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Wick   Listen
verb
wick  v. i.  (Curling) To strike a stone in an oblique direction.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wick" Quotes from Famous Books



... nothing. But though the man who can buy fresh soles and salmon may despise chub, there are those who do not. True, you may make a most accurate imitation of him by taking one of Palmer's patent candles, wick and all, stuffing it with needles and split bristles, and then stewing the same in ditch-water. Nevertheless, strange to say, the agricultural stomach digests chub; and if, after having filled your ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... fever of suppressed loathing, Dorsenne again was impressed by the thought of her perfect perspicacity. It was probable that she had applied the same force of thought to her mother's conduct. It seemed to him that on raising, as she was doing, the wick of the silver lamp beneath the large teakettle, that she was glancing sidewise at the terrace, where the end of the Countess's white robe could be seen through the shadow. Suddenly the mad thoughts which had so greatly agitated him ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... whirled round the room; the boa grew alive; it coiled about her; it strangled her. Her candle failed; the wick in the socket flickered and died; but Elma danced on, unheeding, in the darkness. Dance, dance, dance, dance; never mind for the light! Oh! what madness was this? What insanity had come over her? Would her feet never stop? Must she go on till she dropped? ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... for a moment to call for a candle. Mrs. Busvargus brought it, trimmed the wick, and again retired. This was our only interruption. Joe Roscorla had not returned from Polkimbra; so we were left alone to the gathering shadows and ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... a gourd," gasped Peter between paroxysms. "I kept it in my closet for a week, and half an hour ago I stole a bit of wick out of Dinah's pantry and dipped it well in melted tallow, and than stuck it inside, when, as you see, having carved out two eyes and a slit for the nose, it looks somewhat ghastly ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln

... hospitable apologies for his Philippa's forgetfulness; "she did not remember the lamp!" he lamented; and making his way through the twilight of the room, he took off the prism-hung shade of the tall astral lamp on the center-table, and fumbled for a match to light the charred and sticky wick; there were very few occasions in this plain household when it was worth while to light the best lamp! This was one of them, for in those days the office dignified the man to a degree that is hardly understood now. ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland

... candle gives such a strange light with that long wick, and, somehow, your face does not look like you. Please, put the candle out, and come to bed. I am so frightened, and it seems as if I should be safer if ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... gracious voices blend the grace Of Warsaw Barnett's tenor; and the bass Unfathomed of Wick Chapman—Fancy still Can feel, as well as hear it, thrill on thrill, Vibrating plainly down the backs of chairs And through the wall and up the old hall-stairs.— Indeed young Chapman's voice especially Attracted Mr. ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley

... most sheltered corner of the hut, Yim filled it with oil, and then, drawing forth a pouch that hung from his neck, he produced a wick made of sphagnum moss previously dried, rolled, and oiled. This he laid carefully along the straight side of the lamp. Then, turning to Cabot, he uttered the ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe

... He had struck a match and was lighting the wick of a lamp beside the huge fireplace. "I suppose you think I'm perfectly crazy. ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... not all. It was not merely the being alone in the dark which frightened me. Indeed, a curious little wick floating on a cup of oil was lighted at night for my benefit, but it only illumined the great source of the terror which made night hideous ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... on the floor. It had burnt almost to the wood and now the remnant of the wick stood in a little sprawling pool of grease white ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... said nothing, but I observed that the lamp was smoking, and I turned down the wick. I was so self-conscious, so irresolute, so nonplussed, that in sheer awkwardness, like a girl at a party who does not know what to do with her hands, I pushed the revolver off the satchel, and idly unfastened the catch of the satchel. ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett

... had not assured me that it was all the fault of my sister-in-law. But, even so, there is no sense in letting your conscience make a slave of you: and when conscience reduces your majesty's father to ignoring the rules of common civility and behaving like a candle-wick, I am sure that matters are being ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... On the floor a small binnacle lamp—that had found its way to the house years ago from the lumber-room of the Flash—did duty for a night-light. It glimmered very small and dull in the great darkness. Almayer walked to it, and picking it up revived the flame by pulling the wick with his fingers, which he shook directly after with a grimace of pain. Sleeping shapes, covered—head and all—with white sheets, lay about on the mats on the floor. In the middle of the room a small cot, under a square ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... lights) there are four in the chamber besides the 'needle,'—one in each wall,—and, like the niche, at the end of the passage of entrance, they all have semicircular heads each cut in a single stone. That in the west wall has a hole or cup at the bottom, probably to hold oil in which a wick might float, while the others (except the 'needle') have a sort of funnel at the top, doubtless to catch the soot from lamps. In the east wall there is also a round-headed recess of larger size, the meaning of which will be discussed later. An excavation made in 1900 has lowered the earthen floor ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett

