"Swab" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intrusted to snails. But the sides may be scrubbed with a soft swab, made of cotton or wick-yarn. Deaths will occasionally take place; and even suicide is said to be resorted to by the wicked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... parts hydrochloric acid, 5 parts alcohol, and 50 parts lamp-black, these being all well mixed. To use this preparation successfully—the article to be blacked or bronzed being first made clean and free from grease—it is applied with a swab or brush, or, better still, the object may be dipped into it; the liquid is allowed to dry on the metal, and the latter is then placed in boiling water, the temperature being maintained for half an hour. If, after this, the colour ...
— Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition - For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and - Galvanizing • William N. Brown
... Tony, jumping the gate as I went through it, "get busy with this situation. We've got almost a half-hour, so be doing something, everybody. Belle, you help Roxy skin that kid and get him into clean clothes while I swab up and light old Pomp's jimson-weed pipe for him?" And as Tony spoke he started to the rear of ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... John Simpkins, a bad 'un, you must know, Was told to swab a plank one day by a First-Class C.P.O., Whose eagle eye, returning, on the deck espied a stain— "Boy Simpkins, fetch your mop, me lad, and swab yon plank again." Boy Simpkins (Second Class, too!) made as though he wouldn't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 • Various
... regulation! Most wise regulation, if one understand it properly. For when once you begin tampering with the inviolable nature of a mail-cart, where are you to stop? Suppose your chance passenger proves to be not an honest subject, but a malefactor—one of a gang. "Take that, ye swab." A clump on the side of his head, and the driver is sent endways from the box-seat; the cart gallops on to where the, rest of the gang lurk waiting for it; strong arms, long legs, and the monstrous deed is consummated. Her Majesty's ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... 'ere slobbering and shamming, Bill. Why, d—— you, what d'ye think you're here for, eh? You swab the deck, and in five minutes, or I'll ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... acid. The results were favorable from the very start. The warts rapidly shrunk away and finally disappeared entirely. The acid is applied to the crown of the wart with a small swab or similar instrument, and only in sufficient quantities to wet the crown surface of the wart. It should be applied about three times a week until the wart is well reduced. Don't use too much acid, and don't keep up the application too long - ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... "Hang it! I mustn't lock a door without asking my barman now. Pack up and be off, you swab, afore I ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... unfeeling crowd laughed. Some one shouted "get under the hose." Another yelled "Swab ho," whereupon a none too clean deck swab was brought and applied to my face and hands, protests ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... cased in tight blue pantaloons that fitted him like his skin, over which were drawn long well-polished Hessian boots, each with a formidable tassel at top, and his coat was buttoned close up to the chin, with a blaz-, ing swab on the right shoulder, while a laced cocked hat and dress sword completed his equipment. But, alas! when we were accounted for on board of the old Torch, there was a fearful dilapidation of his external man. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... you like, with a wash-up like a small mountain, which the masalchi disposes of behind the pantry door on a yard or two of bamboo matting, with an earthen gumla, a kettle of boiling water, and an unthinkable swab! An English ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... though it had only a tinge of black in its coaxing beauty. There a workman with long hair and shag trousers painted the prevailing two-storied house the prevailing colour, white and green. There was a young naval officer in full dress, gold-buckled shoes, white trousers, short jacket with gold swab on shoulders, dress-sword and smart gait making ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Where is thy lime-kiln, that we may swab off the dark blemishes of the hour!! Aye, and on the whited wall, draw thee a picture of power and beauty Cleveland, for instance, thanking the peoples party for all the favors gratuitously granted by our mongrel saints in speckled linen and ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... said pleasantly, "you are a tar, as any one can see, and as good a seaman, I doubt not, as ever slept upon foc's'le. Two years ago I was a swab myself—" ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... it's you who forget, you swab. Ay, it's you who forget that you asked me to take the money to the gambling- tent, and made me promise that you should have half of what we won, but that I should play for both. What, are you beginning to remember ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... "Some of these days I will drive up and look in on them. I expect they have got a fancy parlor, and I would like to sit in it a while and think of the days when I used to swab the deck. There's nothin' more elevatin', to my mind, than just that sort of thing. I do it sometime when I am eatin' my meals