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Pedal   Listen
noun
Pedal  n.  
1.
(Mech.) A lever or key acted on by the foot, as in the pianoforte to raise the dampers, or in the organ to open and close certain pipes; a treadle, as in a lathe or a bicycle.
2.
(Geom.) A pedal curve or surface.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pedal" Quotes from Famous Books



... convenience of work the blowpipe should be mounted on a special table connected up with cylindrical bellows operated by a pedal. That figured (Fig. 12) is made by mounting a teak top 60 cm. square upon the uprights of an enclosed double-action concertina bellows (Enfer's) and provided with a Fletcher's Universal ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... Joe Harris raved at this announcement, might be too strong a word. But it is not too much to say that her springy foot (Joe had not the proverbially "little" one of the novelists, but a very well-shaped pedal of the Arab pattern, under the sole of which water could have run with as much freedom as under the Starucca Viaduct or the High Bridge), patted the hall floor with vexation, impatience and "botheration." There was not much use in blurting out her vexation before a servant, ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... footsteps, we have been routed night after night from our warm quarters, in the dead of winter, to kindle fires and fill frosty kettles from water-pails thickly crusted with ice, that we might get the writhing pedal extremities of our little heir into a tub of water as quickly as possible. But lately we have learned that all this work and exposure is needless. We simply wring a towel from salted water—a bowl of it standing in our sleeping ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... playing the piano downstairs, I wonder? With the soft pedal down, some one is trying over that gavotte of Rameau's, so full of bewitching melancholy, that I was playing just now. Who can it be? Francesca came up with me—it ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... hour he spent on Sweet Sorrow laid over anything that the town had ever seen for sadness. Put 'em through every stage of grief from the snuffles to the snorts. Doc always was a pretty noisy preacher, but he began work on that head with soft-pedal-tremolo-stop preaching and wound up with a peroration like a steamboat explosion. Started with his illustrations dying of consumption and other peaceful diseases, and finished up with railroad wrecks. He'd been at it two hours when he got through burying the victims of his ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... flowers in the room and the perfume of heliotrope and roses filled the air. The piano was open and on it one of the popular songs of the day; a loud, garish thing. Ethel liked what she called "bright music;" on the keys lay a tumbled lace handkerchief, and on the floor, close to the pedal of the instrument, was a man's ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland

... feet. It was his way of praying. I timed him with a stop watch, and he made 1,244 revolutions in 24 minutes and 46 seconds. It seemed a pity to have all this power going to waste. It was one of the most useful motions in mechanics, the pedal movement; so I made a note in my memorandum book, purposing some day to apply a system of elastic cords to him and run a sewing machine with it. I afterward carried out that scheme, and got five ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... contemplative and ever-sagacious Tomlinson tossed off his bumper; and the pair, having kindly rolled by pedal applications the body of Long Ned into a safe and quiet corner of the room, mounted the stairs, arm-in-arm, in search of ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... should not be absolutely erect, but leaning slightly forward, so as to allow the weight to be distributed between the handle-bars, the pedal, and the saddle. This slightly inclined attitude also maintains the proper and harmonious relation of the internal organs, so that the bowels do not crowd down ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... of the mouth, in talking, was produced by a long tape, running down to a pedal, which was controlled by the foot of the performer. And the smile consisted of long strips of red tape, which were drawn out through slits at the corners of the mouth by means of threads which passed through holes in the sides ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

... to the devout women. As if for the fun of it, these two used to beat each other up beautifully, giving free shows to the neighborhood with vocal and instrumental accompaniments, four-handed, soft, loud, with pedal and all. ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... was that Oncle Jazon overreached himself. He was so delighted at Kenton's luck that he broke forth giggling and thereby drew against his own ribs a considerable improvement of Long-Hair's pedal applications. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... cloth after freedom. Used to give a brooch (hank) or two to weave at night. I'se sometimes thread de needle for my Ma, or pick out de seed out de cotton, an' make it into rolls to spin. Sometimes I'd work de foot pedal for my Ma. Den dey'd warp de thread. If she want to dye it, she'd dye it. She'd get indigo—you know dat bush—an' boil it. It was kinder blue. It would make good cloth. Sometimes, de cloth wuz ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... hands; but they won't do if you're depending on your head or your feet. If one end of you gets tangled, so does the other. That's why beer and cigarettes don't hurt piano players and picture painters. But you've got to cut 'em out if you want to do mental or pedal work. Now, have a cracker, and then ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... arranged a flexible fan whose handle is fixed near a pulley. A small piece of lead forms the counterpoise of the fan, which is thus completely balanced. Over the pulley runs a cord, each end of which is attached to a pedal. It will be seen that the alternate motion of these pedals must cause a rotation of the pulley in one direction or the other, and that consequently the fan will rise or fall more or less rapidly, and give a quantity of air that varies according to the rapidity ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various

... couple of conversations on their own hook—kind of side issue, soft pedal dialogues—and they wa'n't takin' the slightest notice of my brilliant efforts. At the other end of the table Sadie is havin' more or less the same experience; for every time she tries to cut in with some cheerful observation she finds she's addressin' either ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... in his limbs, and Doctor Shaw's in her head, let the preacher run the sewing machine and Doctor Shaw preach the gospel of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come. If God fitted Anna Shaw's brain and tongue for the platform, it would be unwomanly in her to make herself the pedal power of a sewing machine. We want successful, useful men and women; and in fields for which God has fitted woman, don't be afraid to give her the freest, broadest liberty, or be uneasy about her unsexing herself. She has entered two hundred fields in the last one hundred years. ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... in a motor with a man once. I said to him: 'What would happen if you trod on that pedal thing instead of that other pedal thing?' He said, 'I couldn't. One's the foot-brake, and the other's the accelerator.' 'But suppose you did?' I said. 'I wouldn't,' he said. 'Now we'll let her rip.' So he stamped on the accelerator. Only it turned out to be the foot-brake after all, ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... weather and labored out a ponderous joke or two about such a bad-tempered man having such a good-looking wife—for which I despised them all. But I could see that even if my intrusion had put the soft pedal on their talk it had also left everything uncomfortably tentative and non-committal. For some reason or other this was a man's fight, one which had to be settled in a man's way. So I decided to retire ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer

... unlucky burgher had found his way into a group of students and was being made the butt of a good-humoured jest. And beneath the high, laughing tones, the perpetual hum of a thousand talking voices neither rose nor fell, but droned unceasingly like the long pedal in a fugue, whose full deep note stands still amidst the strife of moving sounds, as the sun stood while the battle was fought out in Ajalon. The very life of the multitude seemed to produce a sound of its own, in the breathing of a thousand ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... foot on the soft pedal, that none might hear her, Sissy played. It was dark and very quiet; the hush-hush of the throbbing mines filled the night and stilled it. At times her heart stood still for fear that she might be discovered; at other times the longing for a sensational uncovering of her belated ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... the many acidities of evaporating perfume; the sugary sweetness of the blondes, the salt flavours of the brunettes, and this allegro movement of odours was interrupted suddenly by the garlicky andante, deep as the pedal notes of an organ, that the perspiring armpits of a ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... alone or in connection with each other. Four manuals, or hand key-boards, and two pedals, or foot key-boards, command these several systems,—the solo organ, the choir organ, the swell organ, and the great organ, and the piano and forte pedal-organ. Twelve pairs of bellows, which it is intended to move by water-power, derived from the Cochituate reservoirs, furnish the breath which pours itself forth in music. Those beautiful effects, for which the organ is incomparable, the crescendo and diminuendo,—the gradual ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... had finished with the couple and they moved down the aisle to what the paper called the "Bridle March, by Lohengrin," Mr. Maugans always craned his neck to see and usually put his foot on the wrong pedal, with the startling effect of firing a ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... holes in the roof—er, I mean, maybe you'll be disappointed with the lay-out! What's the blithering sense of being in such a consuming fever about moving the fiendish furniture? I'm certain you'll hate the very sight of this corn-crib out among the ant hills. Can't you back-pedal on the furniture gag and give yourself a chance to hear the answer to ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh

... would be nearer the mark to say, since you began by being so plain-spoken, that you came here to ask me to give you my husband," I retorted as quietly as I could, not because I preferred the soft pedal, but because I nursed a strong suspicion that Struthers' attentive ear was just below ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... this intelligence knew no bounds. He dreamed of those shoes at night, and they formed the theme of his conversation by day. His sister, who was the oldest of the children, had been the happy possessor of three pairs of shoes, and she often discussed knowingly the good qualities of pedal coverings and of their advantages in travelling through brambles or over stones. Often as he contemplated his scratched, chapped and bruised feet, the child had asked himself if it were possible that he should ever be able to afford ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... suppose the nest was made of? Bits of felt and soft leather from the hammers and pedal; and the mouse had gnawed in two most of the strips of leather that pull back the hammers! So, when the piano had been fixed, there was a pretty heavy bill ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... the piano, and began softly playing, with the hush-pedal on. The two women drew close around her. Suddenly she released the pedal, and lifted her hands from the keys, as if they burned her. One string was still faintly singing which she had not touched, the string of the key that the Commandant ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason

... window, as the smoke of their pipes and cigars floated up lazily to the ceiling above. The gentle hum of the traffic made a pleasant accompaniment to their conversation, as the holding down of a soft pedal fills in and supports dreamy organ music. But for the six young men in the bow window the room was untenanted, save for a waiter who had just brought some fresh drinks, and who was now clearing away empty ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts

... She pressed down the pedal and bent over the wheel as if urging the machine to its utmost. Then there was jolt—a roar! a bang! ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose

... toe was presented to us for adoration, but as we did not seem to "ad," he withdrew his pedal attachment and talked about the "relics" ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... see enough to convince me that the ramifications of your society are like a net-work of wires, all over the earth, penetrating everywhere, and at every point touching the most deadly explosives of human passions and hates; and that it needs but the pressure of your finger upon the pedal to blow up the world. The folly of centuries has culminated in the most terrible organization that ever grew out of the wretchedness of mankind. But oh, my friend—you have a broad mind and a benevolent soul—tell me, is there no remedy? Cannot the ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... motion songs is outgrown, especially with boys. During many years there has remained in memory the expression in the face of a boy, head and shoulders taller than any other child in the primary department, as he stood pointing to pedal extremities, not less than number fours, and singing, "Little feet, be very careful where you take me to." The sentiment could not possibly have been wrung from him had not the ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux

... was meant, the boys threw themselves down upon the ground and gave way to merriment that was none the less overpowering because it had to be indulged in "with the soft pedal on," ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler

... the same bars for the second time. He was still able to sustain, if it were necessary, a quavering, imperfect phrase. But John delivered the second repetition without a mistake, singing easily from the chest. The master put his foot upon the soft pedal. Nobody was watching him. Had any one done so, he would have seen the perspiration break upon the musician's forehead. The piano purred its accompaniment. Then, in the middle of the phrase, the master lifted his hands and held them ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... chaste modulation Hastens adown to subdominant key, Where melody mellow-like Singing so 'cello-like Rises and falls in a wild ecstasy. Scarce is this finished When chords all diminished Break loose in a patter that comes down like rain, A pedal-point wonder Rivaling thunder. Now all is mad agitation again. Like laughter jolly Begins the finale; Again does the 'cello its tones seem to lend Diminuendo ad molto crescendo. Ah! Rubinstein only could make such ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson

... somewhat. The young inventor was so surprised that he did not open the gasolene throttle, nor switch on his spark. As a consequence his motor-cycle lost momentum, and he had to take one foot from the pedal and touch the ground, to prevent himself from ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton

... shoes has rubbed my heel till it's sore," fretted Steve, taking off his shoe to sympathetically rub that portion of his pedal extremity. "If I expect to be able to toddle around, and have any sort of fun while we're up here I ought to keep quiet the balance of the day; and also put some sort of lotion on my heel ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton

... line with that distant planet and Seaton stepped down hard, upon a pedal. Instantly they seemed infinite myriads of miles out in space, the green system barely visible as a faint ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... to say," groaned Jennie. "There ain't any such an animal! You know that in this day and generation shoe makers have ceased to make sensible shoes. I look at 'em in the shop windows," pursued the aching girl, "and I wonder what sort of foot the human pedal extremity will become in a generation or two. ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson

... must be provided for releasing all the dampers from the strings at the will of the performer. The loud pedal, as it is called, but more properly, the damper pedal, accomplishes this end by raising the dampers ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer

... settle it now. You began it, and I want it finished now," I added, cracking the whip once more in the neighborhood of his pedal extremities. ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic

... the reply, "by means of a pedal attachment a fulcrumed lever concerts a vertical reciprocating motion into a circular movement. The principal part of the machine is a huge disk that revolves in a vertical plane. Power is applied through the axis of the disk, and work is done on the periphery, ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... wish to bear too hard on this pedal. It is easier to look at things from the commonplace standpoint. One thing or another prevented any of my companions in the jail from doing what it was desirable to do, and circumstances quite unforeseen ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... and 'companies' where you sat around and were bored until somebody proposed playing 'The Prince of Paris Lost his Hat' or some game like that. When the old folks went to bed, our hostess would find a pack of cards—authors, most likely—or play a waltz on the soft pedal for two couples to dance. Wholesome but ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... but, as if recollecting himself, he suddenly stammered out something about the necessity of changing his boots, and limped off accordingly for that purpose. He was not gone more than five minutes, but in that time had contrived not only to supply his pedal deficiency, but also to take a drink by way of calming himself; and after the drink he took a turn with Miss Friskin, and whirled her about the room, till he knocked over two or three innocent bystanders, all of which tended very much to compose his ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... proceeded to the creations of the poet. Some maintained the justness of Shakspear's delineations of aerial beings, while others denied it. By no violent transition, Ariel and his songs were introduced, and a lady, celebrated for her musical skill, was solicited to accompany her pedal harp with the song of "Five fathom deep thy father lies"... She was known to have set, for her favourite instrument, all ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown

... and "breath," and "smiles," and "Eden zephyrs," "sighs of seraph lovers," and "lyres of slumbering cherubs," dancing away to "the Pedal Harp!" How strange it is that Thomson, in his stanzas on the AEolian lyre (see the 'Castle of Indolence'), never dreamed of such things, but left all these prettinesses to the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... not watch the conducting-stick has no conductor. Often, after a pedal-point for instance, the conductor is obliged to refrain from marking the decisive gesture which is to determine the coming in of the orchestra until he sees the eyes of all the performers fixed upon him. It is the duty of the conductor, during rehearsal, ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz

... saw the corporal at the gate repeat the gesture; then a big bicycle corps, four abreast, guns on their backs, slid round the corner and came gliding down the hill. There was not a sound, not the rattle of a chain or a pedal. ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich

... story, so sure were they of its impossibility. Galvani, however, had noticed that the maximum effect was produced when a metallic arc, of tin and copper, was brought into contact with the lumbar nerves and pedal extremities of a frog. Then the animal would be violently convulsed. The observer believed this came from a nervous fluid, and so he lost the advantage of his observations. It was reserved for Volta ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various

... produced the curious effect of a man stumping about on his heels! To overcome this difficulty the heels of the feet were made to project almost as much behind as the toes did in front somewhat after the pattern of Ebony's pedal arrangements, as Rosco remarked when they were being fitted on for another trial. At last, by dint of perseverance, the wooden legs were perfected, and Rosco re-acquired the art of walking to such perfection, that he was to be seen, almost at all times and in all weathers, stumping ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne

... the explosion chamber, the magnet flashes its sparks to ignite it, the cooling water bathes the hot walls of the cylinders—a thing of nerves, and ganglions, and tireless muscles is panting eagerly at your service. You move this lever, you press your foot lightly on this pedal; the engine transfers its power to the wheels; you move. The carriage with you and your friends is borne at railway speed across continents. You can hurl yourself at sixty miles an hour along the great highroads, you can crawl like a worm through ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... opposite side of the frame, and upon the fixed uprights. It is really a velocipede, one of the pedals of which is movable upon the winch, and is capable of running from the axle to the extremity, as in the upper apparatus. This pedal has the form of a shoe, and is provided with two straps to keep the foot in place and cause it to follow the pedal in its rotary motion. A movable seat, capable of rising and descending and moving backward ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... The boilers stand 1 ft. 9 in. apart, thus affording space between them for the motive machinery, including the pump. The crank axle is behind the boilers. The levers, the injector, the access to the fire-box, a pedal for working the engine brake as well as a screw brake for the carriage, are all in front. The brakes act on all six wheels, are worked by the driver, and the whole weight of the engine, car, and passengers ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various

... "Get out of the way!" a voice shrieked "out of the way, out of the way, OUT OF THE WAY!" Her heart lurched, her stomach twisted convulsively, and there was a brassy taste in her mouth. Instinctively, she stamped down on the brake pedal, swerved sharply into the outer lane. By the time she had topped the rise, she was going a cautious 50 miles an hour and hugging the far edge of the freeway. Then, and only then, she heard the squeal of agonized tires and saw ...
— The Sound of Silence • Barbara Constant

... who was noted for laziness and shirking his duty, and had just been adding to his reputation for such, a battalion adjutant, a tall and handsome fellow with a slight partiality for legs, came dashing up on a native pony. His knees were bent and elevated toward his chin in order that his pedal extremities might not collide with the frail limbs of his ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves

... the characteristic utterance of her old friend Mrs. Yellett. The matriarch had sustained a breakdown, and arrived, in consequence, when the dance was half over, but she was philosophical, as always, in the face of misfortune, and loudly attested her pleasure in the renowned pedal feats of her ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... She smiled a little and immediately burst into energetic melody. There was a great deal more clapping when she finished, and when this was over, as an encore, she gave a piece which imitated the sea; there were little trills to represent the lapping waves and thundering chords, with the loud pedal down, to suggest a storm. After this a gentleman sang a song called Bid me Good-bye, and as an encore obliged with Sing me to Sleep. The audience measured their enthusiasm with a nice discrimination. Everyone was applauded till he gave an encore, and so that there might be ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... forward in the middle of the road. He was too gentle and considerate to quote Voltaire and Rousseau at inopportune times, and she sustained and encouraged his mental independence. All of which is here voiced with one foot on the soft pedal, and with no thought of putting forth an argument to the effect that young gentlemen with liberal views should marry ladies who belong to the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... political and financial powers of the city that they did not dare to come out openly and say what they thought. The chief facts had already been in the hands of the various editors and publishers for a week and more, but word had gone around from Mollenhauer, Simpson, and Butler to use the soft pedal for the present. It was not good for Philadelphia, for local commerce, etc., to make a row. The fair name of the city would be smirched. It was the ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... the motorbike pedal. He swung on down the winding mountain road for the lowlands. He went into a relatively small town. He bought a pup-tent, pliers, a small camp-stove; a camp-lantern; food; ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster

... sound vibration caused him a sorry loss of sleep," said the tutor. "But certainly his later results were worth the amount of rest he sacrificed. One of the first agencies he employed to work upon was a piano. Have you ever tried singing a note into this instrument when the sustaining pedal is depressed? Do it some time and notice what happens. You will find that the string tuned to the pitch of your voice will start vibrating while all the others remain quiet. You can even go farther and try the experiment of uttering several different pitches, if you want to, and the corresponding ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... "That she has nothing left for anything else? Of course she hasn't. To whom do you say it? High-strung? Don't I spend my life, for them, jamming down the pedal? I see moreover how it has told ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... banisters; he was racing out of the hotel. He ran to the coach-house, wheeled his bicycle into the courtyard, mounted, and rode down the street. He went at a moderate pace through the town, but once on the Corniche road, he drove the machine as hard as he could pedal. ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... and the most beautiful melody of bells I ever heard is toning through the air. They are the bells of S. Michael's church, and I am told that the musician plays them by a set of pedal keys, and works himself into a mighty heat and flurry in the operation. But we cannot think of the wild manner and mad motions of the player in connection with those beautiful sounds, so clear and melodious; that half plaintive music so sweetly measured. They ring ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... little scraps o' red flannel an' leather, an' pegs an' bits o' iron that didn't look as if it had ever been any part o' the machine. It was the dernedest mess! I picked up somethin' Jess said was a pedal,—a little piece o' shiny iron about as long as that,—'n' that was the only thing that seemed to have any shape left to it. The litter didn't make any pile at all—jest a lot o' siftin' sawdust-stuff scattered aroun' on ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... machine flying noiselessly along and gathering pace every yard. I had nearly reached the bottom and was just getting ready to pedal, when all of a sudden, I caught sight of something that almost paralyzed me. Right ahead, in the centre of the village square, stood a prison warder. His back was towards me and I could see the moonlight gleaming on the barrel ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges

... under your ears dear," she ordered, "my pillows aren't unpacked yet and you may find Neddie's last year tacks in that burlap. There now, you look almost human. But the wistful whimper lingers. Jane, what has happened? You are simply smothered in the soft pedal. Tell your Judy all about ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... been studying the exhibits in the distillery got the idea in his head that my foot was the loud pedal on a piano and he started to play the overture from William Tell until ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott

... Pedal tubercle: on the thoracic and abdominal rings of caterpillars: on the anterior side of leg-base and, correspondingly, on apodal segments: is VII of the abdomen where it consists of three setae: VI of the thorax where the setae ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith

... front of him woke into life deafeningly and, waving away the mechanics holding the wings, he pressed the clutch pedal and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various

... groan, agonize, quiver, quaver, just as much as you please, Madam,—I have my foot on the fortissimo pedal, and thunder myself deaf! O Satan, Satan! which of thy goblins damned has got into this throat, pinching, and kicking, and cuffing the tones about so! Four strings have snapped already, and one hammer is lamed for life. My ears ring again,—my head hums,—my nerves tremble! ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... did as they were bidden, and, as each heavy brogan was fitted to the pedal extremity of some one of the darkies, the newly-shod individual sprang to his feet, and commenced dancing about as if he were ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... with serviceable shoes, such as would astonish the Parisian makers of bottines. But these shoes were only for show. The ladies walked painfully about in the unaccustomed leather. They seemed to have innumerable corns, to wrestle with bunions huge and dire, to suffer from unknown pedal infirmities. Outside the town the ladies put on their shoes. Outside the town, after the fair, they took them off again, sitting on the roadside, stripping their shapely feet, bundling the obnoxious, crippling abominations into Isabella-colour ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... at pleasure; hence the name piano-forte. But the pianoforte itself required many years before all its possibilities of tone-production were discovered. The instruments used by Mozart still had a thin short tone, and there was no pedal for prolonging it, except a clumsy one worked with the knee—a circumstance which greatly influenced Mozart's style, and is largely responsible for the fact that his pianoforte works are hardly ever played to-day in the concert hall. For, as the tone could not be sustained, ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... clump of bushes, he drew out a bicycle and prepared to mount. He was in the act of driving the gear around with his foot for the purpose of getting the opposite pedal in position, when he heard the thud of a heavy body that landed lightly and evidently on its feet. He did not wait for more, but ran, with hands on the handles of his bicycle, until he was able to vault ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London