... gas, you say, in that candle flame? Think for a moment of the science involved in lighting a candle. What am I doing when I apply a lighted match to this candle? The first thing I do is to melt the tallow, the melted tallow being drawn up by the capillarity of the wick. The next thing I do is to convert the liquid tallow into a gas. This done, I set fire to the gas. I don't suppose you ever thought so much was involved in lighting a candle. My candle is nothing more than a portable gas-works, similar in ...
— The Story of a Tinder-box • Charles Meymott Tidy

... useful and economical of those made are the Britania, as they are less liable to break; and the tube for the wick being fastened to the body by a screw renders it less liable to get out of order or explode. Glass is the cheapest, and for an amateur will do very well, but for a professed artist the ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling

... and a piece of cheese in the meantime, Master Ben," said Margaret, as she took down the lantern, and examined the wick. ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston

... and Lydia and Staniford had said good-night, and Miss Maria, coming in from the kitchen with a hand-lamp for her father, approached the marble-topped centre-table to blow out the large lamp of pea-green glass with red woollen wick, which had shed the full radiance of a sun-burner upon the festival, she faltered at a manifest unreadiness in the old man to go to bed, though the fire was low, and they had both resumed the drooping carriage ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... the south side of the Upper Avon, here crossed by a picturesque stone bridge of 21 arches. St Andrew's church, originally Norman of the 12th century, has been enlarged in different styles. A paved causeway running for about 4 m. between Chippenham Cliff and Wick Hill is named after Maud Heath, said to have been a market-woman, who built it in the 15th century, and bequeathed an estate for its maintenance. After the decline of its woollen and silk trades, Chippenham became celebrated for grain and cheese markets. There are also manufactures of broadcloth, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... silent now, except when Sarah trudged up the back stairs with the clanking silver-basket on her arm. The lamp on the corner of her bureau flickered, and a spark wavered up the chimney; the oil was gone and the wick charring. She got up and blew the smouldering flame out; then sat down again in the darkness.... Yes; Lloyd was no longer vitally interested in Frederick's health. She must make up her mind to that. But ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... the wick, and sat it up on his pile of books that it might give a better light, and then turned again smilingly towards Bee, offered her a chair and stood as ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... hour later, the two carriages drew up before the steps of a new wooden house, painted grey, with a red iron roof. This was Maryino, also known as New-Wick, or, as the peasants had nicknamed it, ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... way we learn our lessons," said Caroline, in a low voice, still unseen, as Bobus wiped, sheathed, and pocketed his favourite pen, then proceeded to turn down the lamp, but allowed the others to relight their candle at the expiring wick. ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... which opens into a garden, planted with fine trees loaded with fruit. Walk directly across the garden to a terrace, where you will see a niche before you, and in that niche a lighted lamp. Take the lamp down, and put it out. When you have thrown away the wick and poured out the liquor, put it in your waistband and bring it to me. Do not be afraid that the liquor will spoil your clothes, for it is not oil, and the lamp will be dry as soon as it ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... said Ned, and after lowering the lamp a little by putting the wick back amongst the oil, they crept out on to the veranda, where all listened for a time and ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn

... animal, or possibly an animal that never did live and never will. Many of the paintings are found in the depths of unlit caverns, often difficult of access. How could they paint any picture in the dark, when even fire was unknown, and the torch and lamp-wick had not yet been invented? And how could they make a ladder, or erect scaffolding of any sort in that rude age, before there were inventions of any kind? Yet they tell us that the frescoes on the ceiling of the dark cavern of Altamira, Spain, were made ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams

... instant Buck wondered whether Bud could possibly have returned and crawled in there unheard. Then, as the wick flared up, he not only realized that this couldn't have happened, but recognized lying on the youngster's rolled-up blankets the stout figure and round, unshaven ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... pronounced as i in such words as sheep, week, called ship and wick; and the sound of double e follows the same rule in ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... did not, there would be no Mrs. Dyers," answered her aunt. "She is a terrible woman. I feel always like a sort of dry lamp-wick when she has left me. Never mind! I have something else now to talk about. I want you to make yourself useful ...
— Esther • Henry Adams

... round. There were three candles burning. With a little cry of superstitious fear she blew one out and pinched the wick. Through the two big windows she could see the ships in the harbour with rows of shining portholes: ferries were fussing to and fro like fiery water beetles. From the man-of-war she saw the winking Morse light signalling to the Heads. Trams clanged by in the distance; in ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... t' wick uns are agean me, I sal feight for them that's deead— Roman sowdiers i' their trenches, lapped i' ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman

... down the wick of his lamp a trifle. "Yes, I know you did," he remarked in placidly non-contentious tones. "I can't say I saw much in him myself, but I daresay you're right." There followed a moment's silence, during which he experimented ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... from his pocket, unlocked a door in a back wing of the house. Reaching out until his hand touched me, as if to make sure that I was there, he swung the door open and we stepped into a dimly lighted apartment. My mysterious guide turned up the wick of a lamp that was burning on a table in the centre of the room. It was a library, with great shelves of books reaching from floor to ceiling along its walls. A large galvanic battery, globes, charts and other contrivances ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller

... her lips, which had moved at first, were still and she only watched the burning wax. When the flame rose clear and long it was a sign that Assonquer was enlisted in the coveted endeavor. When the wick sputtered, the devotee trembled in fear of failure. Its charred end curled down and twisted away from her and her heart sank; but the tall figure of Palmyre for a moment came between, the wick was snuffed, the flame tapered ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... states that the founder had destined a different site for this church, "but after progress had been made at the original foundation, at night time, 'a pig' was seen running hastily to the site of the new church, crying or screaming aloud We-ee-wick, we-ee-wick, we-ee-wick.' Then taking up a stone in his mouth he carried it to the spot sanctified by the death of St. Oswald, and thus succeeded in removing all the stones which had been laid by ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... corner, those red curtains drawn across the window, those prints on the walls—all once so pleasant to the doctor's eyes—took a certain air of squalor and wretchedness to-night which sickened him to look at. The lamp flared wildly with an untrimmed wick, or at least Dr Rider thought so; and threw a hideous profile of the intruder upon the wall behind him. The hearth was cold, with that chill, of sentiment rather than reality, naturally belonging to a summer night. Instead of a familiar place where rest and tranquillity ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... Whitsuntide Pentekosto. Whizz sibli. Who kiu. Whoever kiu ajn. Whole tuta. Whole tuto. Wholesale pogrande. Wholesome saniga. Whom kiun. Whooping cough koklusxo. Whosoever kiu ajn. Whose kies. Why kial. Wick mecxo—ajxo. Wicked malvirta, malbona. Wickedness malvirteco, malboneco. Wicket pordeto. Wicker salikajxo. Wide largxa. Widen plilargxigi. Widow vidvino. Widower vidvo. Widowhood vidveco. Width largxeco. Width, in lauxlargxe. Wield manpreni, manregi. Wife edzino. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... joined in batteries of six or twelve, with a pert handle at one side, and tiny holes at the tips, through which the wick-ends were thrust, by help of a long broom-straw. Well in place they were drawn taut, the reeds so placed as to hold the wicks centrally, then tallow melted with beeswax, in due proportion, was poured around till the molds were brim full—after which they were plunged instantly ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams

... cover him, or to give him a drink, or to pick up the cage of mice which Jimmy insisted on having beside him and which constantly slipped off on to the floor. After a time Peter lighted the night-light, a bit of wick on a cork floating in a saucer of lard oil, and set it on the bedside table. Then round it he arranged Jimmy's treasures, the deer antlers, the cage of mice, the box, the wooden sentry. The boy fell asleep. Peter sat in the room, his dead pipe in his teeth, ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... kind of lamp, they filled it with reindeer's fat, and stuck into it some twisted linen shaped into a wick; but they had the mortification to find that, as soon as the fat melted, it not only soaked into the clay but fairly ran out of it on all sides. The thing, therefore, was to devise some means of preventing this inconvenience, not arising ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... the brimstone match. It gives me an almost proud satisfaction to tell how we used, when those implements were not at hand or not employed, to light our whale-oil lamp by blowing a live coal held against the wick, often swelling our cheeks and reddening our faces until we were on the verge of apoplexy. I love to tell of our stage-coach experiences, of our sailing-packet voyages, of the semi-barbarous destitution of all ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... master now? What shall we see in this miserable cabin—with the exception of the Tic-balan, [7] or Assuan? [8] We shall find nothing else." During the Indian's reflections the fire burnt up. I lit, without saying a word, a cotton wick, plastered over with elemi gum, that I always carried with me in my travels, and I began exploring. I went all through the inside of the habitation without finding anything, not even the Tic-balan, or Assuan, ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... clumsy wick had burned up on our tallow candle. It was by now getting light. At the gloomy little window, which was turning blue, we could distinctly see both banks of the Donets River and the oak copse beyond the river. It ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... with great glee at a dinner by William IV., then Duke of Clarence: "I was riding in the Park the other day, on the road between Teddington and Hampton-wick, when I was overtaken by a butcher's boy, on horseback, with a tray of meat under his arm.—'Nice pony that of yours, old gentleman,' said he.—'Pretty fair,' was my reply.—'Mine's a good 'un ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... bit," replied Amarilly cheerfully. "Besides what Mr. Derry gives me, there's what I've had from odd jobs like letting the artists paint my hair, and taking care of Mrs. Wick's baby afternoons when she goes to card parties. I've got thirty dollars ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates

... no answer and he lifted the globe from the lamp and put a match to the wick. Then he ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton

... business he was not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in New England, and on finding his dyeing trade would not maintain his family, being in little request. Accordingly, I was employed in cutting wick for the candles, filling the dipping mould and the moulds for cast candles, attending the shop, going ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... of a receiver, A, tubes, B, and wick chamber, C, when the same shall be constructed substantially as described, for ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... think of. Next A dwelling appears by a slow sweet stream Where two sit happy and half in the dark: They read, helped out by a frail-wick'd gleam, Some rhythmic text; But one sits with them whom they don't mark, One I'm wishing could not ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy

... save the two old folks and Lil, Who made their hearts expand and thrill By playing snatches, slow and clear, Of carols they'd been used to hear Some half a century ago At High Wick Manor, when the two Were bashful maidens: they talked on, Of England and what they had done On byegone Christmas nights at home, Of friends beyond the Northern foam, And friends beyond that other sea, Yet further—whither ceaselessly Travellers ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... bend to the iron yoke of a mechanical system? Is my soaring spirit to be chained down to the snail's pace of matter? To blow out a wick which is already flickering upon its last drop of oil—'tis nothing more. And yet I would rather not do it myself, on account of what the world would say. I should not wish him to be killed, but merely disposed of. I should ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... one was in sight, he turned his horse's head toward London, and set off at a round canter. Coming to a cross-road, he turned to the right, and rode for an hour in that direction, crossing the Thames near Hampton Wick. In the afternoon he entered London from the south, and put up at an obscure hostelry. Having seen his horse attended to, and eaten something himself, he went to bed and slept soundly for eighteen hours. On awaking, he ate ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne

... to Ballater by Deeside, from Aberdeen to Fraserburgh (with a branch at Maud for Peterhead and at Ellon for Cruden Bay and Boddam), from Kintore to Alford, and from Inverurie to Old Meldrum and also to Macduff. By sea there is regular communication with London, Leith, Inverness, Wick, the Orkneys and Shetlands, Iceland and the continent. The highest of the macadamized roads crossing the eastern Grampians rises to a point 2200 ft. above ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... a piece of linen tied round the bulb, wetted enough to keep it damp by a thread or wick dipping into a cup of water, it will show less heat than a dry one, in proportion to the dryness of the air, and quickness of drying.[9] In very damp weather, with or before rain, fog, or dew, two such thermometers will be ...
— Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy

... the night the Rupun returned. I noticed that he seemed much upset. He sat by my side. By the light of the flickering fire and a wick burning in a brass bowl filled with butter, I could see on his face an expression of great anxiety. I felt, by the kind way in which he looked at me, that he had grave news to give me. I was not mistaken. He moved me from the dirty place where I had been thrown ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor

... stank, and I'm blessed if his fingers didn't tremble so much when it came to lighting the wick that he dropped the burning splinter altogether. I grabbed the things impatiently enough out of his hands, got a light, and ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... unpolished walnut table had no shade or globe upon it, and it glared with all the brilliancy of clean glass, and much wick and oil. The dining-room was orderly as ever. The map of Palestine, the old Bible, and some newly-acquired commentaries, obtruded themselves painfully as ornaments. There was no nook or corner in which anything could hide in shadow; there were no shutters on the windows, for there was no one ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... The light, a fiber wick burning in a stone cup of oil upon a stone-slab table in the center of the hut, "uttered unsteadily, casting huge and dancing shadows up the ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... the candle on the floor, and leaned against the wall thoughtfully, watching the blue fan of flame that wavered to and fro, threatening to detach itself from the wick. "At all events," he thought, "the place is ventilated." Suddenly Philip sprang forward and extinguished the light. His existence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... sure, with this opportunity of contracting an acquaintance which, I trust, my lord, we shall improve. Julia, my dear, you must not allow yourself to be too much excited, you must not. Indeed you must not. Mrs Wititterly is of a most excitable nature, Sir Mulberry. The snuff of a candle, the wick of a lamp, the bloom on a peach, the down on a butterfly. You might blow her away, my lord; you ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... Cop, before this little hamlet of Bellamy Wick was built, or the glen was dignified with the name of Raven Dale, there lived a miner who had no term for his place of abode. He lived, he said, under Wardlow Cop, and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... should go out like the rest, nothing can prevent my looking upon it as a sinister omen." The fourth taper went out. It was remarked to the Queen that the four tapers had probably been run in the same mould, and that a defect in the wick had naturally occurred at the same point in each, since the candles had all gone out in the order in which ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... the church, consequently cannot open it in the evening. But I have prepared some lamps for my chapel. I think you would laugh to see them. They are four in number. Two of them are merely small tumblers hung up by wires and cords. By means of another wire a wick is suspended in each tumbler and the tumbler filled with oil. The other two are on the same principle, but the tumblers are hung in a kind of glass globe which is suspended by brass chains. These look considerably more ornamental ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg

... it,—-a cipher, an o! I acknowledge life at all only by an occasional convulsional cough, and a permanent phlegmatic pain in the chest. I am weary of the world; life is weary of me. My day is gone into twilight, and I don't think it worth the expense of candles. My wick bath a thief in it, but I can't muster courage to snuff it. I inhale suffocation; I can't distinguish veal from mutton; nothing interests me. 'Tis twelve o'clock, and Thurtell* is just now coming out upon the new drop, Jack Ketch alertly tucking up his ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... flame; a glow of light held at arm's length by the recreant follower of Destiny illuminating a tableau which shall end the ignominious chronicle—a maid with unkissed, curling, contemptuous lips slowly lifting the lamp chimney and allowing the wick to ignite; then waving a scornful and abjuring hand toward the staircase—the unhappy Tansey, erstwhile champion in the prophetic lists of fortune, ingloriously ascending to his just and certain doom, while (let us imagine) half within the wings stands the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... soul's light into a tallow candle, and thenceforward take our guttering, sputtering, ill-smelling illumination about with us, holding it out in fetid fingers—encumbered with its lurid warmth of fungous wick, and drip of stalactitic grease—that we may see, when another man would have seen, or dreamed he saw, the flight of a divine Virgin—only the lamplight upon the hair of a costermonger's ass;—that, having to paint the good Samaritan, we may see only in distance the back of ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... moth whose skeleton is getting burnt up in the wick of the candle," she said slowly. "But you know I always take an interest in ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... only by an occasional convulsional cough and a permanent phlegmatic pain in the chest. I am weary of the world; life is weary of me, My day is gone into twilight, and I don't think it worth the expense of candles. My wick hath a thief in it, but I can't muster courage to snuff it. I inhale suffocation; I can't distinguish veal from mutton; nothing interests me. 'T is twelve o'clock, and Thurtell [1] is just now coming out upon the new drop, Jack Ketch ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... He was a jovial, good-natured, over-blunt Irishman, the legal adviser of both Burke and Reynolds. Indeed it was Hickey who drew the conveyance of the land on which Reynolds's house 'next to the Star and Garter' at Richmond (Wick House) was built by Chambers the architect. Hickey died in 1794. Reynolds painted his portrait for Burke, and it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1772 (No. 208). In 1833 it belonged to Mr. T. H. Burke. Sir Joshua also painted Miss Hickey in 1769-73. Her father, not ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... ceased to exist, and Tekin Alp and the Nationalists still dream on with rainbow visions of Ottomanisation, the vistas of which stretch far into Persia and the plains of the Volga. And all the while she has been put out like a candle, and all that is left of her is the smouldering wick ready to be pinched between the horny fingers of her stepmother. There she stands, her stepmother, with her grinning ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... shaking hand held the worn bit of candle to the flame. It failed to ignite. The horrible, dreaded darkness was about to close upon them again before—before——But another hand had seized the candle. Mrs. Quimby has come forward, and as the match sends up its last flicker, thrusts the wick against the flame and the candle flares up. ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... Part of the wick or snuff, which falling on the tallow, burns and melts it, and causing it to gutter, ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... appearance of that individual at this time and place, he was ready and willing to make his acquaintance. Bracing himself against the window-frame, he reached out his hand, and in a few moments Mr. Beam had scrambled into the room. Lodloe turned up the wick of his lamp, and by the bright light he looked ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton

... up the grooves with corn bread blackened with soot that we can make by holding the wick of this smoky lamp against ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... to make out the letters printed on it, in consequence of the dimness of the light which the landlord had left him—a common tallow candle, furnished with a pair of heavy old-fashioned steel snuffers. Up to this time, his mind had been too much occupied to think of the light. He had left the wick of the candle unsnuffed, till it had risen higher than the flame, and had burnt into an odd pent-house shape at the top, from which morsels of the charred cotton fell off, from time to time, in little flakes. He took up the snuffers now, and trimmed the wick. The light brightened ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens

... shield In the harvest field; And no man blames The red red flames, War's candle-wick On roof and rick. Now dead lies the yeoman unwept and unknown On the field he hath furrowed, the ridge he hath sown: And all in the middle of wethers and neat The maidens are driven with blood on their feet; For yet ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... faroles: A large wax candle, with more than one wick, or a union of three or four candles, which was used ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various

... week-end at Southampton with Mrs. Vernon Bale. Apart from coming down to breakfast she's a perfect hostess. We played the most peculiar games on Sunday evening and she and Florrie Wick did a Nautch dance which was most entertaining and bizarre! How hospitable Americans are, I've fixed up heaps of luncheon engagements for next week—Edgar Peopthatch was particularly kind—he offered to introduce me to Carl ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward

... so... Better—while life is quick And every pain immense and joy supreme, And all I have and am Flames upward to the dream... Than like a taper forgotten in the dawn, Burning out the wick. ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... intonation reminded me of the caressing way the Swedes articulate English. I heard him read the Russian newspapers to her with evident emotion, but the only word I could make out was Kouropatkin. The herring-agents at the hotel table were full of drollery. One of them, hailing from Wick, addressed a neighbour abruptly to this effect: "I am a rather expensive man to sit beside, and to one like you especially so, for you seem to be a water-drinker. When I tell you who I am, however, you will insist on standing me a bottle of champagne." He was frigidly asked to state his grounds ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... lives could be saved, and he was the only man to see it. He watched us until the girls touched the floor more dead than alive, and then his head fell back and the life seemed to go suddenly out of him like the flame out of a candle, leaving only the dead wick. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various

... and Inference cause us to take of the nature of the flame of the lamp. To Perception the flame, as long as it burns, seems one and the same: but on the ground of the observation that the different particles of the wick and the oil are consumed in succession, we infer that there are many distinct flames succeeding one another. And we accept the Inference as valid, and as sublating or refuting the immediate perception, because the perceived ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... I think you did not love your father; But that I know love is begun by time, And that I see, in passages of proof, Time qualifies the spark and fire of it. There lives within the very flame of love A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it; And nothing is at a like goodness still; For goodness, growing to a plurisy, Dies in his own too much: that we would do, We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes, And hath abatements and delays as many As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... for the snow crept in wherever there was an aperture. The trousers were of double thickness, as they were exposed to the greatest wear. Attached by large buttons, toggles or lampwick braces, they reached as high as the lower part of the chest. Below, they had lamp-wick lashings which were securely bound round the uppers of boots or finnesko. In walking, the trousers would often work off the leather boots, especially if they were cut to a tailor's length, and snow would then pour up the leg and down into the boots in a remarkably short time. To counteract ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... confront her caused him to hesitate: should he go in? What else could he do? where had he to go? So, with a sort of desperation, he pushed open the door and found himself within the sitting-room. It was empty; the fire had burnt low, the wick of the unsnuffed candle had grown long; evidently Eve had not returned; and with an undefined mixture of regret and relief Adam sat down, leaned his arms on the table and laid his head ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... which will be prolonged only for a few hours, and yet which shall settle all the past and all the present and all the future, and be closed before the end of that day, which will close, not with setting sun, but with the destruction of the planet as a snuffers takes off the top of a burned wick. ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... cleft graft is used. The stub is cut off at grafting time and the cleft is made by cutting, not splitting, the stock with a large grafting knife. The scion is tied in place with nursery tape, half-inch size, with a short wick leading out of the cleft. The scion is ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various

... with an oil which I was unable to recognize. There was no wick, but round the rim or lip of each was set a broad ring carved of stone, which made the opening at the top only about two inches in diameter. Through this the flame arose to a height ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... of water, and stir it with a rush-light till it boils; season it to your liking, and it is ready for use. N.B. The wick may be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 542, Saturday, April 14, 1832 • Various

... seemed a good supply of kerosene, but it is nearly gone, and we are down to two candles kept for an emergency. Annie brought a receipt from Natchez for making candles of rosin and wax, and with great forethought brought also the wick and rosin. So yesterday we tried making candles. We had no molds, but Annie said the latest style in Natchez was to make a waxen rope by dipping, then wrap it round a corn-cob. But H. cut smooth blocks of wood about four ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... order for those burned was to be sunk in dung to their knees. And men put a hard towel in a soft one, and encircled his neck. One pulled on one side, and another pulled on the other side, till the condemned opened his mouth. And one lit a wick, and cast it into his mouth, and it went down to his bowels, and it consumed his intestines. R. Judah said, "if he died in their hands, they did not complete in him the order of burning; only they opened his mouth with tongs against his will, and lit the wick, and cast it into his mouth, ...
— Hebrew Literature