at the hotel, and the better I can bring to mind the bad coffee and hard tack, the better I like what's set ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... the Knitting Swede, that prince of crimps, who put most of us into the ship. There was myself, with my childish vanity, and petty ambitions. There was the lady, the beautiful, despairing lady aft, wife of the infamous brute who ruled us. There was Cockney, the gutless swab, whose lying words nearly had Newman's life. And last, and chiefly, there was the man with the scar, he who called himself 'Newman,' man of mystery, who came like the fabled knight, killed the beast who ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... with a quart bottle of champagne, shut the door and struck a light. Then he opened the bottle of fizz and poured it out into a deep, enamelled starching-dish, and Billy MacLaggan drank thereof, and then raised his head, with his immoral-looking beard hanging in a sodden point like a wet deck-swab, and asked for more. That is, he asked as well as any Christian and civilised goat could ask, by standing up on his hind legs like a circus-horse and making strange, unearthly noises. Then he rammed his ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... of pus germs following injury or digestive troubles. Symptoms: Cheesy growths in mouth and throat. Treatment: Scrape off canker and swab with full strength Pratts Poultry Disinfectant. Improve general condition with Pratts ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... the sea with earthquakes—what to the doctor know of lands like that?—and I lived on rum, I tell you. It's been meat and drink, and man and wife, to me; and if I'm not to have my rum now I'm a poor old hulk on a lee shore, my blood'll be on you, Jim, and that doctor swab"; and he ran on again for a while with curses. "Look, Jim, how my fingers fidges," he continued in the pleading tone. "I can't keep 'em still, not I. I haven't had a drop this blessed day. That doctor's a fool, I tell you. If I don't have a drain o' rum, Jim, I'll ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... couldn't hurt HER. But I held her with one hand, she feeling dead and cold, like a wet deck-swab; then the old cook-woman undid my flash man's long hair, and, twining her skinny old claws in it, pulled it taut, while I sawed at the chap's neck with my right hand. The knife was heavy and sharp, and I soon got the job through. Then I gave the ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... the open space between the poles and the dungeon with a kind of sea-weed swab dipped in the waters of the boiling vat, then with a bit of the coarse brown cloth washed ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... "you've got a right to lie some if you want to. It's your turn, anyway. But let me swab you ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... I know who you mean. It was him—I am sure—and as sure as I sit here I'll be revenged. Bring a swab, corporal, and wipe up all this blood. Do you think the poor ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to give him one. Men! We'll have to give up that sleep I talked about. This limping dummy of a fakir thinks he's got us frightened, and we've got to teach him different. There's some reason why we're not being attacked as yet. There's something fishy going on, and this swab's at the bottom of it! We want him, too, on a charge of murder, or instigating murder, and the guardroom's the best place for him. To the guardroom with him. He'll do for a hostage anyhow. And where he is, I've a notion that the control of this treachery ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... Foltz, the surgeon who attended the house. The doctor took a look at my arm, and recommended an operation, as the lump would continue to increase, and was already so large as to be inconvenient. I cannot say that it hurt me any, though it was an awkward sort of swab to be carrying on a fellow's shoulder. I had no great relish for being carved, and think I should have refused to submit to the operation, were it not for James, who told me he would not be carrying Bunker Hill about on his arm, and would show ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... chaplain, to be scandalized. He said he would have stood that, but the horse carried him to a battery of artillery which was in position, and began to jump over the guns, and that a gunner took a swab with which he had been cleaning a gun, and punched him, the chaplain, in the face, covering his face with burnt ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... him again and again in the face, 'but lie there, you bloody-minded swab, till I tell you ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... vascularity of the structures and the ease with which proper drainage may be effected. No special after-care is necessary if drainage is perfect, except that one should avoid injecting the wound cavity with aqueous solutions unless it be absolutely necessary to cleanse such cavity, and then it is best to swab the wound rather than ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... was, and call the children in. It was the Captain, and in the buggy, holding the reins, sat The Crew. "Don't sit grinning there, you blockhead!" shouted the ancient mariner to Sylvanus; "hev ye been so long aboard ship ye can't tell a stable when you see it? Drive on, you slabsided swab!" The Captain's combination of lumbering with nautical pursuits gave a peculiar and not always congruous flavour to his pet phrases; but Sylvanus did not mind; he drove round the lane ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... go home. The candle that Mr. McGowan had been using was on the floor, and your pa's heel hit it. His cane went up and he went down. His high hat took a swim in a bucket of soapy water that the parson had been using to swab decks with." ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... a pail, and apparently varnishing the chairs with a little swab as he moved swiftly about the room; and, as he came nearer, Davy determined to speak ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... silent, no man doing more than let the breath go in and out of his body, and so each one of us knew that something moved without, in the big cabin. In a little, something touched upon our door, and it was, as I have mentioned earlier, as though a great swab rubbed and scrubbed at the woodwork. At this, the men nearest unto the door came backwards in a surge, being put in sudden fear by reason of the Thing being so near; but the bo'sun held up a hand, bidding them, in a low voice, to make ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... Pine Jim came into the men's camp bearing a huge chunk of tallow. This he held against the hot stove until its surface had softened, when he began to swab liberal quantities of grease on his spiked river shoes, which he fished out from ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... brushing should be done lightly and the strokes should follow the ridge design in order to clean not only the ridges but the depressions as well. In the event that the skin is not firm enough to use the toothbrush, a cotton swab may be used. The fingers should be wiped very lightly with either soap and water or xylene, always following the ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation
... be nothing to do, 'less they shave off the beard of the grand Turk to make a swab for the cabin of the king's yacht, and sarve out his seven hundred wives amongst the fleet. I say, I wonder how he keeps so many of them craft in ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... blackness twenty miles ahead, and the fierce sparks flying from his knuckles at every turn of the hand. Now and again he shook his head to clear the sweat trickling from his eyebrows, and it was then that George, watching his chance, would slide down the life-rail and swab his face quickly with a big red handkerchief. I never imagined that a human being could so continuously labour and so collectedly think as did Tim through that Hell's half-hour when the flurry was at its worst. We were dragged hither ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... IBM 370 family, the {PDP-10}, the Motorola microprocessor families, and most of the various RISC designs current in late 1995, are big-endian. Big-endian byte order is also sometimes called 'network order'. See {little-endian}, {middle-endian}, {NUXI problem}, {swab}. 2. An {{Internet address}} the wrong way round. Most of the world follows the Internet standard and writes email addresses starting with the name of the computer and ending up with the name of the country. In the U.K. the Joint Networking Team had ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... Oh, if I had my scissors here till I'd clip your ears off—wouldn't I be the happy man, any how, you swab, you?' ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... he answered. "We shan't have any more trouble with that lot, I think. You warned that pirate—I wish he had been in truth a clean, honest, straightforward pirate, instead of the measly Turkish swab he was—that something might occur before the first stroke of six bells. Well, something has occurred, and for him and all his crew that six bells will never sound. So the Lord fights for the Cross against the Crescent! Bismillah. Amen!" He said this ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... the only conclusive evidence of the disease. The bacillus may be obtained by swabbing the throat with a piece of aseptic—not antiseptic—cotton wool or clean linen rag held in a pair of forceps, and rotated so as to entangle portions of the false membrane or exudate. The swab thus obtained is placed in a test-tube, previously sterilised by having had some water boiled in it, and sent to a laboratory for investigation. To identify the bacillus a piece of the membrane from the ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... Cap'n Dott. Don't you worry about Zuby and me. We'll boss this end of the craft; you 'tend to the rest of it. Say, that Hungerford swab ain't come ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... ter us riled us all up. Seein' as he didn't care a blame, our skipper sent ther friggte aflyin' arter him. Waal, sir, ther cuss cracked on sail an' fled. Arter him we tacked, detarmined ter punish ther swab fer his imperdence. It wuz a long stern chase wot lasted ten hours. But we finally ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... thankful when I had a chance to wring the long knife out of the murderous stranger's hand, and I spoke out to the smooth-faced fellow. "You'll do, my boy, even if you don't know a yard from a main-brace bumpkin. Pass a line around his legs and stuff a swab into his mouth if he don't ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... atmosphere was still oppressively close, but it was no longer as deadly stagnant as it had been during the earlier hours of the day; for, at intervals, the vane at our main-royal masthead, which hitherto had drooped heavy as a sodden deck swab, save for the swaying motion