... pedal set the needle to stitching like mad. A second touch in the opposite direction brought it to an abrupt standstill. For the five hours of my first afternoon session there was not an instant's harmony between what I did and what I intended to do. I sewed frantically into the middle of ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... like leeches," responded Kate. "I believe they develop into mosquitoes later on, bad 'cess to them. What Mr. Nash would call my pedal extremities are simply being devoured by the brutes. Ugh! I believe the bottom of this creek is all soft mud. We may have to drive—no, as I'm a living, wiggler-haunted human being, here's firm bottom. Hurrah, Phil, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... this morning, and, as the road out there seemed so hard and firm, the snow being packed down solid, I just jumped on my wheel, and took a little run up in that direction. It wasn't so easy, once I struck in on that side road, but I managed to pedal ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson

... they had arrived on Baron IV. Slowly Pete turned Mario's words over in his mind, allowing himself to worry a little. There had been rumors of trouble back on Earth, persistent rumors he had taken care to soft-pedal, as mayor of the colony. There were other things, too, like the old newspapers and magazines that had been brought in by the lad from Baron II, and the rare radio message they could pick up through their atmospheric disturbance. Maybe something ...
— Image of the Gods • Alan Edward Nourse

... previous to her admission into this hospital, but it was impossible to find out when and how they began. She had never had, to the knowledge of her friends, an attack of 'apoplexy,' nor of paralysis. The head was symmetric, and without scars thereon. The pedal extremities involuntarily assumed various distorted positions and were constantly in motion. The toes were usually in a state of tonic spasm,—contracted, and drawn downward or extended, pointing ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... steel stake, having a cavity, into which one half of the intended head will fit; immediately above is a steel die, having a corresponding cavity for the other half of the head: this latter die can be raised by a pedal moved by the foot. The weight of the hammer is from seven to ten pounds, and it falls through a very small space, perhaps from one to two inches. The cavities in the centre of these dies are connected with the edge of a small groove, to admit of the body of the ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage

... silence he asked again: "What was there before the world was born?" That was an easy one; so I said in a tone of finality: "There wasn't anything." Then I went on with my meditations, thinking I had used the soft pedal effectively. Silence reigned supreme for some minutes, and then was rudely shattered. His thumb flew from his mouth, and he laughed so lustily that he could be heard throughout the house. When his laughter had spent itself somewhat, I asked meekly: ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson

... down of the titles of books that conducted the pilgrim on the Way. Perhaps as they softly assembled for departure, a little music would be suggested to round off the evening, and she saw herself putting down the soft pedal as people rustled into their places, for the first movement of the "Moonlight Sonata." Then at the end there would be silence, and she would get up with a sigh, and someone would say "Lucia mia"! and somebody else "Heavenly Music," and perhaps the Guru would say ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... and lazy style of angling. Happening to look up at the bank, he saw two pair of bare feet of heroic size, from which two fishing lines hung, the corks bobbing on the surface a few yards from the shore. The broad bottoms of their pedal extremities turned to the river, the line passing between the great and second toes to the water, and there they lay enjoying delicious sleep, waiting for a fish to swallow the bait, when the pull on the line would be felt between their toes and awaken them to attend to business. Paul took in ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... isn't it?—and my tone seemed rich and virile. I played the first theme, and all went well until the next interlude for the orchestra; I looked about me confidently, feeling quite like a virtuoso, and soon spied my parents, when suddenly my knees began to tremble, trembled so that the damper pedal vibrated. Then my eyes blurred and I missed my cue and felt Richter's great spectacles burning into the side of my head like two fierce suns. I scrambled, got my place, lost it, rambled and was roused to my position by the ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... of the Uhlans." If you came to see me, you had to hear it. As arranged for the pianola, it was marked to be played throughout at a lightning pace and with the loudest pedal on. So one would play it if one wished to annoy the man in the flat below; but a true musician has, I take it, a higher aim. I disregarded the "FF.'s" and the other sign-posts on the way, and gave it my own interpretation. As played ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne

... same!" she cried, so loud that I had half to drown it in the pedal. "He's taken to following the sea, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... the western light grows low, and lights spring to life, one after another, in the misty choir. Then murmurs a voice, an Amen rises in full concord, and as it dies away the slumberous thunder of a pedal note rolls on the air; the casements whirr, the organ speaks. That fills, as it were, to the brim, as with some sweet and fragrant potion, the cup of beauty; and the dreaming, inquiring spirit sinks content ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... soft-pedal stuff about the kid and the Christmas tree on the girl at the Glendale station. Maybe she hasn't cut ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... seemed as if it filled half the room. Then Frank spread a beauteous wine coloured cover all embroidered in pink roses with green leaves over it, and the stylish man opened a lid, sat down and spread out his hands. Frank said: "Soft pedal! Mighty soft!" So he smothered it down, and tried only enough to find that it had not been hurt coming, and then he went away on the wagon. Father and the boys gathered up every scrap, swept the walk, and put all the things they had used back where they got them, ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... are attached to the posterior angles of the pedal bone. They are flattened from side to side, and the portion that projects above the coronary cushion may be felt by pressing on the skin that covers it. The plantar cushion is a wedge-shaped piece of tissue formed by interlacing connective-tissue fibres ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... on the soft pedal and played the old love song, and as he played his mother wandered over hills he had never seen, through fields he had never known, and heard a voice in the song he might never hear, even in his dreams. When he ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... choke button all the way. Advance spark lever about half way and throttle lever about one-quarter way and depress starter pedal. ...
— Marvel Carbureter and Heat Control - As Used on Series 691 Nash Sixes Booklet S • Anonymous

