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Opener   Listen
noun
Opener  n.  
1.
One who, or that which, opens. "True opener of my eyes."
2.
Specifically: A bottle opener or a can opener; as, you need an opener to get the cap off.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Opener" Quotes from Famous Books



... required no pew-opener in their place of worship: natives and in-dwellers had their own seats, and strangers sat where they could. Graye took a seat in the nave, on the north side, close behind a pillar dividing it from the north aisle, which was completely allotted to Miss Aldclyffe, her farmers, and her ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... time, but in extensive though flat and marshy continents, little raised over the sea level; and a yet further fiat has covered them with the great carboniferous flora. The scene is one of mighty forests of cone-bearing trees,—of palms, and tree-ferns, and gigantic club mosses, on the opener slopes, and of great reeds clustering by the sides of quiet lakes and dark rolling rivers. There is deep gloom in the recesses of the thicker woods, and low thick mists creep along the dank marsh or sluggish stream. But there is a general lightening of the sky over head; as the day declines, a redder ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... and it appears to be navigable; its water is much warmer than that of the rappid fork and somewhat turbid, from which I concluded that it had it's source at a greater distance in the mountains and passed through an opener country than the other. under this impression I wrote a note to Capt. Clark recommending his taking the middle fork provided he should arrive at this place before my return which I expect will be the day after tomorrow. ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... he felt himself,' we read, 'far less drawn;' he had the consciousness of a certain antipathy in the depths of his nature to this, and to its 'absorbing, tyrannous, terrorist religion,' as to the opener, more flexible Indo-European genius, this religion appeared. 'The mere workings of the old man in him!' Semitism will readily reply; and though one can hardly admit this short and easy method of settling the matter, it must be owned that Humboldt's is an extreme case of ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold

... Marchmont, "that was a queer case—'The Case of the Red Thumb Mark,' as the papers called it. It was an eye-opener to old-fashioned lawyers like myself. We've had scientific witnesses before—and bullied 'em properly, by Jove! when they wouldn't give the evidence that we wanted. But the scientific lawyer is something new. His appearance in court made us all sit ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman

... making his appearance, "you're awake, are you? I've just finished. Herbert's been watching me. Have you got the beer-opener there? ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... eyes in the Third Avenue oyster house before which the touring car Norman had been using was drawn up. At a long table, eating oysters as fast as the opener could work, sat Norman and his friend Gaskill, a fellow member of the Federal Club, and about a score of broken and battered tramps. The supper or breakfast was going forward in admirable order. Gaskill, whom Norman had picked up a few hours before, showed signs of ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... canning did not stop there; meats, soups, vegetables, fruits are now placed in the hands of the housewife "Ready to Serve," until the cynical now state, "Woman is no longer a cook, she is a can opener." With all the talk in this modern time of women invading man's field, it is just to remark that man has stepped into woman's work and carried off a huge part of it to his own creation, ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson

... and taking a letter-opener, crowded bits of paper into the keyhole of the door and up and down the crack. Then he closed the one window, turned out the two gas-jets, and opened the stop-cocks again. An odor of gas soon pervaded the room into which came only a faint light from the State House dome. And now a more hideous ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... was the little gate opening! Somehow she had expected the opener—though he had disappeared abruptly from the meeting the night before, and had given no promise that he ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... dining-room. The policeman was dozing in his chair; there was a good deal of cigar-ash about, and the whiskey-decanter was less full than it had been, though not unreasonably so. I roused up the officer and dismissed him with a final cigar and what he called an 'eye-opener'—about two fluid-ounces. When he had gone I let myself into the museum lobby. The burglar was quite dead and beginning to stiffen. That was satisfactory; but was he the right man? I snipped off a little tuft of hair and carried it to the laboratory where the microscope stood on the bench under ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... mind you. The sharks won't look for a brush till you've gone around once. Take your mounts down the stretch to the quarter post, an' then come away the first break; if there's anyone toutin' you off, they'll think it just a pipe opener, an' won't catch the time. Run out the mile-an'-a-quarter, make a race of it, but don't go to the bat. Diablo an' The Dutchman don't need no whip to give us about ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... very winter, In the summer just passed over, Often rattled the door-handles, For the ringed hands that should close them, And the stairs were likewise creaking For the fair one robed so grandly, And the doors stood always open, And their opener thus ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... consider Iran, or, as our fathers knew it, Persia. Here is a field that, possibly because of previous plunderings, is not now the most fruitful of our sources of plant and animal discovery, yet it is an eye-opener, and will do very well as a type of similar test-plots ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various