... contriving to make a cask; I may well say it was vain, because I could neither joint the staves; nor fix the heads, so as to make it tight: So, leaving that, took some goat's tallow I had about me, and a little okum for the wick, and provided myself with a lamp, which served ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... night, riding in the sheriff's buggy with the sheriff and carrying poised on his knees a lighted lantern. Afterwards it was to be recalled that when, alongside the sheriff, he came out of his mill technically a prisoner he carried in his hand this lantern, all trimmed of wick and burning, and that he held fast to it through the six-mile ride to town. Afterwards, too, the circumstance was to be coupled with multiplying circumstances to establish a state of facts; but at the moment, in the excited state of mind of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... about six or eight carefully straightened candle-wicks. The wicking was twisted strongly one way; then doubled; then the loop was slipped over the candle-rod, when the two ends, of course, twisted the other way around each other, making a firm wick. A rod, with its row of wicks, was dipped in the melted tallow in the pot, and returned to its place across the poles. Each row was thus dipped in regular turn; each had time to cool and harden between the dips, and thus grew steadily in size. If allowed to ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... brightest to the eye are the dozen candles, scattered about regardless of expense, and kept well snuffed by the miller, who walks round the room at intervals of five minutes, snuffers in hand, and nips each wick with great precision, and with something of an executioner's grim look upon his face as he closes the snuffers upon the neck of the candle. Next to the candle-light show the red and blue coats and white breeches of ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... told John that she had heard that evening that the captain of the Wick steamer wanted a mate, and the rough Pentland Frith being well known to John, she hoped, if he made immediate application, he would be accepted. If he was, John declared his intention of at once seeing ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... notions of what constitutes a gentleman, many citizens are people of utterly penurious, niggardly habits. Frequently enough the fellow who can discuss all Socrates's theories with you is quarreling with his neighbor over the loan of salt or a lamp wick or some meal for sacrifice.[*] If one of the customary "club-dinners"[] is held at his house, he will be caught secreting some of the vinegar, lamp oil, or lentils. If he has borrowed something, say some barley, take care; ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... left in wound. Windpipe, food-pipe, carotid, jugular, half a dozen smaller, but still formidable, vessels, a great braid of nerves, each as big as a lamp-wick, spinal cord,—ought to kill at once, if at all. Thought not mortal, or not thought mortal,—which was it? The first; that is better than the second would be.—"Keedysville, a post-office, Washington Co., Maryland." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... descended heavily through the sleeping house. When the candle burned upright and clear yellow, his gait was steady; but he started many times at corners where its flame bobbed and flattened and shrunk to a blue, sickly rag half torn from the wick. "Ouf! Mort d'aieul!" he would mutter. "But I must count my wine to-night." And so he came down into the wide cellars, and trod tiptoe among the big round tuns. With a wooden mallet he tapped them, and shook his head to hear the hollow humming that their ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister

... one particular cry which was taken up for blocks along this district: 'O-oh, you wick-ed Hen-nery Johnson! You wick-ed ma-an!' and Henry the Boche Killer still bowed and grinned more widely than ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... fond of. When rightly prepared each grain stands out like the beautiful white-plumed corn captains and colonels that dance up so gaily over beds of live coals. There were made also the tallow dips, almost the only light used in the old days on the farms in Kentucky. Pieces of cotton wick were cut the required length and fastened at regular intervals to sticks of wood. One of the rows of wicks was dipped in the melted tallow, taken out and suspended over a vessel to drip. Then another was dipped, ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea

... finished his story, the horrified group shuddered and gathered closer about the fire which had burned low on the hearth. Pete tried to lay on a stick with his trembling hand, but was not equal to the task. The lamp-wick burned low in its socket, flickered and threatened to go out, while the storm without howled with increasing fury, the rain beat against the side of the house, and ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... lowest stratum of our many piled nature, and receive the savage response at the moment we blush for humanity. These dire images of the murderer's story were stronger than those of the Bernards—even of those lovely faces on the wall—and as the candle burned down, and the red wick grew up, I read and read on, how the cruel fiend did destroy while she fawned upon her victim; how that victim, overcome by the kindness of her enemy, praised her to her husband, who loved his wife to distraction; ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... The cooking or meat pan rested on the upper rim of the external cylindrical case, and was easily removable in order to be placed handy for service. The requisite heat was supplied by an oil lamp with three small single wicks, though I found that one wick was enough. I put the meat in the pot, with the other comestibles, at nine o'clock in the morning. It simmered away all day, until half-past six in the evening, when I came home with a healthy appetite ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... apartment, where I heard him lay himself down sighing and snorting. There was now no farther light than what proceeded from a small earthen pan on the floor, filled with water and oil, on which floated a small piece of card with a lighted wick in the middle, which simple species of lamp is called "mariposa." I now laid my carpet bag on the bench as a pillow, and flung myself down. I should have been asleep instantly, but he of the red nightcap now commenced snoring awfully, which brought to my mind that I had not yet commended ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... cottage. An Indian woman had come to visit my mother. On opposite sides of the kitchen stove, which stood in the center of the small house, my mother and her guest were seated in straight-backed chairs. I played with a train of empty spools hitched together on a string. It was night, and the wick burned feebly. Suddenly I heard some one turn our ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa

... cure? Santon Hales but two years ago accepted the post of clerk of the closet to the Princess, after literally leading the life of a studious anchorite till past seventy. If he does accept the preceptorship, I don't doubt but by the time the present clamours are appeased, the wick of his old life will be snuffed out, and they will put Johnson in his socket. Good night! I shall carry this letter to town to-morrow, and perhaps keep it back a few days, till I am able to send you ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... on holding his hand. She looked into his pale, narrow face and at his angular brow, the skin of which could be seen to twitch every now and then under the loose flowing hair that hung over it. The oil in the lamp was getting low, the wick had begun to smell. She was afraid however to put it out lest she might waken Daniel. She looked on in silence as the light became dimmer and dimmer and finally went out, leaving only the red glow of the wick. This too died away in time, and ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... deny the fact of God. "What! no God? A watch, and no key for it? A watch with a main-spring broken, and no jeweler to fix it? A watch, and no repair shop? A time-card and a train, and nobody to run it? A star lit, and nobody to pour oil in to keep the wick burning? A garden, and no gardener? Flowers, and no florist? Conditions, and no conditioner?" He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh at ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans

... privacy afforded by the paper screens which divide the several apartments, and which prove to be no obstacle to conversation, if one desires a colloquy with his neighbor. Our night-lamp was a floating wick, in a cup of cocoanut oil, placed in a square paper lantern on legs. The morning toilet was made at a basin of water in the open court-yard. There are no chairs, tables, or wash-stands, unless you improvise them. However, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... which Victoria had placed near Nevill's couch on the floor, flickered and dropped its wick in a pool of grease. There was only one other left, and the lamp had been forgotten in the kitchen: but already the early dawn was drinking the starlight. It was three o'clock, and ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... cautiously. Drayton stood behind it. Hugh Ritson entered. There was no light in the room; the red, smoking wick of a tallow candle, newly extinguished, was filling the ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... similar circumstances, it does not 'brown,' but becomes darker by overheating, and when heated to dryness, gives off a grayish steam, smelling of tallow. There is no 'sputtering' when it is being heated, but it boils easily. If a pledget of cotton or a wick saturated with oleomargarine be set on fire and allowed to burn a few moments before being extinguished, it will give out fumes which are very characteristic, smelling strongly of tallow, while true ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... his fist, and set it on the chimney-piece with so violent a bang that the wick came near being extinguished, and the tallow ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... it's Mandy!" and the young man ran a nervous hand across his forehead as the wick caught the flame. "Dad! What's the trouble? Where's mother? Why were the lights ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... ever asked a direct question so elaborately lengthy. People do not talk like that. As a contrast, let us notice for a moment the poignant truthfulness of speech in Mr. Rudyard Kipling's story, "Only a Subaltern." A fever-stricken private says to Bobby Wick, "Beg y' pardon, sir, disturbin' of you now, but would you min' 'oldin' my 'and, sir"?—and later, when the private becomes convalescent and Bobby in his turn is stricken down, the private suddenly stares in horror at his bed, and cries, ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton

... of wonder is reserved for the systematic speculative thinker, whose attention is arrested by the phenomena of a steadily burning flame, say that of a lamp. The oil is sucked up into the wick and slowly decreases in volume. At the point where the flame begins it rises in vapour, becomes brilliant, and, in the case of a clear flame, disappears. There is thus a constant movement from below upwards. The flame has all the appearance of a "thing," with comparatively ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... Frithiof had been three winters a-warring he sailed west, and made the Wick; then he said that he would go a-land: "But ye shall fare a-warring without me this winter; for I begin to weary of warfare, and would fain go to the Uplands, and get speech of King Ring: but hither shall ye come to meet me in the summer, and I will be ...
— The Story Of Frithiof The Bold - 1875 • Anonymous

... with the ice, and after setting a jug of water on the table departed. Richard turned up the wick of the kerosene lamp, which was sending forth a disagreeable odor, and pinned an old newspaper around the chimney to screen the flame. He had, by an odd chance, made his lampshade out of a copy of The Stillwater Gazette containing the announcement of his cousin's death. ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich



Words linked to "Wick" :   wax light, oil lamp, kerosine lamp, candlewick, taper, candle, cord, kerosene lamp



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