... Doctor he had disinterred an ancient pair of skates from the attic, and presently he began to perform pedal convolutions of such startling design and eccentricity that the boys gathered about him and cheered until, seating himself unexpectedly in the center of a particularly wide and airy flourish, he flatly told the boys ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple

... with Wunsch, but the doctor shook his head and Spanish Johnny grinned. He said he would stay. The doctor laughed at him. "Ten fellows like you couldn't hold him, Spanish, if he got obstreperous; an Irishman would have his hands full. Guess I'd better put the soft pedal on him." He pulled ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... one quick turn of the head and made no answer. But she played the air over again—the girls sing it to this day over their household work at Farlingford to other words—with her foot on the soft pedal. The Marquis hummed it between his teeth at the other ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... rapid vibrations, and we know no better than to make the whole series leading up to them. It is as though, in order to sound some little shrill octave of pipes in an organ, we are obliged to depress every key and every pedal, and to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various

... into Cheshire we wheel, and my escort, after wishing me all manner of good fortune in hearty Lancashire style, wheel about and hie themselves back toward the rumble and roar of the world's greatest sea-port, leaving me to pedal pleasantly southward along the green lanes and amid the quiet rural scenery of Staffordshire to Stone, where I remain Sunday night. The country is favored with another drenching down-pour of rain during the night, and moisture relentlessly descends at short, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... are half a dozen—" muttered Marzio, relapsing into sullen discontent and slowly turning the body of the chalice beneath the cord stretched by the pedal on which he pressed his foot. Having brought under his hand a round boss which was to become the head of a cherub under his chisel, he rubbed his fingers over the smooth silver, mechanically, while he contemplated the red wax model before him. Then there ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... that Mrs. Cooke, when she chose, could exert the subduing effect on her husband of a soft pedal on a piano; and during luncheon she kept, the soft pedal on. And the Celebrity, being in some degree a kindred spirit, was also held in check. But his wife had no sooner left the room when Mr. Cooke began on the subject uppermost in his mind. I had suspected that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the old Edison phonographs which worked with a pedal, and looked very much like a sewing-machine, and we took them to the laboratory, allowed one of them to talk into it, and then set the machine to repeating what had been told it. The officials were delighted and it was not ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... timbre; that is, to sing with Colour. This desideratum of varied tone-colour is sought even by instrumentalists. Nay, the instrument itself is sometimes constructed with this object in view. Witness the invention of the "soft" pedal, which is intended not solely to reduce the intensity of tone in the pianoforte—that may be accomplished by a modification of force in striking the note—but to give the tones a darker, more sombre quality, or colour. To vary the tone-colour, ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam

... figure in the corn-straw dress that the glare of light fell shimmering on. The sweet voice was still rising, and she longed that the accompanist would force the tone to cover it a little, and put the loud pedal on. He, however, was gazing at his music, and played on quietly until, with ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... cyclist. At that time a few cycling beginners used the circle for practice, and their alarming performances were gradually depleting the number of equestrians. One of these novices came down the hill, having an arm round the neck of his instructor, and one leg on the pedal, the other in mid air. He was unable to steer the machine, and as I cantered up, the performer's hat, which had been over one eye, fell off, disclosing the features of Professor Bryce. The next moment the machine, its rider and his instructor, were "all of a heap" ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... von Beseler. I happened to perform the clog dancing at a critical moment during a trip on a Scheldt River barge, thus diverting the attention of the river sentries from my lack of proper papers. While the pedal acrobatics were in progress my temporary friend, Mons. le Conducteur, reinforced the already genial pickets with many glasses of ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green

... Sardou. “He raised his voice in that act! Why, it’s a scene to be played with the soft pedal down! This is the way it should be done!” Dropping into a chair in the middle of the room my host began miming the gestures and expression of Robespierre as the phantoms (which, after all, are but the figments of an over-wrought ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... complicating, pulled them to one side and burned the bridge. They afterward drew tight down on the sounding board, so that now when I talk the rickety buzz is like that of a horse-fiddle played with the tremolo and the soft pedal. An aeolian harp made of rubber bands on a bicycle, aroused by the wind as the machine moves swiftly, gives the same soft ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... and quality of the material before commencing to hammer it. The hammer weighs 15 lb., and has a stroke variable from 21/2 in. to 91/2 in., and makes 250 blows per minute. The driving shaft, A, is fitted with fast and loose belt pulleys, the belt fork being connected to the pedal, P, which when pressed down by the foot of the workman, slides the driving belt on to the fast pulley and starts the hammer; when the foot is taken off the pedal, the weight on the latter moves the belt ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various

... Garden Wall," with variations by Signor Thumpanini, and the young lady who played it was a pupil of that celebrated Italian musician. When the male portion of the guests entered, the air was being played in the bass with a great deal of power (that is, the loud pedal was down), and with a perpetual rattle of treble notes, trying with all their shrill might to drown ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume

... caudle, caudal. choler, collar. compliment, complement. lumber, lumbar. lesson, lessen. literal, littoral. marshal, martial. minor, miner. manor, manner. medal, meddle. metal, mettle. missal, missel (thrush). orphan, often. putty, puttee. pedal, peddle. police, pelisse. principal, principle. profit, prophet. rigour, rigger. rancour, ranker. succour, sucker. sailor, sailer. cellar, seller. censor, censer. surplus, surplice. symbol, cymbal. skip, skep. tuber, ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges

... surprise at her own feet, and I observed the slight roughening of the side of the sole caused by the friction of the edge of the pedal. ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... suppose that iambic verse may drop its initial short syllable, and still be iambic, still be measured as before, is not only to take a single long syllable for a foot, not only to recognize a pedal caesura at the beginning of each line, but utterly to destroy the only principles on which iambics and trochaics can be discriminated. Yet Hiley, of Leeds, and Wells, of Andover, while they are careful to treat separately of these two ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... boarders than usual in the parlor. The young woman from the notion counter had company; and one of her guests was playing "He sut'nly was Good to Me" on the pianola with loud and steady tread of pedal. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... surrounds it; at times even this maintains an archaic simplicity. Thus in the coda of the vivace of the Seventh Symphony, a simple melody is reiterated eleven times in succession, with no other orchestration than the pedal-point on E by the rest ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... lower lip. He had no starter on his bug; he had in his embarrassment to get out and crank. He did it quietly, not looking at her. She could see that his hand trembled on the crank. When he did glance at her, as he drove off, it was apologetically, miserably. His foot was shaking on the clutch pedal. ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... character came out in his reply. "Not much," he said. "Pedal got a bit loose in Stamton, O' Man. Couldn't ride it. So I looked up the ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... prepared by the 6/4 chord, now become so hackneyed from its perpetual and wearisome repetition in popular church music, seems to be especially disliked by Mr. Paine, as it occurs but once or twice in the course of the work. In the great choruses the cadence is usually reached either by a pedal on the tonic, as in the chorus, "Awake, thou that sleepest," or by a pedal on the dominant culminating in a chord of the major ninth, as in the final chorus; or there is a plagal cadence, as in the first chorus of the second part; ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... voice like that," he said, putting on the husky conversational pedal, "I was naturally trusted. And I knew what ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... vent as he had done to an animal passion for a woman, and allow it to lead to such disastrous consequences; then to think of putting an end to himself; then to go recklessly and get drunk. The great waves of pedal music tumbled round the choir, and, nursed on the supernatural as he had been, it is not wonderful that he could hardly believe that the psalm was not specially set by some regardful Providence for this moment of his first entry into the solemn building. And yet it was the ordinary psalm for the ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... intense attention. At times, when the historian was at fault in his facts—and, to say the truth, that was more frequently the case than comports with veracious history—she would cease the impelling motion of her foot upon the pedal of her little wheel, drop her thread, and, gently arresting the fly of her spool, she would lift her iron-framed spectacles, and with great gravity say: "Read that again. Ah! it is not as it happened, your grandfather was in that ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... own than ours and every man's, the word of the inalterable Mind. This gift of his was naturally very much a matter of temperament, and accordingly by far the greater part of his finer product belongs to the period of his prime, ere Time had set his lumpish foot on the pedal that deadens the nerves of animal sensibility.[50] He did not grow as those poets do in whom the artistic sense is predominant. One of the most delightful fancies of the Genevese humorist, Toepffer, is the poet Albert, who, having had his portrait drawn by a highly idealizing ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... the happiness of having fought against obstacles, of having beaten them, and of knowing that he now was on the down trail. The grade lessened for a few hundred feet, and the machine slowed. Houston pressed on the clutch pedal, allowing the car to coast slowly until the hill became steeper again. Then he sought once more to shift ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... are rendered possible by being taken on a drone or pedal of cant, common form and conventionality. This drone is, as it were, the flour and ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... make his first essay with the Brogue. They did not get as far as the pigs at Lockyer's farm; the rectory gate was painted a dull unobtrusive green, but it had been white a year or two ago, and the Brogue never forgot that he had been in the habit of making a violent curtsey, a back-pedal and a swerve at this particular point of the road. Subsequently, there being apparently no further call on his services, he broke his way into the rectory orchard, where he found a hen turkey in a coop; later visitors to the orchard found the coop almost ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... with no sway of the body and scarcely any movement of the arms, depending entirely upon his narrow feminine hands and slender fingers. The wide arpeggios in the left hand, maintained in a continuous stream of tone by the strict legato and fine and constant use of the damper-pedal, formed an harmonious substructure for a wonderfully poetic cantabile. His delicate pianissimo, the ever-changing modifications of tone and time (tempo rubato) were of indescribable effect. Even in energetic passages ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... organ-builder seemed too agitated to answer the questions that the town official asked him, but led the way quickly to the organ-loft. "Put your foot on that pedal!" he said excitedly, pointing to a particular one ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... were working the pedal and I was sailing around very fast," said Raggedy Andy, "and all of ...
— Raggedy Andy Stories • Johnny Gruelle

... in my place. Raffles, indeed, said he would have done it himself, but that was his generosity, and he was the one man who would not. What I did was to turn in the opposite direction to the other gate, where we might so easily have been cut off, and to pedal for ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... him as he started to speak, and Jack's finger shot out to the forbidden wheel on the instant. Elizabeth saw it at a point when she could not control the pedal with her foot. Mother love brought a scream to her lips, and to save the child she gave him a shove with her hand. Jack fell on the floor in a heap, striking his head on the bedpost as ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... learned to pedal and to guide a tricycle in about three lessons. He caught the two ideas almost instantly, and soon brought his muscles under control sufficiently to ride successfully, ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... feet contribute their share of helpful knowledge, calling attention to differences in the ground often unnoticed by the eye, telling whether the path is smooth or rough, grass-grown or rock-strewn. The auditory and pedal nerves are mutually helpful, the ear recording and classifying the sounds made by the feet, often guiding them aright by recalling certain peculiarities of sound—whether the ground is hollow, whether the sidewalk is of board or cement, and whether there is a depression here or a raised ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley

... service started a clamor for investigation by the Interstate Commerce Commission, which of course brought terror to the bosoms of the plunderers. On Dec. 20,1913, we find the "Outlook" "putting the soft pedal" on the public indignation. "It must not be forgotten that such a road as the New Haven is, in fact if not in terms, a National possession, and as it goes down or up, public interests go down or up with it." But in spite of all pious admonitions, the Interstate Commerce Commission yielded to ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... is the infernal miracle as holiness is the supernal. Now and then it is raised to such a pitch that we entirely fail to suspect its existence; it is like the note of the great pedal pipes of the organ, which is so deep that we cannot hear it. In other cases it may lead to the lunatic asylum, or to still stranger issues. But you must never confuse it with mere social misdoing. Remember how the Apostle, speaking of the "other side," distinguishes ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen

... plague in modern editions is the abuse of the pedal. Mozart never indicated the pedal. As purity of taste is one of his great qualities, it is probable that he made no abuse of the pedal. Beethoven indicated it in a complicated and cumbersome manner. When he wanted the pedal he wrote "senza sordini," which means without ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens

... this," and Mr. Ganz illustrated at the piano; "it is to be played forte, and is followed by a few notes to be touched very softly, like an echo. It was really beautiful to see how the little fellow reached out for the pedal to make the loud part more emphatic, and then played the echo very softly and neatly. He had grasped the first principle of tone color—namely tone contrast, and also a ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... Never fear," added Pa, in a good-humored voice, "that sort of thing won't happen to any of you Woolley-legs; a good Irish stew is better than a kick of the pedal, eh?" ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... the side of the deep gully, across the road that was slippery with snow, slid Mr. Brown's automobile. Bunny and Sue's father's hands held tightly to the steering wheel, and he pressed his foot down hard on the brake pedal. ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope

... conjectured that the "rude and gross" Gothic Fiddle "used to stir up the vulgar to dancing, or perhaps to solemnise their idolatrous sacrifices." In the Dark Ages dancing may have been regarded as bi-pedal trembling. I have remarked in another place,[19] "In the early ages of mankind dancing or jigging must have been done to the sound of the voice, next to that of the pipe, and, when the bow was discovered, ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... Pear piro. Pear-tree pirarbo. Pearl perlo. Pearl, mother of perlamoto. Peasant vilagxano, kamparano. Peat torfo. Pebble marsxtono, sxtoneto. Peccadillo peketo. Peculiar stranga. Pecuniary mona. Pedagogue pedagogo. Pedagogy pedagogio. Pedal pedalo. Pedant pedanto. Peddler kolportisto. Peddle kolporti. Pedestal piedestalo. Pedestrian piediranto. Pedigree deveno, genealogio. Pediment fruntajxo. Peel (fruit, etc.) sxelo. Peel sensxeligi. Peep rigardeti. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... smoke-blue silken frock was the most subtle art, as Chester, who had a keen eye for such matters and a fastidious taste, could readily recognize. From the crown of her dark head to the toe of the blue slipper with which she pressed the pedal of the great piano which she had brought from her old home in the South, she was a picture to ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond

... back a Japanese screen and disclosin' a full trap outfit—base drum with cymbals, worked by a foot pedal, xylophone blocks, triangle, and sand boards—all rigged up next to a cabinet ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford

... promptly saw,—as the reader sees, no doubt, before we can tell it,—that what we wanted was two crescendos meeting somewhere near the middle; a crescendo passing into a diminuendo from whichever end you moved to the other—a swell. We saw that our loud-pedal effect should come upon "Middle Hall." So there, on its lucky bit of Greek porch, we bestowed the purple wistaria for spring, and for late summer that fragrant snowdrift, the clematis paniculata, so adapted as to festoon and chaplet, but never to smother, the Greek columns. On one ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable

... is, in articulation, the pedal of power, and decision in the conscious action of the chin (not the jaw) will induce by reflex action that stroke which expresses well-aimed will-power. It may be noticed in connection with this suggestion that when a person means ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick

... mention this to any one, Minnie. If it got out it might precipitate matters, and then the whole business would tumble down like a house of cards. As it is, I may be able to pull him out. But I've put the soft pedal on ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele

... this? The Americans have pretty feet and small hands, both men and women. Is it vanity, and do they squeeze their feet into boots too small for them, or are their pedal coverings badly made, or does the secret lie in the rough pavements of their thoroughfares? I am glad to say that I never required the services of a foot doctor, but I know that my feet have ached many and many a time after promenading the ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... academic freedom, as the students style it, exists to a high degree, a general scraping of the feet admonishes the lecturer to repeat his words or be more distinct and clear in his enunciation. This pedal language, though often disregarded, still does not fail in the end in producing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... impairing or destroying the horn-secreting membrane; second, when depression of the coffin bone causes pressure upon and arrests the formation of horn; and, third, when the elevation of the sole compresses the soft tissues against the pedal bone and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... pause, if it does not convince me. No! I can't answer it. I—I don't want to answer it. I simply surrender. He shall have his way with you—and with me. Only," he added in a gloomy lowered tone which struck Mr Powell as if a pedal had been put down, "only it shall take a little time. I have never lied to you. Never. I renounce not only my chance but my life. In a few days, directly we get into port, the very moment we do, I, who have said I could never let you go, I ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... of an evening which would inevitably run into the small hours, Joan went over to the piano and, with what was a quite unconscious touch of irony, played one of Heller's inimitable "Sleepless Nights," with the soft pedal down. The large imposing room, a chaotic mixture of French and Italian furniture with Flemish tapestries and Persian rugs, which accurately typified the ubiquitous mind of the hostess, was discreetly lighted. The numerous screened windows were ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... from gaver, to cram, an inelegant term) very easily to raise himself to any story of the epinette. The latter was a cylinder turning upon its axis, and thus passing every bird in review. "An india-rubber tube introduced into the throat, accompanied by the pressure of the foot upon a pedal, makes the bird absorb its copious and succulent repast in the wink of an eye." Four hundred an hour have been thus fed by one operator. Fowls thus fattened are said to possess a delicacy of flavor ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various



Words linked to "Pedal" :   accelerator, bicycle, operate, gas, gas pedal, unicycle, control, musical note, soft-pedal, sustaining pedal, tone, loud pedal, automotive vehicle, bike, pedal point, throttle, foot pedal, play, foot lever, organ, gun, pedaller, lever, soft pedal, pedal extremity, music, motor vehicle, brake pedal, cycle, treadle



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