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Spike   Listen
noun
Spike  n.  
1.
A sort of very large nail; also, a piece of pointed iron set with points upward or outward.
2.
Anything resembling such a nail in shape. "He wears on his head the corona radiata...; the spikes that shoot out represent the rays of the sun."
3.
An ear of corn or grain.
4.
(Bot.) A kind of flower cluster in which sessile flowers are arranged on an unbranched elongated axis.
Spike grass (Bot.), either of two tall perennial American grasses (Uniola paniculata, and Uniola latifolia) having broad leaves and large flattened spikelets.
Spike rush. (Bot.) See under Rush.
Spike shell (Zool.), any pteropod of the genus Styliola having a slender conical shell.
Spike team, three horses, or a horse and a yoke of oxen, harnessed together, a horse leading the oxen or the span. (U.S.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Spike" Quotes from Famous Books



... Jerome bare headed, and with a coarse brown blanket robe dragging the ground; St. Sebastian with scarcely any raiment at all—these we should see, and should enjoy seeing them; but would we not miss a spike-tailed coat and kids, and turn away regretfully, and say to parties from the Orient: "These are well enough, but you ought to see Talmage of Brooklyn." I fear me that in the better world we shall not even have Dr. Talmage's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... For bouquets, cut the spike when the lower flowers open; keep in fresh water, cut off the end of the stem frequently, and the other flowers ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey

... to spike one of my guns," said James, who listened to the last remarks with profound emotion. "We are right, and Americans will support us. The Courant was started for a purpose, and we must ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... time after they had gone he arose from the ground and stumbled home. That night he put a paper novel into the stove. Next morning, before going to the depot, he removed an iron spike from the Lady May's compass box. The needle swung back ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... saving the guns, I directed Captain Stewart-Mackenzie, who had assumed command of the 9th Lancers on Cleland being disabled, to make a second charge, which he executed with the utmost gallantry,[11] but to no purpose; and in the meanwhile Smyth-Windham had given the order to unhook and spike the guns. ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... right to the services of every citizen. "Just look," said the sergeant, "at the kindness of that—what shall I call her? blessed!—yes, blessed Princess of Wales! Was there ever such a woman? Talk about Jael in the Bible being blessed above women—why I don't set no value upon her; she put a spike through a feller it's true, but it was precious cowardly; but the Princess, she goes here and goes there visiting the sick and poor and homeless, not like a princess, but like a real woman, and that's why the people love her. No man despises a toady more than I do—I'd ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... no longer canopied the field with silver, it was blue with germander speedwell—each flower painted with deepening colour, eyed with startling white, and carrying on slender stamens the round white pollen-balls—worlds of silent, lovely activity. Every flower-spike had its family of buds, blue jewels splashed with white, each close-folded on her mystery. To see the whole field not only bright with them, but brimming over, was like watching ten thousand saints rapt in ecstasy, ten thousand children ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... second explanation met his eyes. This time there was no need to stoop down, nor to turn any body over. The sentry whom he had left to guard both cell and guardroom stood bolt upright, with his mouth and his eyes wide open; skewered to the wall of the guardhouse by an iron spike, ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... duty close to some shells that were placed on her deck; a gay young midshipman was thoughtlessly striving to get the fusee out of one of these by a mallet and spike-nail that lay close at hand; and a fearful explosion ensued, in which the poor marine, cleaning his bayonet near, was shockingly burnt and disfigured, the very skin of all the lower part of his face being utterly destroyed by gunpowder. They said ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... stronger than those in the entry he had just quitted he was neither surprised nor dismayed to find it fastened by a lock of unusual size. After repeatedly trying to remove the plate, which was so firmly screwed down that it resisted all his efforts, and vainly attempting to pick it with the spike and nail; he, at length, after half an hour's ineffectual labour, wrenched off the box by means of the iron bar, and the door, as he laughingly expressed it, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... lightly along, enjoying the sunshine. Every now and then she bent down and gathered a wild flower,—the four-leaved yellow potentilla, or the meadow-sweet, or a spike of golden rod, or a handful of forget-me-nots, watered by the stream, to make a little nosegay for her teacher; for Mrs. Mordaunt loved flowers and would sometimes take the lesson for the day from them. And she loved better still the affectionate ...
— Amy Harrison - or Heavenly Seed and Heavenly Dew • Amy Harrison

... quite diagnose the case your way, Mr. Smith; that's a blamed sight better lard than I thought Muggins & Co. were making." And you'd have driven a spike right through that fellow's little joke and have nailed down his order hard and tight ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... departed to resume his lonely tramp along the road-bed with a sledge over his shoulder to replace any spike or frogs ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous

... This means he is dumb. He places his hand over his stomach and grins again. He is going to eat them. It is time to go home and do this, so he puts up his fishpole and packs his primitive paraphernalia—a tin can, a rusty spike, a bamboo pole. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... after this the old Jack-daw again came carrying something that shone like an evening star—a little spike of gold with a burning emerald set in the end of it. "And what do you think of that?" said he ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman

... a running leap, I suppose, and with all his might had thrown himself clear over our palisades, except one strong pile, which stood higher than the rest, and which had caught hold of him, and by his weight he had hanged himself upon it, the spike of the pile running into his hinder haunch or thigh, on the inside; and by that he hung, growling and biting the wood for rage. I snatched up a lance from one of the negroes that stood just by me, and running to him, struck it three or four times ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... thapsus, a faithful delineation of which will be found in Plate 1, 437, vol. vi., of Sowerby. It is a hardy biennial, with a thick stalk, from eighteen inches to four feet high, and with very peculiar large woolly and mucilaginous leaves, and a long flower spike with ugly yellow and nearly sessile flowers. The leaves are best gathered in late summer or autumn, shortly before the plant flowers. In former times it appears to have been rather highly thought of, particularly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various

... to star The sanguine field with an immortal blazon. The venerable Mar-Isaac in Cologne, Sat in his house at prayer, nor lifted lid From off the sacred text, while all around The fanatics ran riot; him they seized, Haled through the streets, with prod of stick and spike Fretted his wrinkled flesh, plucked his white beard. Dragged him with gibes into their Church, and held A Crucifix before him. "Know thy Lord!" He spat thereon; he was pulled limb from limb. I saw—God, that I might forget!—a man Leap in the Loire, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... no one was killed, and the only casualty was a drummer slightly wounded. The next day both regiments returned their ammunition into the magazine. The Tower Hamlets were ordered to their headquarters, London, and disbanded. The 25th were sent to Spike Island, a convict ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle

... helmet by the spike and put it on the mantel. "Lord knows, I'm not presenting that as a token of valor to any one. It belonged to a poor chap who died on the field the night I was wounded. My orderly packed it in ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway

... increasing in orderly succession; the details will be given later. Manganese is often grouped with iron, nickel, and cobalt (see Crookes' lemniscates), but its fourteen protruding bodies repeat the "lithium spike" (proto-element 5) and are grouped round a central ovoid. This would appear to connect it with lithium (2 on Plate IV) rather than with fluorine (3 in Plate IV), with which it is often classed. The "lithium spike" re-appears in ...
— Occult Chemistry - Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements • Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater

... battle-axe. I mean just that—his battle-axe. We had seen such things on tapestries or in museums, but did not dream that they still existed out of captivity. This was an Oriental looking battle-axe with a handle three feet long, a spike on top, a spike out behind, and a half-moon blade in front. The babu had with a little of his signal paint done the whole thing, blade and all, to a brilliant ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... include every variety: Cruikshank's lupin, the two-coloured lupin, the scented lupin, and the last to appear, Lupin's lupin. They are all there, resplendent, in serried ranks like an army of soldiers, each striving to outstrip the others and to hold up the thickest and gaudiest spike to the sun. They are all there; and, at the entrance to the walk that leads to their motley beds, is a streamer with this device, taken from an exquisite sonnet of Jose ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... the marks of his stick; he had a thick one, you remember, with a square iron spike. These are its dints; I have been watching them all the way along ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... air-philosophy and element-philosophy grew up—beast-worship, animalism, fire-worship, and the rudiments of simple scientific learning, as, for instance, when men found that they could make a tool to cut, a spike to sew. ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... the toddy Briggs was stirring for him, the other in kindly protest, for both the youngsters were on their feet confusedly striving to make it understood that they had only been waiting for the cool of the evening to come to pay their respects. "And never mind about spike tail and shirt fronts either—come just ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... will often be found that the traitor is the loudest in his protestations of patriotism. It is a pretty safe rule to suspect the man of hypocrisy who makes a parade of his religion, and the partisan of corruption and selfishness, who is clamorous about the rights of the people. Captain Spike was altogether above the first vice; though fairly on level, as respects the second, with divers patriots ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... had a knife. He could have cut a hole for air and then perhaps enlarged it and broken out a board. He found a spike on the floor and began tapping round the walls for a place that sounded thin; but they all sounded thick—how thick he had no idea. He began picking splinters away at the juncture ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair

... is clear that if in any given part of the sky, where, on the average, there are ten stars (say) to a field, we should find a certain small portion having 100 or more to a field, then, on HERSCHEL'S first hypothesis, rigorously interpreted, it would be necessary to suppose a spike-shaped protuberance directed from the earth, in order to explain the increased number of stars. If many such places could be found, then the probability is great that this explanation is wrong. We should more rationally suppose some real inequality of star distribution here. It is, ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden

... birth. When the pelvic bones have been fractured repair takes place with the formation of a large permanent callus, which, projecting internally, may be a serious obstacle to calving. Worse still, if the edge of the broken bone projects internally as a sharp spike or ridge, the vaginal walls are cut upon it during the passage of the calf, with serious or fatal result. In other cases, where the cow has suffered from fragility of bone (fragilitas ossium) the thickening of the bone causes narrowing of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... 1873. He gained control of the partly finished Northern Pacific and the local lines of Oregon through a holding company known as the Oregon & Transcontinental. In September, 1883, he took a special train, full of distinguished visitors, over his lines to witness the driving of the last spike near Helena, Montana. On the way out, they stopped at Bismarck to help lay the corner-stone for an ambitious new capitol of the Territory of Dakota. From Duluth to Tacoma the new line brought in immigrants whose freight made ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... used to say at college, as he emerged from a hopeless labyrinth of postulates and preliminaries an hour long, that the guests who abused the courtesy of their hosts, upon the late transcontinental trip to drive the golden spike, may have been persons of social eminence, but were in no ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis

... stop. Beyond material glories we cannot count with certainty. The world has witnessed many powerful empires which have passed away, and left "not a rack behind." What remains of the antediluvian world?—not even a spike of Noah's ark, larger and stronger than any modern ship. What remains of Nineveh, of Babylon, of Thebes, of Tyre, of Carthage,—those great centres of wealth and power? What remains of Roman greatness even, except in laws and literature and renovated ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... and the green vegetative part. In Botrychium the leaves are more or less deeply divided, and the sporangia distinct (Fig. 71, B). In Ophioglossum the sterile division of the leaf is usually smooth and undivided, and the spore-bearing division forms a sort of spike, and the sporangia are much less distinct. The sporangia in both differ essentially from those of the true ferns in not being derived from a single epidermal cell, but are developed in part from the ground tissue of ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell

... ago, and to-day Challis, who stands working at a little table set in against an open window, hammering out a ring from a silver coin on a marline-spike and vyce, whistles softly and contentedly to himself as he raises his head and glances through the vista of coconuts that surround his dwelling on this lonely ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke

... and form a path of short-cropped grass as it feeds. We never saw it eat aquatic plants or reeds. The tusks seem weapons of both offence and defence. The hippopotamus trap consists of a beam five or six feet long, armed with a spear-head or hard-wood spike, covered with poison, and suspended to a forked pole by a cord, which, coming down to the path, is held by a catch, to be set free when the beast treads on it. Being wary brutes, they are still very numerous. One got frightened by the ship, as she was steaming close to the bank. In its eager ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... spikes about 1 inch long and 1/2 inch in diameter; dark purplish-red, oblong, sweet and edible; apparently a simple fruit but really made up of the thickened calyx lobes of the spike. ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame

... affair ended in a great passionate outburst of popular revolution. Spike Foster was a friend of Cortright, and one day, when the latter was indisposed, Spike came to him and borrowed the hat. He had been drinking heavily at the "Red Light," and was in a supremely reckless mood. With the terrible gear hanging jauntily over his eye and his two guns drawn, he ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... pioneer construction which in Ontario brought in the narrow gauge, was the wooden railway built in 1870 from {102} Quebec to Gosford. The rails were simply strips of seasoned maple, 14'x7"x4", notched into the sleepers and wedged in without the use of a single iron spike. The engine and car wheels were made wide to fit the rail. In spite of its cheap construction the road did not pay, and the hope of extending it as far as Lake St John was deferred for a generation. A similar wooden railway was ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton

... Syme's egotism held hard to the first course for a few seconds, and then suddenly adopted the third. Taking his own blue police ticket from his own waist coat pocket, he tossed it on to the table; then he flung his head back until his spike of yellow beard almost pointed at the ceiling, and shouted ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... sorrow. I passed a trench of still water that ran as far as the eye could follow it across the flat; it was full from end to end of the beautiful water violet, the pale lilac flowers, with their faint ethereal scent, clustered on the head of a cool emerald spike, with the rich foliage of the plant, like fine green hair, filling the water. The rising of these beautiful forms, by some secret consent, in their appointed place and time, out of the fresh clear water, brought me a wistful sense of peace and order, a desire for I ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... spike the port battery and throw the guns overboard, but it was not done, for the enemy's fire was becoming so rapid and severe that the Captain deemed it judicious to abandon the ship at once in order to save the ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... experience, that the best articles for traffic at these islands, are iron tools in general. Axes and hatchets, nails, from the largest spike down to tenpenny ones, rasps, files, and knives, are much sought after. Red cloth, and linen, both white and coloured, looking-glasses and beads are also in estimation; but of the latter those that are blue are preferred to all others, and white ones are thought the least ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... anticipating them. A crowd of Turkish irregulars, with a few naval officers leading them, and a solid mass of Jack-tars in the centre, would break from a sally-port, or rush vehemently down through the gap in the wall, and scour the French trenches, overturn the gabions, spike the guns, and slay the guards. The French reserves hurried fiercely up, always scourged, however, by the flank fire of the ships, and drove back the sortie. But the process was renewed the same night or the next day with unlessened ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... Caroline that she is mistaken and that you are indifferent to Madame de Fischtaminel, would cost you dear. This is a blunder that no sensible man commits; he would lose his power and spike ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac

... to set fire to the shipping on the north side of the town, while he himself with his men should advance upon the nearby fort and spike the guns. As the fort was an old one and had a small garrison, the intrepid commander had but little trouble in capturing it, particularly as none of the British dreamed of a raid and small wonder, for their shores had been safe from the invader ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... mule, like his companion, but a strong hackney for the road, to save his gallant war-horse, which a squire led behind, fully accoutred for battle, with a chamfron or plaited head-piece upon his head, having a short spike projecting from the front. On one side of the saddle hung a short battle-axe, richly inlaid with Damascene carving; on the other the rider's plumed head-piece and hood of mail, with a long two-handed sword, used by the chivalry of the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... lassie." Though he did not realize it, his sickness was bringing him day by day nearer to his far-away boyhood in the Inverness-shire hills, and it was easy to slip into the speech of the mother-tongue. Then, after a long pause, he went on: "He wasna wearing a beard, a red beard trimmed down to a spike—this writer-man, when ye found him, ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... under by the plow. For this reason it is especially useful on sod or other rough ground. The most convenient harrow for putting on the finishing touches, for leveling off and fining the surface of the soil, is the lever spike-tooth. It is adjustable and can be used as a spike-tooth ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell

... he had killed the children; but the cook threw himself at the King's feet and said, "Truly, sir King, I would desire no other sinecure in return for the service I have done you than to be thrown into a furnace full of live coals; I would ask no other gratuity than the thrust of a spike; I would wish for no other amusement than to be roasted in the fire; I would desire no other privilege than to have the ashes of the cook mingled with those of a Queen. But I look for no such great reward for having saved the children, and brought them back to you in spite of that ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... this point the young fool, whose hands were clasped behind him and concealed a marlin-spike, up and killed the old sailor, and so ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... armor. A cap of blue steel, with a silver spike on the crown—neck and shoulders covered with a hood of mail—body in a shirt of mail, a bead of silver in each link—limbs to the knees in mail. From the knees down there were splints of steel inlaid with silver; his shoes were of steel, and on the heels long golden spurs. The ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... reinforcements reached the head of the rapids, and on the night of May 4 a messenger from Harrison made his way through the British lines to Clay, instructing him to land eight hundred men on the left bank of the Maumee to carry the British batteries there, and spike the guns, afterwards crossing to the fort. The remainder of the troops were to land on the right side of the river and make their way through the Indians to the fort. According to orders, Colonel Dudley landed with the specified force, rushed the batteries, which were manned ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond

... understan', noo, Maister Delamere, precisely what ye hae to dae?" observed the first luff, when concluding his instructions to me. "Oor business is tae tak' yon wee bit battery, and to spike the guns. But we're to dae't wi'oot loss o' life on oor ain part, if possible; ye'll therefore approach the place cannily and get as close up to it as maybe wi'oot bein' discovert; and, that done, ye'll be pleased tae keek roun' and ascertain if there's ony way o' gettin' intil it ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... telegraph operator, battery and telegraph instruments for each division, each corps, each army, and one for my headquarters. There were wagons also loaded with light poles, about the size and length of a wall tent pole, supplied with an iron spike in one end, used to hold the wires up when laid, so that wagons and artillery would not run over them. The mules thus loaded were assigned to brigades, and always kept with the command they were assigned to. The operators were also assigned to particular headquarters, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... earth, yet in this brief period it has completely changed its aspect; the upper part of the flame has, indeed, broken away, and is now shown in that part of the drawing between the two figures on the line above. The same plate also shows various instances of the remarkable spike-like objects, taken, however, at different times and at various parts of the sun. These spikes attain altitudes not generally greater than 20,000 miles, though sometimes they soar aloft ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... burrow. The Spider is henceforth a craven victim, who will let herself be stabbed without dreaming of employing her venomous fangs. Here craft triumphs over strength; and this craft is not inferior to mine, when, wishing to capture the Tarantula, I make her bite a spike of grass which I dip into the burrow, lead her gently to the surface and then with a sudden jerk throw her outside. For the entomologist as for the Pompilus, the essential thing is to make the Spider leave her stronghold. After this there is no difficulty in catching ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... arm. They thought they would hide behind trees until they heard the coming of the Pooka and his horse. But they were not far in the wood when they heard Crom Duv coming towards his house. He came towards them with the iron spike in his hand. Flann and Morag ran. Then from tree to tree Crom Duv chased them, shouting and snorting and smashing down branches with the iron spike in his hand. Morag and Flann came to a stream, and as they ran along its bank they ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum

... with the boat-hook, it eluded the touch, turning round and round, or bobbing under the water, and coming up again, as if in sport: but accident saved them any further trouble; for the bowman, reproached by the boat's crew for not hooking the body, got angry, and darting the spike of the boat-hook into the abdomen, the pent-up gas escaped with a loud whiz, and the corpse instantly sank like a stone. Many jokes were passed on the occasion; but I was not in humour for joking on serious subjects: ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... can help their imagination by a statue of him, and find out the colouring from Suetonius and Tacitus. Truth is, you might have spared one side of your Medal: the head would be seen to more advantage if it were placed on a spike of the Tower, a little nearer to the sun, which would then break ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... thus took made her so high that the Cat seemed tiny in the distance below. Old Grumpy had faced a Grizzly once, and was she now to be held up by a miserable little spike-tailed skunk no bigger than a mouthful? She was ashamed of herself, especially when a wail from Johnny smote on her ear and reminded her of her plain duty, as well as supplied ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton

... victor, placing his foot on the body of the vanquished, and holding to his throat the point of the axe, which terminated in a spike or poniard. ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... straightened, they grew up to wolf-like men, Worse than the wolves. And King Leodogran Groan'd for the Roman legions here again, And Caesar's eagle: then his brother king, Urien, assail'd him: last a heathen horde, Reddening the sun with smoke and earth with blood, And on the spike that split the mother's heart Spitting the child, brake on him, till, amazed, He knew not whither ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... is so bracing that we all feel equal to anything. Mr. Struble has already killed a fine "spike" elk for camp eating. We camped in a bunch, and we have camp stoves so that in case of rain or snow we can stay indoors. Just now we have a huge camp fire around which we sit in the evening, telling stories, singing, and eating nuts of the pinon pine. ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... heaven's sake, Corydon, look here! Just now a bramble-spike Ran, there, into my instep—and oh how deep they strike, Those lancewood-shafts! A murrain light on that calf, I say! I got it gaping after her. Canst thou ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus

... was a Hebrew, no less than forty-five years of age. He wore a helmet of polished metal, equipped with a visor, which, when raised, finished the front with a flat plate. The top of the head-piece was ornamented with a spike. His armor was complete—shirt of mail, shenti extending half-way to the knees, greaves ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... proposed arrangements some exception can be taken, and the following system is not free from objection, but it is on the whole the most reliable; and this system is founded on the form of the antler, which runs from a single spike, as in the South American Coassus, to the many branches of the red deer (Cervus elaphas); and all the various changes on which we found genera are in successive stages produced in the red deer, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... profits guessed at, against dangers neither to be counted nor foreseen. Be not too much stricken of amazement, therefore, when now these cold ones, who would not have bought an American railroad without counting the cross-ties and weighing every spike and fish-plate, were ready to send millions adrift on a sightless invasion of Asia ten thousand miles away. Besides, as the five with Mr. Harley laid out their campaign, any question of Oriental danger was ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... ashpole, and then breaking through and engaging in hand-to-hand conflict with the knights. Behind the latter sat their squires, with extra spears and arms ready to hand to their masters; and in close combat, the heavy maces with their spike ends were weapons before which the light-clad horsemen went down like ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... of the opposite Brazilian shore. The house was guarded by three wooden figures, "clouterly carved," and powdered with ochre or red wood; two of them, representing warriors in studded coatings of spike nails, with a looking-glass fixed in the stomach, raised their hands as if to stab each other. These figures are sometimes found large as life: according to the agents, the spikes are driven in before the wars begin, and every one promises the hoped-for death of an enemy. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... Roper intercepted her father on his return to the Tower after his trial, and penetrating the circle of the Guards, hung on his neck and bade him farewell. There is a tradition that she caused her father's head to be stolen from the spike of the bridge on which it was exposed, and, getting it preserved, kept it in a casket. She and her husband, William Roper, wrote together the biography of her father, ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... were standing on the bench that served instead of dining-chairs, each with a plate and a pancake on the table in front of them. Jack held a hammer and spike, Scott Burton a hatchet, Geoffrey a saw, and Philip a rifle. Bell was nothing if not intuitive. No elaborate explanations ever were needed to show her a fact. Without a word she flung the plate of flapjacks she held as far into a thicket as she had force to fling it, ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... concern for this ignominy, gleamed a lively pride in its overwhelming completeness. The malign eye was worn proudly as a badge of honour, so proudly that the wearer, after Winona's first outcry of horror, bubbled vaingloriously of how he had achieved the stigma by stepping into one of Spike Brennon's straight lefts. ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... including filaments, anthers, and style; crowded in a dense spike; quickly fading; unpleasantly odorous. Perianth tubular, 2-lipped, parted into 6 irregular lobes, free from ovary; middle lobe of upper lip with 2 yellow spots at base within. Stamens 6, placed at unequal distances on tube, 3 opposite each lip. Pistil 1, the stigma ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... fifteen paces from us, and by his side the hammer, spike, and petard he had carried. He and they were visible in the glow of ruddy light that poured down on the bridge. Suddenly, while I stood panting and irresolute, longing, yet not daring—since I saw older men hang back—suddenly a hand twitched my sleeve, and ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... philosophy, that when a nation has rushed upon its fate, the whole force of the national life will sometimes shoot up in one grand character, like the aloe which blooms at the end of a hundred years, shooting up in one single spike of glory, and then expires. And wherever philosophy, refinement, and culture, have gone upon the globe, it is possible to place the finger upon individual men who are the exemplars of a nation's character, ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke

... cavalry, which was to make a circuit from the rear of the fort, so that they might be concealed till they were ready to dash at the guns. A party of infantry were at the same time to be prepared to rush forward to spike some of the guns, and to drag the others within the lines. A dozen Europeans, with two of their officers, were to lead the party of infantry, composed of the most determined and best disciplined natives. These were to follow when ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston

... dry and the mate's watch ordered below to get a nap until four. They took their drenched clothing off, wrung the water out, hung it on a line round the bogey fire to dry, and turned into their hammocks as naked as they were born. At three the hand-spike knocked heavily on the deck and a loud voice called down the scuttle hatch, "Larboard watch, ahoy! All hands to the pumps, ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... was able to get it and tell me what stopped the Gruagach Gaire from laughing. I took the heads off them all when they came back without the tidings for which they went, and I'm greatly in dread that your head'll be on the twelfth spike, for I'll do the same to you that I did to the eleven kings' sons unless you tell what put a stop to the laughing of ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... which the arums and the "lords and ladies" belong. Half a dozen nuthatches attacking one of the red spikes of this plant present a pretty sight. The berries ripen in July and August, and at Naini Tal one rarely comes across a complete spike because the nuthatches pounce upon every berry the ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar

... him safe away, An' though he objurgated some, they "cured" him night an' day; An' pretty soon there came the change amazin' to explain: "I'll never take another drink," sez Timothy O'Shane. They tried it out on Spike Muldoon, that toper of renown; They put it over Grouch McGraw, the terror of the town. They roped in "tanks" from far and near, an' every test was sure, An' like a flame there ran the fame ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... assigned to a period between the Carboniferous and Permian eras; but whether the womb of one colossal volcano or the product of a thousand lesser eruptions threw forth this granite monster, none may yet assert. Whether Dartmoor first appeared as a mighty shield, with one uprising spike in its midst, or as a target supporting many separate bosses cannot be declared; for the original aspect of the region has long vanished, though our worn and weathered land of tors still shadows, in its venerable desolation, those ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... shame. She hid him in a rosy flush which a breath could have made flame unbearably, and she hid from him behind the light garrulity of Mrs. Cafferty, through which now and again, as through a veil, she saw the spike of his helmet, a wiry bristling moustache, a surge of great shoulders. On these ghostly indications she heaped a tornado of words which swamped the wraith, but she knew he was waiting to catch her alone, and would certainly ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... protecting it against destruction, dying when the tree withered. Some Faraday shows us that each drop of water is a sheath for electric forces sufficient to charge 800,000 Leyden jars, or drive an engine from Liverpool to London. Some Sir William Thomson tells us how hydrogen gas will chew up a large iron spike as a child's molars will chew off the end of a stick of candy. Thus each new book opens up some new and hitherto unexplored realm of nature. Thus books fulfill for us the legend of the wondrous glass that showed its ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... five and six he desir'd the other Prisoners, except Stephen Fowles to remain above, while he offer'd something in private to his Friends at the Door; they comply'd, and in this interval he got the Spike asunder, which made way for the Skeleton to pass with his Heels foremost, by the Assistance of Fowles, whom he most ungenerously betray'd to the Keepers after his being retaken, and the Fellow was ...
— The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard • Daniel Defoe

... silver brocade tapestry, but with a dainty apple-blossom paper, were adorned with a few good pictures given Anne by Mrs. Allan. Miss Stacy's photograph occupied the place of honor, and Anne made a sentimental point of keeping fresh flowers on the bracket under it. Tonight a spike of white lilies faintly perfumed the room like the dream of a fragrance. There was no "mahogany furniture," but there was a white-painted bookcase filled with books, a cushioned wicker rocker, a toilet table befrilled with white muslin, a quaint, gilt-framed mirror with chubby pink ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... was not aware of it; and to-day she was intent on being decisively rustic, and as countrified in her piety as possible. She wore an innocent gown powdered with pimpernels, and a little bonnet that she thought holiness itself, consisting as it did of a very small bow and a very large spike. Lord Reggie and Esme Amarinth honoured the day with frock coats and tall hats; and the former was in a state of considerable excitement ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... "I know the old geezer that runs this place. Nice guy. Name's Spike." He turned to the back of the shop and bawled, ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell

... be a seedling from S. glauca, but differs in many important points from the parent. It has smooth shoots and branches, ovate-acuminate leaves that are downy beneath, and flowers rose-coloured without and white within. They are produced in short, spike-like clusters, and are almost destitute of smell. The reddish rings at the insertion of the leaves ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster

... the foot of the tower, he drove a nail into the wall. Then he tied one end of his rope to this spike. In this way he succeeded in making a complete ladder of nails and rope to the top of the tower. He looked for Clotilde, who met him with her eyes flooded with tears. As a reward for his great services to her, she gave him ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... with a hundred sail, from the base of the sultry hill faced with terraces and called Queenstown, to the far Atlantic beyond the Heads. Heavy and dark loom the fortified Government buildings of Haulbowline and the prisons of Spike Island, casting forbidding shadows on the western margin of the tide. Quickly the steam-tug and her follower thread their way among islets and moored barques and guard-ships, southward to the sea. No pause anywhere; the passengers of ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... were leading the way to their lodgings. By the faces of others one could see that they came from curiosity. The stout councilman was recognizable by his scarlet cloak and golden chain; a black, expensive-looking, swelling waistcoat betrayed the honorable and proud citizen. An iron spike-helmet, a yellow leather jerkin, and rattling spurs, weighing a pound, indicated the heavy cavalry-man. Under little black velvet caps, which came together in a point over the brow, there was many ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... will climb this ten-foot fence, And, careless where his feet may strike, He tumbles, bang! And there will hang, His rope being caught by vine or spike. ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller

... The superior seamanship of the Carthaginians was neutralized by converting the decks into a battle-field for soldiers. Each ship was provided with a long boarding-bridge, hinged up against the mast, to be let down on the prow, and fixed to the hostile deck by a long spike, which projected from its end. The bridge was wide enough for two soldiers to pass abreast, and its sides ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... said, stopping before a splendid line of plants in full blossom. Her self-respect was whole again; her spirits rose at a bound. 'I don't know why you admire them so much. They have no scent, and they are only pretty in the lump,' and she broke off a spike of blossom, studied it a little ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... wounds—those produced by anything running deeply into the flesh; such as a sword, a sharp nail, a spike, the ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... Cattleya on a bee, but surely have you not unintentionally sent me what I wanted most (after Catasetum or Mormodes), viz. one of the Epidendreae?! I PARTICULARLY want (and will presently tell you why) another spike of this little Orchid, with older ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... plants put under contribution by the perfume factories of the district, viz., the orange tree, bitter and sweet, the lemon, eucalyptus, myrtle, bay laurel, cherry laurel, elder; the labiates; lavender, spike, thyme, etc.; the umbelliferous fennel and parsley, the composite wormwood and tarragon, and, more delicate than these, the rose, geranium, cassie, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various

... insulated core on which are two short lengths of brass tubing. One of these has rubbing against it a spring connected with the terminal of the battery; the other has similar communication with the - terminal. Projecting from each tube is a spike, and rising from the baseboard are four upright brass strips not quite touching the commutator. Those on one side lead to the line circuit, those on the other to the earth-plate. When the handle is turned one way, the spikes touch the forward line strip and the rear earth strip, and vice versa ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... crazily on the icy pavement of Atlantic Avenue. Spike Walters, its driver, cursed roundly as he applied the brakes and with difficulty obtained control of the little closed car. Depressing the clutch pedal, he negotiated the frozen thoroughfare and parked his ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen

... names for the Plantain were Waybroad (corrupted to Weybread, Wayborn, and Wayforn) and Ribwort. It was also called Lamb's-tongue and Kemps, while the flower spike with the stalk was called Cocks and Cockfighters (still so called by children).[214:1] The old name of Ribwort was derived from the ribbed leaves, while Waybroad marked its universal appearance, scattered by all roadsides and pathways, and literally bred by ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... the man sat on a capstan a few feet distant from the boys' den, watching for the slightest move on their part, a marlin spike dangling playfully in his hands. Juarez had not taken the crafty and keen ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt

... rise to the hight of five feet; the pedestals on which these immages are fixed are sometimes cut out of the solid stick with the canoe, and the imagary is formed of seperate small peices of timber firmly united with tenants and motices without the assistance of a single spike of any kind. when the natives are engaged in navigating their canoes one sets in the stern and steers with a paddle the others set by pears and paddle over the gunwall next them, they all kneel in the bottom of the canoe and set on ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... "Woo'd an' married an' a'," is admirable! The grouping is beyond all praise. The expression of the figures, conformable to the story in the ballad, is absolutely faultless perfection. I next admire "Turnim-spike." What I like least is "Jenny said to Jockey." Besides the female being in her appearance * * * *, if you take her stooping into the account, she is at least two inches taller than her lover. Poor Cleghorn! I sincerely sympathize with him. Happy I am to think that he yet has ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... enthusiastically, as he was slung across the deck in a batter of spray. "Fends 'em off an' fends 'em off, an' 'Don't ye come anigh me,' she sez. Look at her—jest look at her! Sakes! You should see one o' them toothpicks histin' up her anchor on her spike outer fifteen-fathom water." ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling

... smell, half turpentine half celery. It is sometimes called spear-grass, and grows to about the size of a mole-hill, all over the back country everywhere, as thick as mole-hills in a very mole-hilly field at home. Its blossoms, which are green, insignificant, and ugly, are attached to a high spike bristling with spears pointed every way and very acutely; each leaf terminates in a strong spear, and so firm is it, that if you come within its reach, no amount of clothing about the legs will prevent you from feeling its effects. I have had my legs marked all over by it. Horses hate ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... all that caused me any anxiety. And even now they do not greatly trouble me; for if they keep no better watch there on other nights than they did on this, it would be easy for a couple of resolute men to enter the place, even as I did, bind and gag the sentinels, and spike all eight of the guns, and never a man of them any the wiser until they came to put ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... muttered, however, that the winch was on such and such a side, and, with his head in the stairway, indicated the direction with his hand. Claude groped his way to the spot, his breath coming fast; fortunately he laid his hand almost at once on the chains and felt for the spike, which he knew he must draw or knock out. That done, the winch would fly round, and the huge machine ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... meant, for Lupin, a fresh battle to wage against a fresh enemy. The rapid march of events did not allow of the contemplation of such a possibility. He must at all costs spike the Marquis d'Albufex' guns by ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc

... sail- room below; in several places, new running-rigging was rove; blocks restrapped; and the slackened stays and shrouds set taught. For all of which, we were mostly indebted to my Viking's unwearied and skillful marling-spike, which he swayed ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... throat. The cavalry had charged again, and again the leading line had gone down. Now they were retreating, with the infantry beside them. Seeing it was of no use to remain longer, the cannoneer attempted to spike the four-pounder, but a Texan sharpshooter cut him down in ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer

... has had a very wide repute for its good-qualities. It belongs to the family of plants known as Labiates, which includes mint, sage, thyme, and other aromatic plants; these flowers mostly have a curious lip, and grow in a spike. The self-heal is not a tall plant, though it flourishes more in the rich soil of a garden than on that of the field-bank or the hedgerow. One curious thing about the plant is, that the flowers do not open all together, but a few at a time, so that it never looks in ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... what. Speech-making, an abuse of gift of speech. Spirit-rapping does not repay the spirits engaged in it. Split-Foot, Old, made to squirm. Spring, described. Star, north, subject to indictment, whether. Statesman, a genuine, defined. Stearns, Othniel, fable by. Stone Spike, the. Store, cheap cash, a wicked fraud. Strong, Governor Caleb, a patriot. Style, the catalogue. Sumter, shame of. Sunday should mind its own business. Swearing commended as a figure of speech. Swett, Jethro C., his fall. Swift, Dean, threadbare ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... method. With a strength so enormous that it could overcome the force of the gravity-plates and his forward momentum, the creature tossed him free. Dizzy, he hurtled upward. But he knew that the bird's purpose was to impale him on the long steely spike of its beak as he came ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore

... said one. "Spit in her face, and it will do," said a second. "Prick her with your spike," said a third. "Hold your wild talk," said a fourth; "she's gone to the shades." They gathered round, and looked at her attentively. They could not bring her back. So it was: she had gone to her Lord ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... prepares a proper background for it. She gives us color plans for all the needs we can conceive. White and gray clouds on a blue sky—what more could she use in such a composition? A bit of gray green moss upon a black rock, a field of yellow dandelions, a pink and white spike of hollyhocks, an orange-colored butterfly poised on a stalk of ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe

... he perceived an extraordinarily strong smell of honey. It came from the little flowering plants that covered the ground. They grew on slender stalks, had light-green, shiny leaves, which were beautifully veined, and at the top a little spike, thickly set with white flowers. Their petals were of the tiniest, but from among them pushed up a little brush of stamens, whose pollen-filled heads trembled on white filaments. Reor thought, as he went among them, that those flowers, which ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... Pete and John Mac, that good-natured quartet, who stood sponsors for that title. We were a pitiful lot of fellows in this garrison. We mixed the handful of flour given to us with snow water, and, wrapping the unsalted dough around a sagebrush spike, we cooked it in the flames, and ate it from the stick, as a dog would gnaw a bone. The officers put a guard around the few little hackberry trees to keep the men from eating the berries and the bark. Not a scrap of the few buffalo we ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... diameter, and at its thickest part measures about half-an-inch. It has been chipped all over with great care, and has a sharp edge all round. This peculiar style of tool or weapon reached perfection in this specimen, which, whether used as a knife, arrow, spike, or axe, was an implement of singular beauty of design, and exhibits great ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... line too wide On the narrow crest we stood, And in pride we named it Home, As we sign'd it with our blood. And we held-on all the morning, and the tide Of foes on that low dyke Surged up, and fear'd to strike, Or on the bayonet-spike ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave



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