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Oval   Listen
noun
Oval  n.  A body or figure in the shape of an egg, or popularly, of an ellipse.
Cassinian oval (Geom.), the locus of a point the product of whose distances from two fixed points is constant; so called from Cassini, who first investigated the curve. Thus, in the diagram, if P moves so that P A.P B is constant, the point P describes a Cassinian oval. The locus may consist of a single closed line, as shown by the dotted line, or of two equal ovals about the points A and B.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Oval" Quotes from Famous Books



... she had come out of the theatre: a many-coloured silk scarf was twisted round her head, and the brilliant, dangling fringes, and the stray tendrils of hair that escaped, made a frame for the rounded oval of her face. And then her skin was so fine, her eyes were so bright, the straight lashes so black and so long!—she put her head back, looked at herself through half-closed lids, turned her face this way and that, even smiling, wet though her cheeks were, in order ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... pointed to an oval-shaped object, something larger than a cocoa-nut, appearing between the hind legs of ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... had gone through the back of the cabinet; but no other damage, save the shattering of the glass, had been done. I could not but notice the strange arrangement of the curios on the shelf of the cabinet. All the scarabs, rings, amulets, &c. were arranged in an uneven oval round an exquisitely-carved golden miniature figure of a hawk-headed God crowned with a disk and plumes. I did not wait to look further at present, for my attention was demanded by more pressing things; but I determined to ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker

... up for a second; on other sides of the fire there were trees. Of the faces which came out fresh and vivid as though painted in yellow and red, the most prominent was a girl's face. By a trick of the firelight she seemed to have no body. The oval of the face and hair hung beside the fire with a dark vacuum for background. As if dazed by the glare, her green-blue eyes stared at the flames. Every muscle of her face was taut. There was something ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... examined the door, perhaps in the expectation of finding finger prints there, and was passing on to other things, when a change in his position caused his eye to catch a large oval smudge on the glass, which was visible when the light struck it at the right angle. Quickly he dusted it over with the powder, and brought out the detail more clearly. As I examined it, while Craig made preparations to cut out the glass ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... traversing several covered passages came to a barrier guarded by Amazons, to whom the old lady was evidently well known, for they threw open the gate for us, and "squatted" till we passed. A hot walk of twenty minutes brought us to a curious oval door of polished brass, which opened and shut noiselessly in a highly ornate frame. This admitted us to a cool retreat, on one side of which were several temples or chapels in antique styles, and ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... serpents' teeth. It is a singular creature, known as escuerzo in the vernacular, and though beautiful in colour, is in form hideous beyond description. The skin is of a rich brilliant green, with chocolate-coloured patches, oval in form, and symmetrically disposed. The lips are bright yellow, the cavernous mouth pale flesh colour, the throat and under-surface dull white. The body is lumpy, and about the size of a large man's fist. The eyes, placed on the summit of a disproportionately ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... holding his head straight, a trig, slender figure, breathing irritation. His oval face with its little black moustache was set as hard as its boyish curves permitted, and his handsome dark eyes had two parallel lines above them. He marched as he marched always nowadays, with a mien aggrieved and haughty. He never lost the consciousness that he ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... shook hands ceremoniously with the punghulo's oldest wife, and tabeked to the rest of his big family, the old man scrambled down the ladder, and sent a boy up a cocoanut tree for some fresh nuts. In a moment half a dozen of the great, oval, green nuts came pounding down into the sand. Another little fellow snatched them up, and with a sharp parang, or hatchet-like knife, cut away the soft shuck until the cocoanut took the form of a pyramid, at the apex of which he bored a hole, and a stream of delicious, cool milk ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... hour of the office the two articled pupils had left and were walking side by side through Bloomsbury. They skirted the oval garden of Bedford Square, which, lying off the main track to the northern termini, and with nothing baser in it than a consulate or so, took precedence in austerity and selectness over Russell Square, which had consented to receive a grand hotel or 'modern caravanserai' and ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... rested upon the most glorious landscape that he had ever beheld. He discovered that the building in which he so strangely found himself stood at one extremity of an enormous, basin-like valley, roughly oval in shape, some thirty miles long by twenty miles in width, completely hemmed in on every side by a range of lofty hills averaging, according to his estimate, from three to four thousand feet in height. The centre of the valley was occupied by a most lovely lake about fifteen ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... I understood. What grace in that beautiful oval! what apprehensiveness in the eye! Such is female Genius; it alone understands the God. The Muses only sang the praises of Apollo; the Sibyls interpreted his will. Nay, she to whom it was offered, refused the divine union, and preferred remaining a satellite to being absorbed ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... blossomed out with the polish of flower-petals. Around her throat she wore gold beads suspending a cross. Her dark hair, which had an elusive bluish mist, like grapes, was pinned high with a gold comb. Her oval face was full of a mature sympathy unusual in girls. Maria had thought at first she would rather be alone on the gallery, but this reposeful and tender French girl at once became ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... branches, Always the free range and diversity—always the continent of Democracy; Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travelers, Kanada, the snows; Always these compact lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing the huge oval lakes; Always the West with strong native persons, the increasing density there, the habitans, friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning invaders; All sights, South, North, East—all deeds, promiscuously done at all times, All characters, movements, growths, a few noticed, myriads ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... his heart beating, it had never beaten so violently before. The young girl sat motionless, leaning with her elbows on the velvet of the box; the light of youth and life played in every feature of her dark, oval, lovely face; subtle intelligence was expressed in the splendid eyes which gazed softly and attentively from under her fine brows, in the swift smile on her expressive lips, in the very pose of her head, her hands, her neck. ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... were merely the best that could be chosen from among the bits of sawn lumber at hand. There was a tiny hole in one side, at the foot, and this larger one in the lid above the dead man's breast, where knots had fallen out with rough handling, leaving oval apertures. The temptation Sissy felt to let her eyes labour painfully over every marking in the wood and round these two holes—playing a sort of sad mechanical game therewith—and her efforts to resist the impulse, made up the only ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... a tight bunch and sat twisting her long thickish fingers. Eve stood up in her tears. Her smile and the curves of her mouth were unchanged by her weeping, and the crimson had spread and deepened a little in the long oval of her face. Miriam watched the changing crimson. Her eyes went to and fro between it and the neatly pinned ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson

... into silence, absorbed in a study of certain salient points of her person—her way of sitting and of folding her hands, her thin, delicately modelled frame, the pallor of her oval face, with its mobile mouth, the singular whiteness of her teeth, and the blue of her eyes, shaded by the cheap, black-straw hat which hid her forehead. Then he glanced at her feet, one of which protruded from her coarse skirt—no larger ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... median is 78.5. One Kalabit is platycephalic, 1 mesocephalic, and 8 hypsicephalic as regards length-height, and all are hypsicephalic as regards breadth-height. Four Kalabits were noted as having oval heads, in 1 the occiput was prominent, 1 ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... is of a flat oval form, furnished with fins, and ending in a long tail; the whole body covered with strong plates which overlap each other, and the head forming only a slight rounded projection from the general figure. The specimens in the lower beds are not above the size ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers

... charming little maiden indeed, in a neat dark costume relieved by a fresh white pinafore. She had deep grey eyes and glossy brown hair falling over her forehead and down her back in soft straight masses, her face was oval rather than round, and slightly serious, though her smile ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... had deepened in her thin, oval face, with its straight brows, and large, grey eyes. Her hair, brushed in fine, high curves back from her forehead, was going grey, like his own, and this greyness made the sudden vivid colour in her cheeks ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... purposes, are very narrow, just wide enough for one carriage or chariot to pass up at a time. They are paved with lava stone, which is bleached white with the rain, and has been preserved so by its long entombment; here and there in the centre are raised oval stones, not interfering with the traffic, and affording convenient stepping-stones to foot-passengers during wet weather. When a chariot entered one of these streets, the word was quickly passed, to prevent another entering at the other end until it had gone through, and ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... of fine eyes, a Grecian nose, and a brilliant complexion. Mr. Wendover was no doubt a great deal too wise to have any serious ideas about such a person as Ida Palliser; but he liked to talk to her, he liked to watch the sensitive colour come and go upon the perfect oval of her cheek, while the dark eye brightened or clouded with every change of feeling; and while he was yielding to these vulgar distractions there was no chance of his falling ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... an oval form, is about seven miles. The longest diameter from Shirland brook to Deritend bridge is about three, and the widest, from the bottom of Walmer Lane to the rivulet, near the mile-stone, upon the ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... Dates are oval in shape, and have a long solid stone. They form the principal food of the inhabitants of some of the eastern countries, and are an important ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... background of white. She saw a slight, graceful figure clad in a tightly fitting black cloth costume, and a mass of flaxen hair beneath a sailor hat, and even as she looked the girl raised her head and stared upward with eager interest. She had a delicate, oval face and grey-blue eyes beneath thoughtful brows, but at the sight of the invalid the whole face flashed into sunshine, and the lips curled into a smile of such irrepressible rejoicing which was more eloquent ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... suffocating smell was experienced, but on approaching the margin the inconvenience was no longer found. The scene that now presented itself is described as of the most appalling nature. The valley is about half a mile in circumference, of an oval shape, about 30 or 35 feet in depth. The bottom of it appeared to be flat, without any vegetation, and a few large stones scattered here and there.—The attention of the party was immediately attracted to the number of skeletons of human beings, tigers, boars, deer, and all sorts of birds ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various

... aggregation of thick, flat, oval leaves, which are joined together by narrow bands of woody fiber and covered with bundles of fine, sharp needles. Its pulp is nutritious and cattle like the young leaves, but will not eat them after they become old and hard unless driven to do so by the pangs of hunger. In Texas ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... and slippers, but above the waist, typifying the meeting of East and West, a somewhat soiled satin blouse which might have been made either in Paris or Vienna. The face was very pretty, regular of feature and oval in contour, but the effect of its beauty was marred by the hair above it, which was dyed with henna a saffron red. But she wore a flower at her breast, and in spite of her artificialities exhaled the gayety of youth. She smiled very ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... descriptions, with a very small quantity of boiled rice, were placed upon the altar of the Goddess of Mercy. These are renewed every evening, and whatever the goddess may leave is the perquisite of the bonzes. On the same altar lay pretty little wooden counters cut in an oval shape, which the Chinese toss up in the air; it is held to be a sign of ill-luck if they fall upon the reverse side, but if they fall upon the other, this is believed to betoken good fortune. The worthy people are in the habit of tossing them up ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... she asked. The servant bowed. The blood in her head buzzing, she nodded, and the man disappeared. Standing there in the bright summer light, Ermentrude Adams saw her face in the oval glass, above the fireplace, saw its pallor, the strained expression of the eyes, and like a drowning person she made a swift inventory of her life, and, with the insane hope of one about to be swallowed up by the waters, she grasped at a solitary straw. Let him come; she would have ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... western entrance presents you with the most perfect view of the choir, a magical circle, or rather oval, flanked by lofty and clustered pillars, and free from the surrounding obstruction of screens, etc. Nothing more airy and more captivating of the kind can be imagined. The finish and delicacy of these pillars are quite surprising. Above, below, around, every thing is ...
— Rouen, It's History and Monuments - A Guide to Strangers • Theodore Licquet