... theatre, especially farces or melodramas. The apathy of her unwieldy body was minimized in the false glare of the footlights. But she enjoyed Cardailhac's theatre most of all. There the Nabob was at home. From the first manager down to the last box-opener, the whole staff belonged to him. He had a key to the door leading from the corridor to the stage; and the salon attached to his box, decorated in Oriental fashion, with the ceiling hollowed out like a bee-hive, divans upholstered ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... to open a box of sardines with a tin tack. He was in prison, the sardines had been smuggled into him, and he had no can-opener. Only his genius ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... liberty he had taken: the minister and his wife were in too much dread—not of St. James and the "poor man in vile raiment," for they were harmless enough in themselves, but of Gibbie's pointing finger to back them. Three distinct precautions, however, they took; the pew-opener on that side was spoken to; Mrs. Sclater made Gibbie henceforth go into the pew before her; and she removed the New ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... him, to contend for him as their guest; but old David Gillespie did not contend with them. "You can have him," he said to the miller, Peter Hingston, "if he wants to go with you." He was almost rude, and his daughter was not opener with the women who crowded about her trying to make her say something that would feed their hunger to know more. She remained hard and cold, almost dumb; it seemed to them that she was not worthy to have had him under her father's roof. As for her ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells

... pun: "Fatihah," fem. of "fatih" an opener, a conqueror, is the first Koranic chapter, for ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... first step in the conversion of the bale of cotton into yarn consists in giving the cotton fibers a thorough cleaning. This is accomplished by feeding the cotton to a series of picker machines called in order, bale breaker, cotton opener and automatic feeder, breaker picker, intermediate picker, and finisher picker. These machines pull to shreds the matted locks and wads of cotton (as we find them in the bale), beat out the dirt, stones, and seeds, and finally leave the cotton in the form of batting ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... Bill Shea and Tom Farmer threw the diamond hitch over the packs that morning, they explained to me that all camp cooks are of two kinds—the good cooks, who are evil of disposition, and the tin-can cooks, who only need a can-opener to be happy. But I lived to be able to refute that. Norman Lee was a cook, ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... isn't open!" said Mrs. Jervis in dismay; "and I didn't think to bring a can-opener. If I had only known of this picnic-party, I ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller

... mentioned in connexion with racing, and when Mr. Linton inquired mildly if he were fond of dances, he was met by raised eyebrows and a bored disclaimer of caring to do anything so energetic. Altogether this product of city culture was an eye-opener to the ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... at leisure, set out in their permanent places. Just before doing this an ordinary beer can opener is used to enlarge the punctures in the bottom of the can to permit the roots to penetrate better. In a few years the can should disintegrate entirely and at no time ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various

... rock on which she's settled astern has made a hole in her you could drive a cart through. I suppose it was a tight-fitting hole at first, but as she settled more and moved about, it's got enlarged same as the hole in a tin of beef does when you begin to waggle it with the can-opener." ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... began to decline. The pleasure-garden of the young race withered away; up into opener regions and desolate, forsaking his childhood, struggled the growing man. The gods vanished with their retinue. Nature stood alone and lifeless. Dry Number and rigid Measure bound her with iron chains. As ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald

... a restaurant door. Her features are hardened by puffs of hot air from the kitchen; the color of the heeltaps of customers' bottles, finished in the company of the waiters, gradually filters into her complexion—no beauty is full blown so soon as the beauty of an oyster-opener. Luckily for Mme. Cibot, lawful wedlock and a portress' life were offered to her just in time; while she still preserved a comeliness of a masculine order slandered by rivals of the Rue de Normandie, who ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... church, at the morning service. The pew-opener found him sitting there dead, when ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... on the first hand. The limit had been ten cents, but the opener said "I'll 'crack' it for fifty cents, if ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson

... said Hart. "You've started well, anyhow. The connection between a line and a rope should be obvious even to a judge.... As a pipe-opener, have a drink!" ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... evening came, he found his way to Hope Chapel, and walking in, was shown to a seat by a grimy faced pew opener. It was with strange feelings he sat there, thinking of the past, and looking for the appearance of his friend on the pulpit stair. But his feelings would have been stranger still had he seen who sat immediately in the pew behind him, watching him like a cat watching a mouse, or rather like ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... an arm-chair by way of pulpit, and held forth so vehemently that his scarcely more than baby sister was frightened and began to cry; whereupon he turned to an imaginary presence, and said, with all the sternness which the occasion required, 'Pew-opener, remove that child.' ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... I'm in the ranks of the patriots and not looking for the pie counter. Here's another matter. Do you mind telling me what you're up to in this White River Canneries business? I notice that you've been sticking the can-opener into it." ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... up the letter opener and slipped the blade under the flap of the envelope. If he had looked up at the stenographer then he would have seen the mask of innocence slip aside to discover a face ashen with terror. But whatever the shorthand man had to fear from the opening of the ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... end this little train of thought by considering a converse test of what the eye-opener is in travel; and that test is to talk to foreigners when they first come to England and see how they tend to discover in England what they have read of at home instead of what they really see. There have been very few fogs in London ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc

... of gate-opener was more to be desired than that of bridesmaid. As she sat listening to the music, curled up in a big hall chair like a contented kitten, she decided that there was nobody in all the world with whom she would change places. There had been times when ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston

... New York as yet has not had an opportunity of viewing the best Cezannes, Gauguins, and Van Goghs. I did not see the exhibition several years ago at the Armory, which was none the less an eye-opener. But I have been told by those whose opinion and knowledge are incontrovertible that this trinity of the modern movement was inadequately represented; furthermore, Henri Matisse, a painter of indubitable skill and originality, ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... Lem's next eye-opener was a brand new method of separating the hulls from the nuts. Two 2-inch pipes are laid on an incline the thickness of a walnut hull, about a half inch, apart. The pipes revolve and the hulls and nuts ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... lady of Devizes, FREMANTLE'S forte appears to be surprises, Splendid no doubt, but, after all expenses, I feel more interested in defences. Of course for FREMANTLE to dumfog HEWETT, (And show a world of watchers how to do it) Is first-rate practice; an eye-opener verily; Only I fancy I should laugh more merrily, If my eyes were the only optics gazing, Upon a feat that's no doubt most amazing; The Thames' mouth occupied by a fine fleet! The sight—as the fleet's mine—of course is sweet, But there's one thought that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various

... is ready, the can-opener, sharp as a razor, waitin' to open up such effete luxuries as the peer may demand, Bill Ames gets called to California by the sickness of his wife. He feels mean about abandonin' the peer, but he don't seem to have no choice, his wife bein' ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... been arrived at, of course, by many other channels. The scandalous arrangement between the Front Benches which forced the Insurance Act down our throats was an eye-opener for the great masses of the people. So was the cynical action of the politicians in the matter of Chinese Labour after the Election of 1906. So was the puerile stage play indulged in over things like the Welsh Disestablishment Bill ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc

... set forth, but a storehouse with varied and almost irresistible windows enticed us and we went no farther. It was a mighty department store and we were informed that we need not pass its doors again until we had selected everything we needed from a can-opener to a grand piano. We didn't, ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine

... were reaching out strong hands for him. Now, as Mahommed swam, he kept moaning to himself, cursing his father and his father's son, as though he himself were to blame for the crime which had been committed. Here was a plot, and he had discovered more plots than one against his master. The bridge-opener—when he found him he would take him into the desert and flay him alive; and find him he would. His watchful eyes were on the hut by the bridge where this man should be. No one was visible. He cursed the man and all his ancestry and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... people in general don't appreciate what science and system can do," patronizingly explained Mrs. Hornblower. "If you'd read some of the literature the Apple of Eden Investment Comp'ny sends us, it would be an eye-opener." ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... dey be!" cried Eradicate, as he produced a heavy pair from his pocket. "I—I couldn't find de can-opener fo' Mrs. Baggert, an' I jest got yo' pliers, Massa Tom. Oh, how glad I is dat I did. ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton

... same principles. Their variations are few and simple. In all seed drills the seed is forced into tubes so placed as to enable the seed to fall into the furrows in the ground. The drills themselves are distinguished almost wholly by the type of the furrow opener and the covering devices which are used. The seed furrow is opened either by a small hoe or a so-called shoe or disk. At the present time it appears that the single disk is the coming method of opening the seed furrow and that ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe

... start right in to learn to throw that hitch, and I'm going to practise with an ax till I can strike twice in the same place. This trip was an eye-opener. Great man I'd ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... my wife extremely nervous to see the can-opener, a pair of scissors, and nine clothes-pins come out of that turkey, but Jack Golden said that their last cook tried to stuff their last turkey with the garden hose, so ...
— Skiddoo! • Hugh McHugh

... across at Nieder-Raden (where the Pilgrim of the Picturesque now climbs to see the BASTEI; where the Prussians have, by this time, a Bridge thrown together out of those Pontoons),—goes across at Nieder-Raden, up that chasmy Pass; rides to the Heights of Waltersdorf, in the opener country behind; and pauses there, while the captive Saxon Army defiles past him, laying down its arms at his feet. Unarmed, and now under Prussian word of command, these Ex-Saxon soldiers go on defiling; march through by that Chasm of Nieder-Raden; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle

... Adele, from the doorway, "you're a nervy lot, sitting around while I slave in the kitchen. 'Gene, see if you can open the olives with this fool can opener. I tried." ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... love each other, we have agreed to be married, and that is quite sufficient. No need to get the 'consent of the parents,' or make a 'settlement,' or give out the banns, or buy a government license as though a wife were contraband goods, or hire a string of four-wheelers, or tip the pew-opener. What has love to do with pew-openers? Why should the finest thing in life become the prey of such vulgar parasites? Why should our heavenliest moments be profaned and spoiled by needless worries—hateful to the name of love? Our wedding will be very simple. We shall not even want ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... to death was a recipe much in vogue with all trades and professions, and not least of all with Tellson's. Death is Nature's remedy for all things, and why not Legislation's? Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a bad note was put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holder of a horse at Tellson's door, who made off with it, was put to Death; the coiner of a bad shilling was put ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... to Geneva, which English and French made together, on lake steamboats, at picnics and dinners, etc., etc., here they were, rattling away with great ease and mutual entertainment. Many of these came from the North of England, and it was a real eye-opener, over which easy-going South-Englanders would do well to ponder, to see what results could be produced by a little energy and application, building on no previous linguistic training. The Northern accent was evidently a help in pronouncing the ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark

... visit them, and you are likely to find yourself comparatively alone, in rambles of this kind. I went one morning into St. Martin's,—once "in-the-fields," now at the busy center of the city,—and found there only a pew-opener, preparing for the service, and an organist, practising music. It is a beautiful structure, with graceful spire and with columns of weather-beaten, gray stone, curiously stained with streaks of black, and it is almost as famous for theatrical ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... a wide-open contraption like that! And they reckon you to be some spy. Why, a Yankee crook would be into that with a can-opener. If I'd known that any letter of mine was goin' to lie loose in a thing like that I'd have been a mug to ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... three spools from a sewing-machine, one pair nail-scissors (broken); one cigar-box containing several yards of tape (varying widths), cuttings of many different materials, one button-hook, one tin-opener and corkscrew combined, one silver thimble, one ditto (horn), one Chinese pipe; one packet of tea, one ditto sugar, one tin condensed milk (unopened), half a loaf of bread (very stale), two empty medicine ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various

... holds a professorship at Oxford University, England. His books on medical practice are in use in probably every university and medical school in English-speaking countries. His views on drugs and their real value as expressed in this article should be an eye-opener to those good people who believe that we of the Nature Cure school are altogether too radical, ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... nothing save a convulsion of the earth would do it, which comforted me, for I took the firmness of the earth in perfect trust. We spoke of our old Sunday walks to St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey as of a day that had its charm. Our pew among a fashionable congregation pleased him better. The pew-opener curtseyed to none as she did to him. For my part, I missed the monuments and the chants, and something besides that had gone—I knew not what. At the first indication of gloom in me, my father ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... opener on the table. I—I stabbed him with it, and then I got away by the fire escape. Nobody saw me. I left him there dead. I was almost frantic when I reached home. Then I saw how I could have Sidney Prale accused and remove the menace of his presence also. I would be safe if Prale ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong

... dangerous tropical regions, where there is little appetite and less nutritious diet, where exertion of mind and body easily exhaust vitality, and where "diffusible stimulants" must often take the place of solids, he dies first who drinks water. The second is the man who begins with an "eye-opener" of "brandy- pawnee," and who keeps up excitement by the same means through the day. The third is the hygienic sciolist, who drinks on principle poor "Gladstone" and thin French wines, cheap and ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... until all the cups were full, replenished the bread plate and brought more butter, and hunted the kitchen over for the can opener, to punch little holes in another can of condensed cream; and she rather astonished her guests by serving it in a beautiful cut-glass pitcher instead of the can in which ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower

... early on the day of the sale looking enthusiastic. I, equally enthusiastic, applied myself to the menial tasks usually performed by Elizabeth. We had just finished a lunch of tinned soup, tinned fish and tinned fruit (oh, what a blessing is a can-opener in the absence of domestics!) when she reappeared. My heart leapt at the sight of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various

... only an atmosphere flier, but it's made to take care of tougher stuff than luxury sportsters. Set up your can opener, just in case our boy wants to argue ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole

... helped the child down," said the voice behind her, more tartly, and Jessie guessed it was the door-opener who spoke, and who was following her. Harry Lang muttered something surlily enough, but he did pick up a lamp from somewhere, and held it out for her to see the rest of her way by, and Jessie clambered down the remaining stairs in ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... epiphany was a gradual thing, beginning, where it continues, with the individual. It is impossible even to guess at what number may have heard him on this occasion: he seems to have gone up the mount because of the crowd—to secure a somewhat opener position whence he could better speak; and thither followed him those who desired to be taught of him, accompanied doubtless by not a few in whom curiosity was the chief motive. Disciple or gazer, he ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald

... and looked for an opener. There was one on the bureau. He stumbled over and opened his first beautiful, lovely can of beer. He put his mouth down close to the top so that none of the foam could escape him. He'd be all right 'til seven, now. The bars opened at seven. He'd be ...
— The Circuit Riders • R. C. FitzPatrick

... and more English walnuts and pecans are being sold in the form of kernels, and black walnuts also will best be sold in kernels. These can be canned in vacuum glass or metal cans, and the housewife will use more nuts when she can get the shell-free meats with her favorite cooking utensil, the can-opener. Confectioners and bakers will take black walnut meats by the carload in preference to other nut meats because they have more flavor, and so ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... Eton, with this note annexed: "New rule of Addition, according to Cocker." Old Amen, the parish clerk, is united to Miss Bridget Silence, the pew opener; and Theophilus White, M.D. changes place with Mr. Sable, the undertaker. But we shall become too grave if we proceed deeper with this subject. There is no end to the whimsical alterations and ludicrous changes that take place ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... swell little guesser, you are not. You couldn't get inside a riddle with a can-opener. 'Cause you're stuck ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... impediment? that his work refused as an obstruction the aid of wealth? But the Master had repudiated money that he might do the will of his Father; and the disciple must be as his master. Had he done as the Master told him, he would soon have come to understand. Obedience is the opener of eyes. ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... the ears of Silver there were many sounds blended into one. There were the rhythmical beat of hoofs, the low undertone of the wheels grinding the pavement, the high note of the forged steel lock-opener as it hammered the foot-board, the mellow ding-dong of the bell, the creak of the forty-and fifty-foot extensions, the rattle of the iron-shod hooks, the rat-tat-tat of the scaling ladders on the bridge and the muffled drumming ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford

... some other amazing-looking craft which were being towed down the Red Sea. They looked like armored houseboats, and were for use up the Tigris. I should not like to have been boxed up in one, for it looked as if they would have to use a can-opener to get you out, and it did not appear to me as though the sides were bullet-proof. But trust the Admiralty to know what they are doing! Pages could be filled with the mere cataloguing of the various kinds of ships used by the navy in this war, and I am told that these river "tanks" ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... the agent or attorney of the middle class of modern society.—He was the agitator, the destroyer of prescription, the internal improver, the liberal, the radical, the inventor of means, the opener of doors and markets, the subverter ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... a model of respectable gravity, however, when he presented himself before Mademoiselle Euphrosyne Delande, at her Institute, when the bells clanged ten in the morning. Major Hawke at once impressed the sleek door-opener, Francois, by the ultra refinement of his demeanor, and the suave elegance of his French. "Evidently the one necessary Adam in this Garden of undeveloped young Peris," thought Hawke, as he gazed around the cheerless room, with its globes, busts of departed sages, topographical ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... he was, looked back with fond homesickness to the woods where he had taken up land, and built himself a personable house, chiefly with his own hands. He had lived himself out of touch with his old English life in that new country, and had drawn breath in an opener and livelier air which filled his lungs as the home atmosphere ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells

... to listen. I remembered only the visit years before which that man's wife had paid to me. "Will you not open the parcel?" I interposed. He fell upon it, exposed its contents of bread, chocolate, and sardine tins, and called for a can opener. He shook the tins one by one beside his ear, and then, selecting that which gave out no "flop" of oil, stripped it open, plunged his fingers inside, and pulled forth a clammy mess of putty and sawdust. In a moment he had come upon a paper ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... sleep on the billiard table in the hotel barroom, heard the hammering, wondered what industrious soul was up and doing carpenter work at that unseemly hour, and after helping himself to a generous "eye-opener" at the deserted bar, found his cap and went over to investigate. He was much surprised to see Bill Wright working, and smiled to himself as he walked quietly up to him through the ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower

... was preoccupied with Catherine and my own thoughts, the door opened without my having taken a dig at the opener beforehand. The arrival was all I needed to crack wide open in a howling fit of hysteria. It was so pat. I couldn't help but let myself go: "Well! This looks like Old ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith

... it seemed to us, at every few yards' distance, made in the oddest fashion,—opening in the middle, like folding-doors, for the accommodation of horsemen. The little boy who accompanied us as gate-opener answered to the name of Cupid. Arrived at the headquarters of the general superintendent, Mr. S., we were kindly received by him and the ladies, and shown into a large parlor, where a cheerful wood-fire glowed in the grate. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... pounds out of the biggest cans—a twenty and a ten. There's your opener," he added, pointing to a rather complicated mechanical can-opener fastened to the bulkhead. "Open everything before you bring ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... observers, to be more inquisitive than man, that I will content myself with establishing an exception. Of these nine persons, five were women, and the remainder held the salaried posts of organist, organ-blower, pew-opener, and parish-clerk. Of the women, one was Tamsin Dearlove. It is noteworthy that Caleb spent his morning at ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... "Brusher away of cobwebs." "Full of burning words." "Blazes the trail." "Crisp and bold thoughts." "An eye-opener." "The new spirit and new conscience shine on each page." "Place not filled by any other." "Speaks not as the Scribes and Pharisees." "Charged with the ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... runaway match, you know. Olive was stopping with some friends in Dublin, and I met her early one morning and took her to St. Patrick's. You will find it all right in the register—Matthew Robert O'Brien and Olive Carrick. There were only two witnesses: an old pew-opener, and a friend of mine, Edgar Boyle. Boyle is dead now, poor chap! but you will ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... by Danger's varying form, Still, as unconscious of the coming storm, He look'd elate! His beard, his mien sublime, Shadow'd by Age;—by Age before the time, [Footnote 1] From many a sorrow borne in many a clime, Mov'd every heart. And now in opener skies Stars yet unnam'd of purer radiance rise! Stars, milder suns, that love a shade to cast, And on the bright wave fling the trembling mast. ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers

... saw that it was a genuine certificate of marriage between Archibald-Alexander-John Scott, Marquis of Arondelle, and, Rose Cameron, signed by James Smith, Rector of St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, and witnessed by John Thomas Price, Sexton, and Ann Gray, Pew-opener. ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... reported ready at 11 P.M. After some pushing to and fro we wriggled out of our ice prison and followed a lead to opener waters. ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... any damage and I'm not looking for anybody's money. But there will be damage unless you get out of this highway. If you're in sight when I drive my hoss past here again I'll lick you, even if I have to use blasting-powder and a can-opener to get you out ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... religious instruction at the dying hour of the class-day cannot redeem the neutral school. In fact the Survey of School conditions in Saskatchewan conducted by Dr. Foght, in 1918, revealed there a state of things which in our mind is an eye-opener in the matter under examination. Out of over 4,000 schools not more than 212 reported as availing themselves of the law on religious instruction. We leave to the reader to draw the conclusion these recent ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... was a rooftree in every sense of the word, for it crowded close against the door and hovered in the whole tiny house. Just before I left I put all the loose change I had in my white linen skirt pocket in an old lacquered tea canister which had a slit in it cut with a can opener, and that stood on the shelf of the old rock chimney in the low living room. I had never heard that canister mentioned by Mother Spurlock and I don't know how I knew that out of it came the emergency funds for many ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... On the contrary, he thought it both practical and grand. Indeed, he laughed at none of Johnnie's ideas, and would listen in the gravest fashion as the boy described a new think-bicycle which had arrived from Wanamaker's just that minute—accompanied by a knife with three blades and a can opener. The Father agreed that there were points in favor of a bicycle which took up no room in so small a flat, and required no oiling. And if Johnnie went so far as to mount the shining leather seat of his latest purchase and circle ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... demureness, which she would like to have achieved. "Will you please to come in?" And somewhat regardless of consequences, leaving the hall door where it stood, Faith preceded her guest along the hall and again performed for him the office of door-opener at the parlour, ushering him thus into the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... donations to the Winter Coal and Soup Distribution Society. She subscribed twenty pounds towards the erection of an organ in our parish church, and was so overcome the first Sunday the children sang to it, that she was obliged to be carried out by the pew-opener. Her entrance into church on Sunday is always the signal for a little bustle in the side aisle, occasioned by a general rise among the poor people, who bow and curtsey until the pew-opener has ushered the old lady into her accustomed seat, dropped a respectful curtsey, and ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... (though how Greeks ever heard a Sanskrit word, if such a word as Apa-val-yan ever existed, we are not told), and may mean 'one who opens the gate of the sky' (ii. 692-696). {18} At some unknown date the ancestors of the Greeks would say 'The opener of the gates of the sky (*Apa-val-yan, i.e. the sun) pursues the burning one (Dahana, i.e. the dawn).' The Greek language would retain this poetic saying in daily use till, in the changes of speech, *Apa-val-yan ceased to be understood, and became Apollo, ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang

... would be somewhat flustered at being brought into the formidable presence and by the weight of his tidings, and the great man's gentleness would be a cordial. A superior's condescension is a wonderful lip-opener. We all have some people who look up to us, and to whom small kindlinesses from us are precious. We do not 'render to all their dues,' unless we give gracious courtesy to those beneath, as well as 'honour' to those above, us. But the captain ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... cab-wheel crescendo and a strepitoso peal at the bell had not announced Sally, who burst into the house and rushed into the drawing-room tumultuously, to be corrected back by a serious word from Ann, the door-opener, that Missis and Mr. Fenwick had stepped out in the garden. Ann's parade of her conviction that this was en regle, when no one said it wasn't, was suggestive in the highest degree. Professional perjury in a law-court could not have been more self-conscious. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... ATMU, i.e., the "closer" of the day, just as Ptah was the "opener" of the day. In the story of the creation he declares that he evolved himself under the form of the god Khepera, and in hymns he is said to be the "maker of the gods", "the creator of men", etc., and he usurped the position of R[a] among the gods of Egypt. His worship must have been already ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge

... in the rough part of the heterogeneous crowd. This man, while on a footing of the greatest intimacy with the runners, was far inferior to them in the matter of dress. Locus, in reply to my queries, informed me that he was a professional oyster-opener; but, judging from his appearance in general, I should have guessed that he was a professional oyster-catcher also,—a human dredge, employed chiefly at the bottom of the sea. A perfect Hercules in build, "Lobster Bob," as Locus called him, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... doing, and why she was there; but already it was too late, for while she was clinging to Maurice with low, frightened sobs, the curate had hurried from the vestry and had entered within the rails, and the pew-opener was beckoning them ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... lash out money in that way," she said, "we may as well have a tongue. Brannigan has small ones at one and sixpence. Brawn of course is cheaper, but then if you have brawn you want a tin-opener. The tongues are in glass jars which you can break with a stone or a rowlock. The lids are supposed to come off quite easily if you jab a knife through them, but they don't really. All that happens is a sort of fizz of air and the lid sticks on as tight as ever. ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham

... lighted up the scene with a cheerful brightness. She slung off her pack and sat down cross-legged at the side of the trail. Dan sat down opposite her as she opened the knapsack and produced a can of condensed milk, one of sardines, a can-opener, and half ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... without comment, her eyes fixed on a little jewelled letter-opener which she had picked up from the writing-table, and which she continued to turn in her fingers ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... porousness, porosity. sieve, cullender^, colander; cribble^, riddle, screen; honeycomb. apertion^, perforation; piercing &c v.; terebration^, empalement^, pertusion^, puncture, acupuncture, penetration. key &c 631, opener, master key, password, combination, passe- partout. V. open, ope^, gape, yawn, bilge; fly open. perforate, pierce, empierce^, tap, bore, drill; mine &c (scoop out) 252; tunnel; transpierce^, transfix; enfilade, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... for a dedication. Did G.D. send his penny tract to me to convert me to Unitarianism? Dear blundering soul! why I am as old a one-Goddite as himself. Or did he think his cheap publication would bring over the Methodists over the way here? However I'll give it to the pew-opener (in whom I have a little interest,) to hand over to the Clerk, whose wife she sometimes drinks tea with, for him to lay before the Deacon, who exchanges the civility of the hat with him, for him to transmit to the Minister, who shakes hand with him out of Chapel, and he, in all ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... boiler for oatmeal and other cooked cereals, iron spoon, large knife, vegetable knife, iron fork and broiler. A number of odds and ends will come in handy, especially tin plates to put things on. Take no crockery or glassware. It will be sure to be broken. Do not forget a can opener. ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... mythologies, he is represented as seated above the firmament, upon a throne from which "proceeded lightnings and thunderings," and to whom all, the subordinate divinities were made to pay homage. As the hurler of thunderbolts he was called "the Thunderer," and as the opener of the windows of heaven, when it rained, he was designated "Jupiter Pluvius." Such was the ancient Triad made to say of himself, in an inscription found in the ruins of the temple at Sais in Egypt, "I am all that has been, all that is, and all that shall be, and no mortal has lifted yet the veil ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill

... Bishop," Mr. Thoburn's voice and the clink of bottles, "I have a can opener somewhere. You'll find the ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Power and skull-lectures of the vulgar. The eminent Turkish scholar would also translate Salat by worship (du'a being prayer) because it signifies a simple act of adoration without entreaty. If he will read the Opener of the Koran, recited in every set of prayers, he will find an especial request to be "led to the path which is straight." These vagaries are seriously adopted by Mr. E. J. W. Gibb in his Ottoman Poems (p. 245, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... application of both proverb and emblem is no less just in relation to all the world; for it is most certain, that the god Bacchus, by warming the thoughts, renders them more acute, and inspires a greater plenty of witty sallies. For "Bacchus had not the name of Lysian, or Opener, if I may use the term, bestowed upon him for nothing but purely because he opens the mind, by putting it into an agreeable humour, and renders it more subtile and judicious[3]." For this reason it is grown into a proverb, That water-drinkers are not ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus

... sat in chains, For the blood of the grape ran the juice of his veins. The Prophet had said, "O Faithful, drink not!" Abu Midjan drank till his heart was hot; Yea, he sang a song in praise of wine, He called it good names—a joy divine, The giver of might, the opener of eyes, Love's handmaid, the water of Paradise! Therefore Saad his chief spake words of blame, And set him in irons—a fettered flame; But he sings of the wine as he sits in his chains, For the blood of the grape runs the juice ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... obeying, Hath eat'n of the fruit, and is become, Not dead, as we are threatn'd, but thenceforth 870 Endu'd with human voice and human sense, Reasoning to admiration, and with mee Perswasively hath so prevaild, that I Have also tasted, and have also found Th' effects to correspond, opener mine Eyes, Dimm erst, dilated Spirits, ampler Heart, And growing up to Godhead; which for thee Chiefly I sought, without thee can despise. For bliss, as thou hast part, to me is bliss, Tedious, unshar'd with thee, and odious soon. 880 Thou therefore also taste, that equal Lot May joyne us, equal ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... at him, at my sister, and at me. My sister's eyes were opener and bigger than ever I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... the letter opener and stood silent, motionless, awaiting his approach—a pose so eloquent of the sense of fatality strong in her as to strike him with apprehension, unused though he was to the appraisal of inner values. He read, darkly, something of this ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill



Words linked to "Opener" :   person, hand tool, tin opener, letter opener, eye opener, undoer, cap opener, bottle opener, untier, individual, latchstring, open, somebody, start, mortal, someone



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