong lather; and the fruit is so elastic that if thrown on a stone it rebounds three or four times to the height of seven or eight feet. Being a spherical form, it is employed ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... I went into a barbershop to get a shave, sat down in the chair, and a youth not over twelve years of age started to lather me. I supposed, of course, that he was getting me ready for the barber, who would soon appear; instead of that he proceeded with the work himself. He spoke a little English, telling me his father was in the army and ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.

... across the tawny plains. They rode abreast. Their horses were a-lather; their lean sides tuckered, but their gait remained unslackening. It was a gait they would keep ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... a pail of cold water, and add to it three gills of ox-gall. Rub it into the carpet with a soft brush. It will raise a lather, which must be washed off with clear cold water. Rub dry with a clean cloth. Before nailing down a carpet after the floor has been washed, be certain that the floor is quite dry, or the nails will rust and injure the carpet. Fuller's earth is ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... for nonsense, Joe, your head Do hold it all so tight's a blather, But if 'tis any good, do shed It all so leaeky as a lather. Could you vill pails 'ithout a bottom, Yourself ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes

... to cheer, their voices choked and hoarse. Van rode now as fate might ride the very devil. He spurred the horse to furious, exhausting speed, guiding him wildly around the mountain theater. Again and again they circled the grassy arena, till foam and lather whitened the broncho's flank, chest, and mouth, and his nostril burned red as ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... of his, shivering, miserable, up to their necks in a lather of soapy water; and Flibberty-Gibbet, the beautiful little fox terrier he had just bought for his wife, chained to a post, also wet, miserable, and woebegone, also undergoing the cleansing process, and being scrubbed and swilled till his very ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner

... started for the road in front of the mill, and Lou followed him, just as a perilously swaying lantern came to view, showing an old-fashioned carriage of the "buggy" type containing a single occupant and drawn by a horse which was streaked with lather. ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant

... soapmaker iv th' wurruld. [Cheers.] Be ye'er magnificint invintion ye have dhrawn closer th' ties between Paris an' Goshen, Indyanny [frantic applause], which I hope will niver be washed away. I wish ye much success as ye climb th' lather iv fame.' Th' invintor is thin dhrawn ar-roun' th' sthreets iv Paris in a chariot pulled be eight white horses amid cries iv 'Veev Higgins,' 'Abase Castile,' et cethra, fr'm th' populace. An' manny a heart beats proud in Goshen ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne

... countenance, so could no art carry it into hers. If her bills were remonstrated against she was offended with the tacit censure of her fair-dealing; if they were not, she seemed to regard it as a tacit sarcasm on her folly, which might have set down larger prices with the same success. On this lather hint she did indeed improve, for she daily raised some of her articles. A pennyworth of fire was to-day rated at a shilling, to-morrow at eighteen-pence; and if she dressed us two dishes for two shillings ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding

... ran toward him, with Stratton close behind. The strange cayuse, a sorrel of medium size, was covered with foam and lather, and as Jessup came close to him he rolled his eyes in ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... good fight, under the banners of a riglar church, in this world, will be mustered among the chosen in heaven, as my husband, the captain there, as ye call him, saysthough there is but one captain that I know, who desarves the name. I hopes, Lather-Stocking, yell no be foolish, and putting the boy up to try the law in the matter; for twill be an evil day to ye both, when ye first turn the skin of so paceable an animal as a sheep into a bone of contention, The lad is wilcome ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... he went on, beating lather into me as he spoke, "I wouldn't let one of them things near my face: No, sir: There ain't no safety in them. They tear the hide clean off you—just rake the hair right out by the follicles," as he said this he was illustrating his meaning with jabs of his razor,—"them ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock

... their hoofs made it next to impossible to hold the pony. I got them to keep back, and after that he went fairly steadily, but it was anxious work. The noise and excitement had told on him a lot, he had a tendency to break during all that six miles out, and he was in a lather before we got to Sufter Jung's tomb. There were a lot of people waiting for me out there, some ladies on horseback, too, and there was a coffee-shop going, with drinks of all kinds. As I got near they began to call out, "You're done, Paddy, thirty-four minutes gone already, ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... a soap that will not shrink and change shape after they purchase it. It must make a profuse lather during the act of washing. It must not leave the skin rough after using it. It must be either quite inodorous or have a pleasant aroma. None of the above soaps possess all these qualities in union, and, therefore, to produce such an article ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... them on some boulders where the tide had left pools of water, and cleaned them of their poison. He rubbed them on the stone exactly as a washerwoman handles a flannel garment, and out of them came a lather as though he had soaped them. Suds, bubbles, and froth—one would have said a laundress had been at work there. He dipped them often in a pool of salt water, and not until they would yield no more suds did ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... about the rudeness and nastiness of these cartoons and others that followed. Luther is supposed to have furnished the rhymes and descriptive matter which accompanied them. Lather is also cited as uttering most repulsive and scurrilous ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... his chin—factus ad unguem—that he may fling his brush and strop into the fire, and bury his razor certain fathoms in the earth. No! One crop of cares will always succeed another—not very oppressive, nor in any wise grand, perhaps—worries, simply, no more; but needing a modicum of lather, the looking glass, the strop, the diligent razor, delicate manipulation, and stealing a portion of our precious time every day we live; and this must go on so long as the state of man is imperfect, and plenty ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... pencil of Hogarth to express the astonishment and concern of Strap on hearing this piece of news; the basin, in which he was preparing the lather for my chin, dropped out of his hands, and he I remained some time immovable in that ludicrous attitude, with his mouth open, and his eyes thrust forward considerably beyond their station; but, remembering my disposition, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... said she, when Jim returned to the dining-room, his face at last restored to its usual sunburnt hue, and shining from the effect of a liberal lather of soap-suds, and his hands also of a comparatively respectable color. "Now, do tell us what ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley

... all were eager to have the Princess and half the kingdom. So they rode and slipped, and slipped and rode, and still it was the same story over again. At last all their horses were so weary that they could scarce lift a leg, and in such a sweat that the lather dripped from them, and so the knights had to give up trying any more. So the king was just thinking that he would proclaim a new trial for the next day, to see if they would have better luck, when all at once a knight ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen

... at first very terrible to behold; for the razor was almost twice as long as an ordinary scythe. His majesty, according to the custom of the country, was only shaved twice a week. I once prevailed on the barber to give me some of the suds or lather, out of which I picked forty or fifty of the strongest stumps of hair, I then took a piece of fine wood and cut it like the back of a comb, making several holes in it at equal distance with as small a needle as I could get from Glumdalclitch. I fixed in the stumps so artificially, scraping ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... odour tickled his olfactory nerves—the cooking had begun. Though his ears were full of lather, he could hear the meat frying in the pan, and the spluttering ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... was in a state of nervous tension, too, and merely laid her hand on the patient, restrainingly, as he strove with small success to raise himself a little. Meantime the horse came nearer, its bridle dripping with flakes of spume. Its rider was sprinkled with snow and her skirt was besmeared with lather, but she came on at a gallop until she reined in the panting horse beneath the window, and flinging one arm aloft sat in the saddle with her flushed face turned towards the watchers. No bearer of good tidings ever appeared more ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... purchase. On Sunday morning, after breakfast, when Billy was starting to go to the barber shop, she led him into the bedroom, whisked a towel aside, and revealed the razor box, shaving mug, soap, brush, and lather all ready. Billy recoiled, then came back to make curious investigation. He gazed ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... aroma, or aromas, was added to the scents now at war in the cabin. Weeks pulled out a handful of fluffy white stuff which frothed up about his fingers like soap lather. Then with more care he lifted up a tray divided into many small compartments, each with a separate sealing lid of its own. The men of the Queen moved in, their curiosity aroused, until they ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... went off atter an hour er two, an' I lay dar jes in a puffick lather o' sweat. I was dat dar skeered, I couldn't sleep no mo' dat ar night, an' I darsn't walk on afore day kase I wuz afeared o' meetin' some on 'em. So I lay, an' t'ought dis ting all ober, an' I tell ye, fellers, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... of buildings; intermittent crashes of volley firing, mingled with shouts and yells and shrieks, told that desperate fights were raging—or that, perchance, some ruthless and summary execution was taking place; and by and by, shortly after mid-day, a solitary horseman, mounted upon a steed in a lather of sweat and recognised by Carlos as their next neighbour to the eastward, came galloping over the temporary drawbridge with a warning to Don Hermoso to fly, with all his family and dependents, since Weyler, ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... slept better now than he had done for some time past, and therefore woke more refreshed and in better spirits. He knew an honest family was miserable a few doors off; but he did not care. He got up and shaved with a mind at ease. One morning, when he had removed the lather from one half his face, he happened to look out of window, and saw on the wall opposite—a placard: a large ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... that the proper use of a brush was to lather chins. But the boy thought differently, and once surreptitiously took one of his father's brushes to paint a picture; the brush on being returned to its cup was used the next day upon a worthy haberdasher, whose cheeks were shortly colored a vermilion that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard

... treated in this way; then the lather was scraped off with a piece of old hoop-iron, and, after being thus shaved, buckets of cold water were ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne

... prompter sends. And tears Kynaston from his friends; Tho' he'd much rather there remain, He hurries on to Drury Lane. When in the green-room he appear'd, He scar'd them with his bushy beard, The barber quick his razor strops, And lather'd well her royal chops: While he the stubble mow'd away, The audience curs'd such long delay: They scream'd—they roar'd—they loudly bawl'd. And with their cat-calls sweetly squall'd: Th' impatient monarch storm'd and rav'd— "The queen, dread sire, is not quite shav'd!" ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... land; he is obliged to do our marketing, etc., and we get milk and cream from him. I wish the latter was as easy to digest as it is palatable and cheap. They beat it up here till it looks like pure white lather and eat it with sugar. The grounds about our house are very neat and we shall have oceans of flowers of all sorts; several kinds are in full bloom now. The wild flowers are so profuse, so beautiful and so various that A. and I are almost demented on the subject. From the windows I see ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... like blood, Did well his threefold trade explain, Who shaved, drew teeth, and breathed a vein. The goat he welcomes with an air, And seats him in his wooden chair: 30 Mouth, nose, and cheek the lather hides: Light, smooth, and swift the razor glides. 'I hope your custom, sir,' says pug. 'Sure never face was half so smug.' The goat, impatient for applause, Swift to the neighbouring hill withdraws: The shaggy people grinned and stared. 'Heyday! what's ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... last few minutes. In the most ridiculous way David, after his shower bath, messed round with a shaving brush and a piece of soap, trying to get a lather on his face. Randall saw it first, and with roars of laughter called our attention to him. Corder, who instantly understood, quietly twinkled; but Knudsen wrinkled his brow at the boy. "Have you never ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... was falling from gray and gloomy clouds. Above those clouds the sun shone down from a blue sky upon a billowing mass that bore a resemblance to the uneven surface of a limitless plain of lather. High, but not too high above cloud-level, a big white Albatross circled serenely, its long, untidy wireless ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace

... the itchy, sweaty feeling I got yesterday and try to picture really embarking on a thing like this, but I cannot work up any lather today. ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell

... the masts hung far out over the water, and from my perch on the cross-trees I had nothing below me but the surface of the bay. Hands, who was not so far up, was in consequence nearer to the ship and fell between me and the bulwarks. He rose once to the surface in a lather of foam and blood and then sank again for good. As the water settled, I could see him lying huddled together on the clean, bright sand in the shadow of the vessel's sides. A fish or two whipped past his body. Sometimes, by the quivering of the ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... bride with diamonds. But the worst of it was that he must wait, and fight, and perhaps get killed, before he could settle in life and make his fortune. As an officer of a marching regiment, ordered to rejoin immediately, he must flesh his sword in lather first—for he had found no razor strong enough—and postpone the day of riches till the golden ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... several brushes together in one hand so that the tips are all of a length, dip them together into or rub them onto the soap, and then rub them briskly in the palm of the other hand. When the paint is well worked into the lather, do the same with the other brushes, letting the first ones soak in the soap, but not in the water. Then rinse them, and carefully work them clean one by one, with the fingers. When you lay them aside to dry, see that the ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... likewise, showed wonderful horsemanship, and, reckless as they were, Madeline imagined she saw consideration for steed and cattle that was wanting in the vaqueros. They changed mounts oftener than the Mexican riders, and the horses they unsaddled for fresh ones were not so spent, so wet, so covered with lather. It was only after an hour or more of observation that Madeline began to realize the exceedingly toilsome and dangerous work cowboys had to perform. There was little or no rest for them. They were continually among wild ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... goes on the soap is useless as a detergent, and it is only after all the lime and magnesia salts have been decomposed at the expense of the soap, that the latter begins to exert a useful effect. As soon as this is the case, however, the slightest further addition of soap produces a lather when the water is agitated, but this lather is again destroyed by the addition of a further quantity of hard water. Thus the addition of hard water to a solution of soap, or the converse of this operation, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various

... serve him for a mirror; but small eddies and cross-currents dimpled the surface everywhere, and his search was not a success. Next he fetched forth from the canoe an earthenware pan with lye and charcoal, mixed a paste, and began to lather his ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... soap-weed," explained the brakeman in her ear, "because if you break the leaves they'll lather in water. And some folks call it Spanish bayonet. It grows in barren ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase

... to Penelope in a lather, and looked at Jacquelin as if she would say, "Mademoiselle has put her hand on a ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac

... is to come except when you are not busy," Harry laughed, as Mrs. Holl moved towards the door, wiping the lather from her arms and hands, "we shan't have many visitors, for as far as I can see you are ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... room in Walton Street in which I worked, and dined, and smoked. My bedroom was close by, and I generally got up early, and shaved and finished my toilet at about 11 o'clock. I had just gone into my bedroom to shave, my face was half covered with lather, when my landlady rushed in and told me the Dean had called, and my dogs were pulling him about. The fact was I had a Scotch terrier with a litter of puppies in a basket, and when the Dean entered in full academical dress, the dogs flew ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... pendant in front. The shop is very small, with a little sitting-room behind, and several bedrooms above. When I entered the shop during my visit to Agen, I found a customer sitting before a looking-glass, wrapped in a sheet, the lower part of his face covered with lather, and a young fellow ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... smaller mounts of the Macabebes and Terry gradually drew ahead. He must overtake Malabanan before nightfall.... Ledesma had not put his confidence into words, but he had looked it—had trusted him ... the pony's head and neck dripped, a welt of lather fringed the saddle blanket over the withers and down both shoulders. The Sergeant, seeing his men fall behind, galloped up into the lead and cursed them on with graphic phrases culled from the English, Spanish and Malay tongues. But it was useless: the gray pony carried ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... in his shirt-sleeves near the window, only turned about when he got the lather off his face to say: "Good-morning, Miss Callender. How's things ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... in—fuller's earth and soap; they pile the soft soap in by the dishful, and it makes a great lather. I s'pose the fuller's earth is what does the most of the work. After the cloth comes out of the fulling mills it's 'bout twice as thick as when it goes in, and feels all stiff and heavy. It's no more like what it ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey

... said Tom, incautiously removing his thumb, and letting a crimson stream "incarnadine the multitudinous" lather that plastered his throat—"this may be all very well with your master, but you don't humbug me, sir:—Tell me instantly what have you done with ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... and there, the flying to and fro; The click of forks that whipped the eggs to lather white as snow— And what a wealth of sugar melted swiftly out of sight— And butter? Mother said such waste would ruin father, quite! But Sister Jane preserved a mien no pleading could confound As she utilized the raisins and the citron by ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... yesterday, when I had finished my first toilet, I looked everywhere for Gaston to take a little turn with me before lunch, but in vain. I went to the stable, and there I saw his mare all in a lather, while the groom was removing the foam with a knife before rubbing ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... lather into the stubble on his face, he cursed with irritation. That had been a bad-luck hunt, all around. They'd gone out before dawn, hunting into the hills to the north, they'd spent all day at it, and shot one small wild pig. Lucky it was small, at that. They'd have had to ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire

... of its fear. If the way of an engaged girl lies past a barber shop,—which very seldom has a curtain, by the way,—and she happens to think that she may some day behold her beloved in the dangerous act of shaving himself, it immediately hardens her heart. One glimpse of one face covered with lather will postpone one wedding-day five weeks. Many a lover has attributed to caprice or coquetry the fault which lies at the door of the ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed

... horse standing at the stable door in a lather of foam, and still saddled and bridled. Then it flashed across him that something had happened to Mark, and, filled with a sickening dread, he hurried into the ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe

... the Ameers of Scinde declared themselves independent. Gyooh fled to Lahore; and the only province of the kingdom which remained in the hands of a descendant of the royal family was Herat. The prince who governed Herat was Kamrau, who had directed that the eyes of his lather's vizier, Futteh Khan, should be put out. Without directly acknowledging the sovereignty of Persia, Prince Kamrau had been for some years in the practice of rendering an occasional tribute to the shah, as often as the governor of the Persian province of Khorassan was strong enough ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... a barber, and learn to shave and clip, Calling out, "Next please!" and pocketing my tip. All day I'd hear my scissors going, "Snip, Snip, Snip;" I'd lather people's faces, and their noses I would grip While I shaved most carefully along the upper lip. But I wouldn't be a barber if . . . The razor was to slip. ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis

... man, there's nothing I'd like better than to be by myself occasionally! To have a room of my own! I suppose you expect me to sit here and dream delicately and satisfy my 'temperamentality' while you wander in from the bathroom with lather all over your face, and shout, 'Seen my ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... confusion, Wilson stood giving last orders to the interne at his elbow. As he talked he scoured his hands and arms with a small brush; bits of lather flew off on to the tiled floor. His speech was incisive, vigorous. At the hospital they said his nerves were iron; there was no let-down after the day's work. The internes worshiped and feared him. He was just, but ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... her—and some of them found themselves following after her, even to the Park gate—almost awed as they looked at her, sitting erect and splendid on the fretted, anguished beast, whose shining skin was covered with lather, whose mouth tossed blood-flecked foam, and whose great eye was so strangely like her own, but that hers glowed with the light of triumph, and his burned with the agonised protest of the vanquished. At such times there was somewhat of fear in the glances ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... himself came, covered with dust, his clothes torn by bullets, his horse in a white lather. He, too, turned to that stern brown figure, as unflinching as death itself, and he cried that the enemy in overwhelming numbers were ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler

... and face toilet are identical with that described before, and with the baby undressed and wrapped in a warm towel placed inside the warm blanket on the pillow or comfort as before mentioned, we proceed with a good lather of castile soap and water to lather the baby's body all over—under the arms, the neck, chest, groins, thighs, buttocks, legs, feet, and between the toes, while the genitals also receive their share of attention. ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... will answer the distillers purpose, that will dissolve soap, or will wash well with soap, or make a good lather ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry

... The force of suggestion brought to bear on him was too overwhelming, and he strove boldly to vie with the rest in foulness of tongue and thought. As soon as he was back in the city, this habit dropped off him as the soap lather is washed off a bather when he dives into the clear waters of a lake. But the game he had learned to play back of the big rock could not be unlearned in ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman

... hat and coat and took me to another shop in a distant part of the city. It was one of his branches. I was to be employed here, but I knew no more about hair-dressing than about the fourth dimension. Still I thought I could fulfil the role of lather-boy very effectively. ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... was haranguin', Was cloutin' his breeks i' the bauks; An' whan a' his failin's she brang in, His strang hazel pikestaff he taks, Designin' to rax her a lounder, He chanced on the lather to shift, An' down frae the bauks, flat 's a flounder, Flew like a ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... a bucket filled with grease and slops from the kitchen, sets it down at his godship's feet, putting a small painting-brush into his hand. Neptune now dips his brush into the filth, and proceeds to spread a lather over the face of the novice, taking care to ask questions during the whole process; and if the adopted be simple enough to reply, the brush is instantly thrust into his mouth. As soon as a sufficient ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... exercise, got back to the Arno in a lather of sweat about 6 o'clock carrying Davies with me. Leslie Wilson, commanding the Hawke Battalion, had gone sick to-day, so sent him a telegram after dinner to the Hospital ship Somali, telling him his trenches had ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... health gave way. He was a lather and had a steady job till sickness came. It was the old story: nothing laid away—how could there be, with a houseful of children—and nothing coming in. They talk of death-rates to measure the misery of the slum by, but death does not touch the bottom. It ends ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... horses in the corral resulted in the discovery of one which had evidently been ridden hard and unsaddled but a few minutes before, for its flanks were in a lather and ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... razor-case holds but two razors. For only two razors does a man-of-war barber have, and, like the marine sentries at the gangway in port, these razors go off and on duty in rotation. One brush, too, brushes every chin, and one lather lathers them all. No private brushes and ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... flitted down the boulevard in the bright, sweet light. The barbers' shops were all busy, half the Novarese at that moment ambushed in lather, full in the public gaze. A shave is nothing if not a public act, in the south. At the little outdoor tables of the cafes a very few drinkers sat before empty coffee-cups. Most of the shops were shut. It was too soon ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... the manor. It was divided into anteroom, dressing-room, and the bath proper. When we were ready, Alexandra, a famous bath-woman, took boiling water from the tank in the corner oven, which had been heating for hours, made a strong lather, and scrubbed us soundly with a wad of linden bast shredded into fibres. Her wad was of the choicest sort; not that which is sold in the popular markets, but that which is procured by stripping into rather coarse filaments ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... sim'lar. Wot's more, they does it in a lingo that no one can't go for to make out, not even a Frenchy hisself, because I never see one Frog listenin' to another—did you, sir? Wot's more, sir, they gets all of a lather over things which is only fit for women-folk to worry on—such as w'ether a hen has laid its egg reg'lar; or the coffee, was it black enough? From wot I see as puts a Frog in a dither, I sez to myself that if you was to take him ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... they met Weary and Happy Jack, galloping anxiously to the battle scene. Slim, it appeared from Weary's rapid explanation, had arrived at the ranch with his horse in a lather and with a four-inch furrow in the fleshiest part of his leg, where a bullet had flicked him in passing. The tale he told had led Weary to believe that Slim was the sole survivor ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... and gave it to him,—then turned to Lorimer to say good-bye. They left her then, standing under the porch, shading her brow with one hand from the glittering sunlight, as she watched them descending the winding path to the shore, accompanied by her lather, who hospitably insisted on seeing them into their boat. They looked back once or twice, always to see the slender, tall white figure standing there like an angel resting in a bower of roses, with the sunshine flashing on a golden crown of hair. ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... intently over the drifts of lather and twisted his shaving mirror to the most propitious angle from time to time. In the room across the hall—Eleanor's room, he always called it to himself—his young niece was singing bits of the Mascagni intermezzo interspersed with bits of ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... "My lather paid us a visit last week, and, among other country-news, told us that Sawny Mervyn had sold his place. His wife had persuaded him to try his fortune in the Western country. The price of his hundred acres here would purchase a thousand there, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... squall, upon a sudden, Came o'er the waters scudding; And the clouds began to gather, And the sea was lashed to lather, And the lowering thunder grumbled, And the lightning jumped and tumbled, And the ship and all the ocean Woke up in wild commotion. Then the wind set up a howling, And the poodle dog a yowling, And the ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope



Words linked to "Lather" :   beat, swither, trounce, work over, shaving cream, workingman, whip, fizz, sparkle, horsewhip, cleanse, form bubbles, clean, shaving soap, stew, workman, agitation, wash, effervesce, strap, slash, birch, soapsuds, lave, cowhide, flog, beat up, froth, foam, sweat, welt, lash, leather, working man, scourge, cat, working person, soap, lathery, fret



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