... teeth of variable size; light green, glabrous above, glabrous but sometimes pubescent on ribs and veins below. Cluster small, compact, shouldered; peduncle short. Berries small, black with a heavy blue bloom. Seeds two to four, small, notched, short, plump, with very short beak; chalaza narrowly oval, depressed, indistinct; raphe usually a groove, sometimes distinct. Very variable in flavor ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... growing cube of light, with a dark shape lying huddled in one corner of the floor. A second figure, rapidly taking shape as Anisty's, stood by the controller, braced against the side of the car, one hand on the lever, the other poising a shining thing, the flesh-colored oval of his face turned upwards in a supposititious attempt to discern the location of the ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... of canes, but these were carefully hung with scarlet blankets, sewn together and stretched to the ground, so as to form an even surface. The floor was covered with mats. Upon the walls opposite to each other, so as to throw endless reflection, were two large oval mirrors (girandoles) in gilt metal frames. A photograph of her Majesty the Queen stood ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... an order which he bestows: upon the boys with whom he plays. It is a blue and white ribbon, to which is suspended an enamelled oval plate, representing a star and the tent or pavilion in which he ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... deepens. At last the internal cavity disappears altogether, the inner side of the blastoderm (that which lines the depression) coming to lie close on the outer side. At the same time, the cells of the two sections assume different sizes and shapes; the inner cells are more round and the outer more oval (Figure I). In this way the embryo takes the form of a cup or jar-shaped body, with a wall made up of two layers of cells, the inner cavity of which opens to the outside at one end (the spot where the depression was originally formed). ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel

... part of the buttress-crest still supports a double concentric circle with a maximum diameter of about fifteen feet; the outside is of earth, apparently thrown up for a rampart behind a moat, and the inside is of rough stones. Going south along the dorsum, we found remains of oval foundations; a trench apparently cut in the rock, pottery often an inch and more thick, and broken handmills made of the New Red Sandstone of the Hism. Finally, at the northernmost point, where the cliff-edge falls abruptly, with ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... to where a lovely bluish bird, with a long tail ending in oval disks like tiny tennis racquets, was seated some distance ahead upon a bare branch; but almost as he spoke the bird took flight, and went right on, up the river like a flash ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn

... his penetrating greenish eyes on his companion. Louis Craven was now a tall man with narrow shoulders, a fine oval head and face, delicate features, and a nervous look of short sight, producing in appearance and manner a general impression of thin grace and of a courtesy which was apt to pass unaccountably into sarcasm. Wharton had never felt himself personally at ease with him, either now, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... is a book; but one feels that she is thinking of neither book nor scenery but that her thoughts go back in saudade to the soft air and merry days of Lisbon. It might indeed be a picture of Saudade. There is a slight flush on her pale oval face. Her almond-shaped eyes are grey-green, her nose delicately aquiline. In the eyes and in the general expression there is a look of undeniable sadness. Her dress of plum, cherry-pink, gold and brown gives a gorgeously mellow effect and ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... heard the bell which told them they were not too late. But we took as much pleasure in the people, in the little boys with open, flat Flemish faces and fur collars round their necks, making them look like burgomasters; or the women, whose prim, oval faces, hair strained tightly off the temples, and mouths at once hard, meek, and humorous, exactly reproduced the late mediaeval faces in Memling and ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton

... in his throat, and then he turned the corner of the building and stood in the doorway, the light from the fire playing upon his lithe young figure clothed in its torn and ill fitting suit and upon his oval face and his laughing brown eyes. For several seconds he stood there looking at the men around the fire. None ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... horizontal blue stripe in the center superimposed on a vertical red band, also centered; five white, five-pointed stars are arranged in an oval pattern in the center of the blue band; the five stars represent the five main islands of Bonaire, Curacao, Saba, Sint ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... intellectual lead among the boys, and her uncommon beauty, coupled with the magnetism belonging to her sex, secured for her a popularity which almost amounted to adoration. She was tall for her age, as are most young daughters of Han; and her perfectly oval face, almond-shaped eyes, willow-leaf eyebrows, small, well-shaped mouth, brilliantly white teeth, and raven-black hair, completed a face and figure which would have been noticeable anywhere. By the boys she was ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various

... of this solution on the microscopical slide, adding a drop of very dilute methyl violet solution. Cover with the cover glass and examine under the microscope. The living active cells appear colorless while the decayed and lifeless ones are stained. Yeast cells are circular or oval in shape. (See ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder

... center of the face, not unlike the olfactory organ of a bat. Their ears were placed as are ours, but were of thin, pale parchment, and hugged the side of the head tightly. Instead of a mouth, there was a slightly depressed oval of fluttering skin near the point where the head melted into the rounded body: the rapid fluttering or vibration of this skin produced the whispering sound I have ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... really no "correct" dimensions; any small table is suitable. It ought not to be so high that the hostess seems submerged behind it, nor so small as to be overhung by the tea tray and easily knocked over. It is usually between 24 and 26 inches wide and from 27 to 36 inches long, or it may be oval or oblong. A double-decked table that has its second deck above the main table is not good because the tea tray perched on the upper deck is neither graceful nor convenient. In proper serving, not only of tea but of cold drinks of ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... some callers. It was an informal "At Home" which Mrs. Harrison was giving in honour of her young charge. Soon the rooms were crowded with people, and Virginia, slim, elegant, perfectly gowned, looking like a picture, with her pale oval face and wonderful dark grey eyes, was the centre of a good deal of attention. And in the midst of it all a girl, whom as yet she had not noticed, touched her on the arm and drew her a little away. She started with surprise when she ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... was of middle height, slenderly built, with pale-brown hair, and a delicately white face, of a very perfect oval. She had large, quiet eyes, darker than her hair; features small, yet of a noble outline—strength in refinement. The proud cutting of the nose and mouth gave delight; it was a pride so unconscious, so ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the pictures on page 149 and you have the whole thing in a nutshell. It will be seen that the red corpuscles of the blood of birds, reptiles, and fishes (with the exception of the cyclostomata) are oval, while those of mammalian blood are round. Here is, at once, a sure way of differentiating mammalian blood from that of the other three great classes of animals. The only difficulty is that blood corpuscles get out of shape, under certain circumstances, and are no longer ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various

... plant without a stem (tige),—(see vol. i., p. 154,)—whose height does not surpass one or two decimetres. Its leaves, radical, or carried on stolons, (vol. i., p. 158,) are sharp, or oval, crenulate, or heart-shape. Its stipules are oval-acuminate, or lanceolate. Its flowers, of sweet scent, of a dark violet or a reddish blue, are carried each on a slender peduncle, which bends down at the summit. Such is, for ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... Grandmama first, but sixty-three does not rise from low deck chairs so swiftly as forty-three. So she had to watch her daughter leading her mother, and to note once more with a familiar pang the queer, unmistakable likeness between the smooth, clear oval face and the old wrinkled one, the heavily lashed deep blue eyes and the old faded ones, the elfish, close-lipped, dimpling smile and the old, elfish, thin-lipped, sweet one. Neville, her Neville, flower of her flock, her loveliest, first and best, her dearest but for Jim, her ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... people congregated at the house. It was for the sake of the eighteen-year-old fairy maiden, her niece, whose face was one to haunt a man's dreams. It was not from her features that the witchery emanated, although in shape her face was a faultless oval, her narrow forehead high and well-shaped, her chin powerful. Neither was it from the personality one obtained a glimpse of through her features. The girl's character and mental quality seemed much the same as that of other ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... convinced that we were alone. But suddenly I realized it was not so. The kitchen adjoined an interior back-garden. I could see it through the opened door oval—a dim space of flowers; a little path to a pergola; an adobe fountain. It was a sort of Spanish patio out there, partially enclosed by the wings of the house. Moonlight was struggling into it. And, as I gazed idly, I thought I saw a figure lurking. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... answered and lifted her hand to my lips and then stood utterly still, cold with a sudden, horrible sickness—staring at this white hand, where, amid sparkling gems, I saw the dull oval ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... by a common dynamometer (Fig. 38), which the patient is requested to grasp with all his might. Compressive strength is tested by compressing the oval. In order to test tractive strength, the dynamometer is fastened to a nail at the point C, and the patient pulls with all his strength at D. The effort is registered on a graduated scale and is of importance for detecting left-handedness and measuring ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... and savory, was the prelude at all dinners in New France. A salmon speared in the shallows of the Chaudiere, and a dish of blood-speckled trout from the mountain streams of St. Joachim, smoked upon the board. Little oval loaves of wheaten bread were piled up in baskets of silver filigree. For in those days the fields of New France produced crops of the finest wheat—a gift which Providence has since withheld. "The wheat ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... very much as though a sculptor's finished work had been rudely copied in wood. He was of a larger build than Adriance, and his shoulders were broad and heavy, while those of his brother were slender and rather girlish. His face was of the same oval mold, but it was gray and darkened about the mouth by continual shaving. His eyes were of the same inconstant April color, but they were reflective and rather dull; while Adriance's were always points of highlight, and always meaning another thing than ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... are white, oval and very small. They measure barely two-thirds of a millimetre[8] in length. They stick together slightly and are piled in a shapeless heap which might be likened to a good-sized pinch of the unripe seeds of some orchid. As for their number, I will admit that it tried my patience to no purpose. I ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... right leg and left arm, gives to the body a graceful curve which Praxiteles loved. It is the last stage in the long development of an easy standing pose. The head is of the round Attic form, contrasting with the squarer Peloponnesian type; the face a fine oval. The lower part of the forehead between the temples is prominent; the nose not quite straight, but slightly arched at the middle. The whole expression is one of indescribable refinement and radiance. The hair, short and ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... "The Foulahs are chiefly of a tawny complexion, with silky hair, and pleasing features."—M. D'Avezac says: "In the midst of the Negro races, there stands out a métive (mezzo-termino?) population, of tawny or copper colour, prominent nose, small mouth, and oval face, which ranks itself amongst the white races, and asserts itself to be descended from Arab fathers, and Tawrode(?) mothers. Their crisped hair, and even woolly though long, justifies their classification among the oulotric (woolly-haired) populations; but neither the traits ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... which are such a common motive in Chaldaean architecture. In front of the pavilion, on the balustrade of the staircase, and in the background near a third flight of steps, four isolated columns may be seen, the two former crowned with oval medallions, the two latter with cones. The meaning of these standards—which are copied from the Balawat Gates[245]—is uncertain. In the bas-reliefs in question they are placed before a stele with a rounded top, which is shown at the top of our engraving. This stele bears a figure of the monarch; ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... cemetery. Among others buried there was Laurence Sterne, whose body is said to have been exhumed by body-snatchers. But this ground does not belong to Paddington. In the above-mentioned survey Cambridge Street is Sovereign Street, and the oval piece with Southwick Crescent at one end is Polygon Crescent, a name now ...
— Mayfair, Belgravia, and Bayswater - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... conducted to the Queen's waiting-woman, her appearance fairly startled him. She had been his guest in Kanopus only the day before yesterday, and how great was the alteration within this brief time! Her oval face seemed to have lengthened, the features to have grown sharper; and this woman of seven-and-twenty years, who had hitherto retained all the charms of youth, appeared suddenly to have aged a decade. There was a feverish excitement in her manner, as, holding out ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... before he could reply, I leaned over the chair he had quitted. Lying in the corner of the faded upholstery was an oval of gold. Before he perceived my intention, I had picked it up, and almost at the same moment his hand fell on my arm. I looked up quickly. His face was close to mine, closer than I had ever seen it, placid still, but somehow changed, somehow so subtly different that I wrenched myself free, and ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand

... the ground plan, are Navaho burial cists. West of the large kiva there were two others, less than 20 feet in diameter. One of these was circular; the other was irregular in shape, perhaps more nearly approaching an oval form. At no fewer than five places within the ruin there ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff

... and the two panes were quickly covered with delicately lined oval spots, but visible only to such persons as could get a dark background for them—the foliage of a tree, outside, for instance. Then upon call, Wilson went to the window, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... embryo on one side at the base and the endosperm occupies the remaining portion. The embryo can be made out on the side of the grain facing the glume, as it is outlined as an oval area. On the other face of the grain which is towards the palea, the hilum is seen at the base. The grain varies in shape considerably. It may be rounded, oval, ellipsoidal, narrow and cylindrical, ...
— A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses • Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar

... of the oval spaces, a group of maidens and warriors were gathered to watch a wonderful flower-faced woman play at quoits under the instruction of a noble tutor. At every one of her graceful blunders her laughter rang out in fairy music, which was sweetly ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... One recalls, too, Catharine de' Medici with her squadron, of young and brilliant amazons—Catharine de' Medici who In this palace brought forth her two sons, Francis II, and Henry III. At the end of the oval court is a dome of rich and picturesque construction, called the baptistery of Louis XIII, because that king was baptized there. Then there are the apartments of the queen mothers; Catharine de' Medici, Maria de' Medici, Anne of Austria, and ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... showed ahead. They crawled under low bushes and stumbled out, in what seemed at first a dazzle of light; into a small saucer-shaped plat of earth a few feet across, enclosed by an irregular oval made by great blocks of stone, man-high. Below, a succession of little cliffs fell away, stair fashion, to an exceeding high and narrow gap which separated Little Thumb Butte from its ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... representing a dollar, or about 3s. 7d. of our money; a sen is something less than a halfpenny; a rin is a thin round coin of iron or bronze, with a square hole in the middle, of which 10 make a sen, and 1000 a yen; and a tempo is a handsome oval bronze coin with a hole in the centre, of which 5 make 4 sen. Distances are measured by ri, cho, and ken. Six feet make one ken, sixty ken one cho, and thirty-six cho one ri, or nearly 2.5 English miles. When I write of a road I mean a bridle-path from four to eight feet wide, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... man the Californians, themselves of ampler build than their European ancestors, had ever beheld. Of commanding stature and physique, with an air of highest breeding and repose, he looked both a man of the great world and an intolerant leader of men. His long oval face was thin and somewhat lined, the mouth heavily moulded and closely set, suggestive of sarcasm and humor; the nose long, with arching and flexible nostrils. His eyes, seldom widely opened, were light blue, very keen, usually cold. Like many other men of his position in Europe, he had ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... *The Mouth.*—This is an oval-shaped cavity situated at the very beginning of the canal. It is surrounded by the lips in front, by the cheeks on the sides, by the hard palate above and the soft palate behind, and by the tissues of the lower jaw below. The mucous membrane lining the mouth is, soft and smooth, ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... figures, faces of pure oval, deep eyes with a proud look. They are patient, courageous, ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot

... one teaspoon full of salt; one tablespoonful of melted lard; one large cup of boiling water. Melt the lard in the water. Mix the salt with the meal, and pour on the water, stirring it into a dough. When cool, make either into one large oval cake or two smaller ones, and bake in the oven to a bright brown, which will take about half an hour; or make in small cakes, and bake slowly on a griddle, browning well on each side. Genuine hoe-cake is baked before an ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell

... not allow his emotion to be seen. He turned round and faced her gravely. Now, for the first time, he did not hesitate to look at her. And while he spoke the words he set himself to speak, he noticed the exquisite oval of her face, her charming, soft ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham

... historians said of Pius X.; the lids drew straight lines across them, giving him the look of a hawk, but the rest of the face contradicted them. There was no sharpness in that. It was neither thin nor fat, but beautifully modelled in an oval outline: the lips were clean-cut, with a look of passion in their curves; the nose came down in an aquiline sweep, ending in chiselled nostrils; the chin was firm and cloven, and the poise of the whole head was strangely youthful. It was a ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... almost circular and quite deep spoon. Therefore it is obvious that the soup should be noiselessly sipped from the side of it. When the oval dessert spoon is used for soup, it is especially necessary to sip ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway

... as wide as a boy's wrist! We said just now that Nature was full of surprises. Is it not surprising to find a gigantic Whale feeding in this way! Inside the great mouth the Remora? or Sucking Fish, is often found. This fish has an oval sucker on its head, by which it fixes itself to Whales, or even to the hull of a ship. It has fins, and can swim perfectly well, but prefers to ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith

... Indian and negro. It is often said that this class of mestizos is the most evilly-disposed of all the numerous crosses between the races inhabiting Brazil; but Luiz was a simple, good-hearted fellow, always ready to do one a service. The pilot was an old Tapuyo of Para, with regular oval face and well-shaped features. I was astonished at his endurance. He never quitted the helm night or day, except for two or three hours in the morning. The other Indians used to bring him his coffee and meals, and after breakfast ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... to get such and such a hat?" or, "Have you seen the new gloves with the oval pearl buttons?" were but sample phrases ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... wet season might well be; hers scantily freighted, but every nut round, full, and glossy, perfect from its cruel husk, a specimen, a type of its kind. And on the handle of the basket hung a little kid glove. I looked at it closely; the tiny finger-tops and oval nails had left light creases on the delicate leather, and an indescribable perfume, in which violet predominated, drove away the vile animal scent that pervades such gloves. I flung ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... Norrland and the narrow strip of Finnish soil which remains to Sweden, there has been no perceptible assimilation of the two races. At Nasby, all is pure Swedish; at Sangis, twelve miles distant, everything is Finnish. The blue eyes and fair hair, the lengthened oval of the face, and slim, straight form disappear. You see, instead, square faces, dark eyes, low foreheads, and something of an Oriental fire and warmth in the movements. The language is totally dissimilar, ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... sprinkled a shower of water-drops from her fingers' ends, and the fourth had some other oddity, which I have forgotten), all these followed behind, and hurried the guests along, until they entered a magnificent saloon. It was built in a perfect oval, and lighted from a crystal dome above. Around the walls were ranged two and twenty thrones, overhung by canopies of crimson and gold, and provided with the softest of cushions, which were tasseled and fringed with gold cord. Each of the strangers ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... different with Holly, soft and quiet, shy and affectionate, with a playful imp in her somewhere. He watched this younger daughter of his through the duckling stage with extraordinary interest. Would she come out a swan? With her sallow oval face and her grey wistful eyes and those long dark lashes, she might, or she might not. Only this last year had he been able to guess. Yes, she would be a swan—rather a dark one, always a shy one, but an authentic swan. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... about an inch in length. They are oval in shape, have a light bluish ground, and are marbled, lined and blotched with markings of light ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous

... objects of engrossing interest are still far off in the distance. Staffa, the smaller and nearer of the two, presents but an unimposing front from the quarter by which we approach, being oval in form, low, and with a gently undulating surface, in which respect it does not differ materially, except in its dimensions, from the inferior islands among which we are steering our course, and which, cold, bald, and of a monotonous and desolate uniformity, betray their near relationship to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... her harsh, enticing whisper, subdued, not very steady, but its low tremulousness gave me no thrill now. I could only make out the oval of her face, her uncovered throat, the long, white gleam of her eyes. She was mysterious enough. Her hands were resting on the arms of the chair. But where was the mysterious and provoking sensation which was like ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... listened, open-eyed and wondering. The spray of lilac fell from his hand upon the gravel. A furry bee came and buzzed round it for a moment. Then it began to scramble all over the oval stellated globe of the tiny blossoms. He watched it with that strange interest in trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import make us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion for which we cannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays sudden siege ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde

... paid in hides delivered at Whoop-Up. West turned and went straddling to the place where he and Morse had left their horses. On the way he came face to face with a girl, a lithe, dusky young creature, Indian brown, the tan of a hundred summer suns and winds painted on the oval of her lifted chin. She was carrying a package of sacks to the place where the pemmican ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... construct a sort of series, illustrating better than anything else Leonardo's type of womanly beauty. Daughters of Herodias, with their fantastic head-dresses knotted and folded so strangely to leave the dainty oval of the face disengaged, they are not of the Christian family, or of Raffaelle's. They are the clairvoyants, through whom, as through delicate instruments, one becomes aware of the subtler forces of nature, and the modes of their action, all that is magnetic ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater

... the strange position of this hoary island-citadel (a metropolis, already, in neolithic days). It is of oval shape, the broad sides washed by the Ionian Sea and an oyster-producing lagoon; bridges connect it at one extremi-y with the arsenal or new town, and at the other with the so-called commercial quarter. It is as if some precious gem were set, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... named, without reason, the School of Homer. It is on the coast, at some distance from the city, northward, and appears to have been an open temple of Cybele, formed on the top of a rock. The shape is oval, and in the centre is the image of the goddess, the head and an arm wanting. She is represented, as usual, sitting. The chair has a lion carved on each side, and on the back. The area is bounded by a low rim, or seat, and about five yards over. The whole ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... cut to fit the conical figure of the poles, with an opening above, to let out smoke and admit the light. From this opening down to the door the two edges of the tent were brought close together and well secured with wooden pegs about six inches long, leaving for the door an oval aperture about two feet wide and three feet high, below which the edges were secured with similar pegs. This small entrance did well enough for the natives, who would be brought up to it from infancy, but a European might be puzzled to get through, as a piece of hide stretched upon ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... to the corner of either eye, left a white triangle whose apex pointed to the highest reach of the forehead. Thus the face, in all its contour, was rising, or falling, to a point. This sharpness of feature was in her verylaugh itself; while in that hair-encircled oval was the light of elfish mockery, but of ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis

... the broad flight of steps in order to obtain a good view of the grotto, an oval opening in the rocks made to look like a stalactite cave, with scores and hundreds of ex-votos in the shape of crutches. Judging from this display, there should be no more lame folks left in France. The Virgin of Lourdes must have healed ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... hydrate (1 ounce) may be given in water by the mouth. Fomentations of warm water may be made over the loins and between the thighs, and the oiled hand inserted into the rectum may press moderately on the anterior part of the bladder, which can be felt as an elastic fluctuating bag of an oval ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... assembled—to the number of several hundreds—in front of the Englishmen's hut, where the Captain was seen calmly seated on a packing-case, with a solemn expression on his face. The rest of his party had been warned to behave with dignity. Even Benjy's round face was drawn into something of an oval, and Butterface made such superhuman attempts to appear grave, that the rest of the party almost broke down ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... with trembling hands, did Brandon toss over the motley contents of the mahogany reservoirs which the pawnbroker now submitted to his scrutiny. Nothing on earth is so melancholy a prospect as a pawnbroker's drawer! Those little, quaint, valueless ornaments,—those true-lovers' knots, those oval lockets, those battered rings, girdled by initials, or some brief inscription of regard or of grief,—what tales of past affections, hopes, and sorrows do they not tell! But no sentiment of so general a sort ever saddened the hard mind of William Brandon, and now less than at any ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... which has valuable medicinal uses, in both external and internal application. This oil sometimes serves to give light, but the light is dim, and to anoint the hoofs of horses. It blooms in November, the flowers growing in bunches of seven or nine each; and its leaf is oval and tapering. The wood is light, exceedingly tough, and reddish in color. It is very plentiful in the Visayas, and generally grows close to the water. It is known by a number of different names, among them being bitanhol ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various

... her feet. The figure beside her was one whose marvelous beauty riveted the gaze of all who chanced to see her. The child could have been but a few months older than Lillian, yet the brilliant black eyes, the peculiar curve of the dimpled mouth, and long, dark ringlets, gave to the oval face a maturer and more piquant loveliness. The cast of Claudia's countenance bespoke her foreign parentage, and told of the warm, fierce Italian blood that glowed in her cheeks. There was fascinating grace in every movement, even in the easy indolence of her position, as she bent on one ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... casement's guled quarterings.— Beside her couch, an antique table, weighed With gold and crystal; here, a carven chair, Whereon her raiment,—that suggests sweet curves Of shapely beauty,—bearing her limbs' impress, Is richly laid: and, near the chair, a glass, An oval mirror framed in ebony: And, dim and deep,—investing all the room With ghostly life of woven women and men, And strange fantastic gloom, where shadows live,— Dark tapestry,—which in the gusts—that twinge A grotesque cresset's slender star of light— Seems moved of cautious hands, ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein

... rolling-pin must not be used—to about the thickness of a quart pot; leave a little for the covers, and cut the remainder into six circular discs. Take each of these pieces in succession; put one hand in the middle, and keep the other close on the outside till you have worked it either into an oval ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... oval shape, about ten inches long and four or five thick. It was of a mottled-gray colour, and had a thick rind. We found it somewhat like an Irish potato, and exceedingly good. The yam was roundish, and had a rough brown skin. It was very sweet and well- flavoured. The potato, we were surprised to find, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... suppose that she was an ugly, cross-looking old woman. She was neither ugly, nor old, nor cross. When she had married Mr. Bolton, she had been quite young, and now she was not much past forty. And she was handsome too, with a fine oval face which suited well with the peculiar simplicity of her dress and the sober seriousness of her gait and manner. It might, perhaps, be said of her that she tried to look old and ugly,—and cross too, but that she did not succeed. She now greeted her visitor very coldly, and having asked after ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... subdued brilliancy of nature's most perfect growing things. It was in the deep clear eyes, in the satin sheen of her bare shoulders under the sordid gaslight; it was in the strong smooth lips, delicately shaded from salmon colour to the faintest peach-blossom; it was in the firm oval of her face, in the well-modelled ear, the straight throat and the curving neck; it was in her graceful attitude; it was everywhere. 'No doubt,' the ghosts might have said, 'there are more beautiful women in England than this one, but surely there is none more like a thoroughbred ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... to die in his defence. His portrait has been sketched for us at this time by the Dominican Friar, Padre Alberto Gugliel-motto, author of "La guerra dei Pirati e la marina Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560." The description runs thus: "Andrea Doria was of lofty stature, his face oval in shape, forehead broad and commanding, his neck was powerful, his hair short, his beard long and fan-shaped, his lips were thin, his ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... Only the oval of the schooner's broad bilge showed above water, and the old Polly was so flat and tubby that their floating ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... those preserved fruits which generally appear about Christmas-time in oval cardboard or long wooden boxes? Have you ever wondered if they are real fruit, and where they come from? They are real fruit, boiled and dipped in syrup, though they taste very different from the same fruit freshly gathered. A great deal of the preserving ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... had become softer, freer, brighter. The unrest in which her face had heretofore been clouded had disappeared. Even the outlines of her face seemed to have changed: the arch of her eyebrows was higher, the oval of ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... nice," she said, and wondered why she had been singled out for the favour. She opened the package. In a small carton, carefully wrapped in the thinnest of paper, was an oval tablet of lavender-coloured soap that ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... of his visit—and instantly he whistled a rather surprised little whistle under his breath. How alluringly Helena's brown hair coiled in wavy wealth upon her head; there wasn't any need of rouge for color in the oval face; the dark eyes were soft and deep and glorious; and she sat there in a little white muslin frock as dainty as a medallion from a ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard

... this honorable alliance, Jabel took out his account-book and absently cast up the additions, and so the long delay at Baltimore caused no remarks and the landscapes slipped by until, like the sharp oval of a colossal egg, the dome of the Capitol arose above the vacant lots of the ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... see her now—the picture was so pretty! Her hair was dark brown and waved naturally away from her forehead, making her face rather oval than round; her gray eyes were clear and large, and, when she was not smiling or talking, there was a serious shadow far down in them. She had a dear little mouth, and I liked to make her laugh that I might see the dimples come and go ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... in an oval rocky basin hidden by bushes, and flows down among the brushwood to join the Nahr el-Hasbany, which brings the waters of the upper torrents to swell its stream; a little lower down it mingles with the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... thrust aside, and to Turners astonishment, a girl's face peered round it. A beautiful girl's face too, the like of which he had not seen for many a year, if indeed, he had ever seen one like it before; a face with oval, liquid dark eyes in whose depths a light lay hidden, with full red pouting lips, and a broad low brow half hidden by heavy masses of dark, untidy hair, which fell in picturesque confusion over it. A beautiful face in shape and form, ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt

... and window-sills and the white fan over the door gave a certain effect of clean linen that was singularly pleasing. The young doctor, unlike Doctor Johnson, had a passion for clean linen. The knocker, too, was of the graceful long oval shape he liked, and burnished to the last point of perfection, and the shining windows were so placed as to give an air of cheerful interrogation ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards

... situated near the end of West Street, it is peculiarly neat, both as respects its external and interior appearance: an inscription upon an oval tablet in front, informs us, that it was erected by voluntary subscription in the year 1814. At the distance of about a hundred yards from the above, is the Roman Catholic chapel, with an embattled front surmounted by a cross: service is ...
— The History and Antiquities of Horsham • Howard Dudley

... one." She seemed to be holding her lustrous blonde head carefully centered in the oval between the "thin one's" green-and-yellow plumage. She looked like a ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... and I saw that it held a picture, an oval miniature in a fine gold frame. My mind was all on fire for the black eyes of piratical Barbara and my blood was tingling to a gipsy tune, but as I stared at the image in my comrade's palm my mind was ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... it is usually called—the Protestant Cemetery, as it should be called—is an oval garden of death in the Piazza Donatello, at the end of the Via di Pinti and the Via Alfieri, rising up from the boulevard that surrounds the northern half of Florence. (The new Protestant Cemetery is outside the city on the road to the Certosa.) I ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... her feet as he did so, and their eyes met. He would have known her anywhere, in spite of the nine years since he had seen her. The small oval of the sparkling gypsy face, the fine features, so mobile and piquant, he instantly recognized from the portrait painted in undying colors upon his ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... Friedrichstrasse there is another place, called the Admiralspalast, which is even more attractive. Here, inclosing a big, oval-shaped ice arena, balcony after balcony rises circling to the roof. On one of these balconies you sit, and while you dine and after you have dined you look down on a most marvelous series of skating stunts. In rapid ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... these little creatures lack a beauty of their own. Their minute shields of pure translucent silex are elaborately wrought in microscopic symbols of mimic heraldry. They are the chivalry of the deep, the tiny knights with lance and cuirass, and oval bossy shield carved in quaint conceits and ornamental fashion. Nor must we despise them when we reflect upon their power of accretion. The Gallionellae, invisible to the naked eye, can, of their heraldic shields and flinty armor, make two cubic feet ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various



Words linked to "Oval" :   rounded, elliptic, oval window, conic, oval-fruited, oviform, circle, oval-shaped, elliptical, prolate, oval-bodied, ovoid, conic section



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