imparted to it by the lift of the ship to the heave of the scarcely visible swell, lifted and fluttered feebly for a second or two, pointing now this way, and anon in some other direction, showing that, away up aloft there, and ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... tents are observed in the orchard they should be destroyed, which may be readily and effectually done by climbing the trees, and with the hand protected by a mitten or glove, seize the tent and crush it with its entire contents; also swab them down with strong soapsuds or other substances; or tear them down with a rounded ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... whiter than Parian marble, the bulwarks brighter than the cheek-piece of a grate, the breeches of the guns like goodly gold, and not a whisker of a rope's end curling the wrong way, if only she could have espied a swab, or a bucket, or a flake of holy-stone, or any indicament of labor done. "Artis est celare artem;" ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... down for a little rest. Better finish the job completely while you are about it. You will appreciate leisure so much more later. In lack of a wash-rag you will find that a bunch of tall grass bent double makes an ideal swab. ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... Martin Harris procured several pails of water and a long-handled swab and with these did what he could to extinguish the fire on the sails. Several of the others joined in, and inside of ten minutes all danger of ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... for indoor work is the "house-coolie," whose business it is to swab floors, polish grates, light fires, trim lamps, clean knives and boots and make himself generally useful about the house. Oftentimes he is unable to speak any English, wears a short coat in contradistinction ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... should be amalgamated by plunging them into the bichromate solution, then sprinkling on a minute quantity of mercury, rubbing it about by means of a swab, until the entire exposed surface ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... expenditures. But yet she is a copy of the other woman. Look at the train which she drags behind her over the dirty pavement, where dogs have been, and chewers of tobacco, and everything concerned with filth except a scavenger. At every hundred yards some unhappy man treads upon the silken swab which she trails behind her—loosening it dreadfully at the girth one would say; and then see the style of face and the expression of features with which she accepts the sinner's half muttered apology. The world, she supposes, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... "Don't make that noise or he might kick you spine more," he advised grimly. "You better go now an' swab that blood off ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... eyes, while he kissed the old man's hand; and he was so utterly disconcerted by his grief, that, when he attempted to speak, his tongue denied its office; so that the commodore, perceiving his disorder, made a last effort of strength, and consoled him in these words:—"Swab the spray from your bowsprit, my good lad, and coil up your spirits. You must not let the toplifts of your heart give way, because you see me ready to go down at these years. Many a better man has foundered before he has ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... less tinged with yellow, and only raising the temperature to the highest point when ready to blow the glass. This kind of devitrification is apparently due to volatilization of the alkalies from the glass in the flame, and it is said that it can be partly remedied or prevented by holding a swab of cotton saturated with a strong solution of common salt in the flame from time to time ...
— Laboratory Manual of Glass-Blowing • Francis C. Frary
... them on because we did not want to be impressed by the first ship that came in, but preferred to wait a bit till we saw one to suit us. I see, sir, that you have shipped a swab. That means, of course, that you have got a lieutenancy. I congratulate you indeed, sir, ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... stop? Will you stop ? " she said through her clenched teeth. " Do you think I want to listen to your everlasting twaddle about her? Why, she's-she's no better than other people, you ignorant little mamma's boy. She's no better than other people, you swab! " ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... could not do was to settle down to anything regular and quiet. He did not dislike life at all, even when he stood half-naked, as he once told me he did, on a board slung from the side of a ship, and dipped up pails of water to swab it, the water freezing as he flung it on the timbers. But with all this variety of life he did not learn anything particular from it all; he was much the same always, good-natured, talkative, childishly absorbed, not looking backward ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ordinary "gate" of fitting patterns being drawn from the drag or nowel part of the mould by means of a spike and rapper wielded by the moulder's hand after cope and drag have been rammed together on a "squeezer" and cope has been removed. Frequently the pernicious "swab" is used to soak and so strengthen joint outlines of the sand before drawing patterns, in such cases as this. In this case, before cope is lifted, these patterns must be vigorously rapped through the cope; an amount ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various |
