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Barrel   /bˈærəl/  /bˈɛrəl/   Listen
Barrel

noun
1.
A tube through which a bullet travels when a gun is fired.  Synonym: gun barrel.
2.
A cylindrical container that holds liquids.  Synonym: cask.
3.
A bulging cylindrical shape; hollow with flat ends.  Synonym: drum.
4.
The quantity that a barrel (of any size) will hold.  Synonym: barrelful.
5.
Any of various units of capacity.  Synonym: bbl.



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"Barrel" Quotes from Famous Books



... who are in it, whereas by the fair thing one may lose all he has." "But," said I, "you said the other day, that you liked the fair thing." "That was by way of gammon," said the landlord; "just, do you see, as a Parliament cove might say speechifying from a barrel to a set of flats, whom he means to sell. Come, what do you ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... boys had the brick part of the furnace all done when she appeared. They were carefully fitting into place the rusty piece of stove-pipe which was the crowning glory of the structure. Katy and Gertie were seated on an old barrel turned over on its side, watching the process. They made room for Chicken ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... barrel of the rifle on the window-sill, and knelt down to make his aim sure. Before, however, he could obtain a good sight, the old farmer came so nearly opposite that he was obliged to restrain his fire through fear of ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... latest type. It is laid on the black and white mosaic, between the carved oaken pews and the strip of brown carpet in the aisle. A crimson light from the stained-glass window yonder glints on the blue steel of its barrel, and the khaki of its shoulder-strap blends with ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens

... In another five minutes I had begun to climb down the watercourse—the shekarry following me. I took the double-barrelled rifle and handed him the shot-gun, having first dropped a bullet down each barrel over the charge. The ravine was steep, but there were bushes to hold on by, and although it was hot work and took a good deal longer than I expected, we at last got down to the place which I had fixed upon as likely ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty

... his huge hands over his barrel-shaped body and laughed, without a trace of humor. "Just where do we send that team, Kelgarries? Northeast of a coastal point in Britain is a rather vague direction, to say the least. Not," he spoke to Ashe now, ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... sword's point in his throat, and there was an end of his dreams. Four other sleepers were despatched in like manner, without time given them to utter a syllable. After them went another, who had entrenched himself between two horses; then the luckless Grill, who had made himself a pillow of a barrel which he had emptied. He was dreaming of opening a second barrel, but, alas, was tapped himself. A Greek and a German followed, who had been playing late at dice; fortunate, if they had continued to do so a little longer; but they never counted a ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... handful of meal from the barrel and began to bake it into a cake. The man watched her from the door. As she turned the cake, it seemed to her too ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... flesh that is laid to entrap him, pulls the string which moves the trigger, and that lets go the Cock which on the steel strikes certain sparks of fire which kindle the powder in the pann, and that presently flies into the barrel, where the powder catching fire rarifies and drives out the bullet which kills the Animal; in all which actions, there is nothing of intention or ratiocination to be ascrib'd either to the Animal or Engine, but all to ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... pause in the onslaught, then to his dismay Crispin saw the barrel of a musket pointed at him over the shoulder of one of his foremost assailants. He set his teeth for what was to come, and braced himself with the hope that the King might already have ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... It sounded each time as if a giant risen from out of the very bowels of the earth sent up great sobs. Like a wild chase of unbridled, unchained elements the powerful missile shot up high from the gun barrel. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... must suffice to complete our survey of Robert's merits as a designer and book illustrator. These are "Colburn's Kalendar of Amusements" (1840), "Job Crithannah's Original Fables" (1834), and Eugene Sue's "Orphan." There is an Irishman sitting on a barrel in one of the woodcuts to the "Kalendar," who quite equals any of the Hibernians of George. The eighty-four designs to the "Fables" are admirable specimens of the artist's best manner, and George himself rarely ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... plan. He hath devised a beer-barrel that hath the beer all roundabout, so that when they push their rods in, there seems all beer within. But in the heart of the beer there is secured a little iron case; and within the iron case there is space for papers. Well, this barrel goes to and fro to ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... it ran over her face, so that she made a shocking appearance. She was put on a hurdle, and drawn on a sledge to the place of execution, which was very near the gallows. After spending some time in prayer, and singing a hymn, the executioner placed her on a tar barrel, about three feet high; a rope (which was in a pulley through the stake) was fixed about her neck, she placing it properly with her hands; this rope being drawn extremely tight with the pulley, the tar barrel was then pushed away, and three irons were then fastened around her body, to confine it ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... kill'd good Store of Provision with his Gun, he always shot with a single Ball, missing but two Shoots in above forty; they being curious Artists in managing a Gun, to make it carry either Ball, or Shot, true. When they have bought a Piece, and find it to shoot any Ways crooked, they take the Barrel out of the Stock, cutting a Notch in a Tree, wherein they set it streight, sometimes shooting away above 100 Loads of Ammunition, before they bring the Gun to shoot according to their Mind. We took up our Quarters by a Fish-pond-side; ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... wayside a camp fire was burning ahead of her: the flames had died down, there were only red embers. She could hear the horses munching. In the darkness she could see the outlines of two carts, one with a barrel, the other, a lower one with sacks in it, and the figures of two men; one was leading a horse to put it into the shafts, the other was standing motionless by the fire with his hands behind his back. A dog growled by the carts. The ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... excepted, and the system of swallowing 'little glasses' of fiery spirit on the top of beer brings forth its natural fruits. The drunken ways of the people are encouraged by the excessive number of public-houses. Practically anyone who can pay the Government fee and obtain a barrel of beer and a few tumblers may open a drinking-shop. It is not uncommon in a small country village with about 200 inhabitants to see the words 'Herberg' or 'Estaminet' over the doors of a dozen houses, in which beer is sold at a penny (or less) for a large glass, and where various ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond

... despite their father's protests, "bleed" me for all sorts of contributions. One of these came near embroiling me with Moissey. It was for a revolutionary leader, a Jew, who had recently escaped from a Siberian prison in a barrel of cabbage and whose arrival in New York (by way of Japan and San Francisco) had been the great sensation of the year among the socialists of the East Side. The new-comer was the founder of a party of terrorists ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... one of the kind that'll shirk on me when my back's turned, or steal from me if he gets a chance, or betray any trust I put in him. He's as poor as blue-John and as proud as Lucifer, but he's as straight as the barrel of that old gun. He's got Kentucky blood in him, and the ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... an' by. When I get good an' ready," returned the gypsy indifferently and abstractedly, squinting with one eye down the barrel of her gun. "What do I want with letters? I got two bear an' a mountain lion before the ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... in a barrel of earth in the cellar where they will produce "pie-plant," for winter use. Dig chickory for salad and store in sand in a dry cellar. Blanch endive by ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various

... for me yourself," said the old woman speaking very energetically,—"don't you send no one else to the barrel for't; because I know you'll ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... in the depth of the sand, "cracks its barrel-shaped coffin," and splits its mask, in order to disinter itself; the head divides into two halves, between which we see emerging and disappearing by turns a monstrous tumour, which comes and goes, swells and shrivels, palpitates, labours, lunges, and retires, thus compressing and gradually undermining ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... but posterity would have withheld its blame. He was a beggar of the merriest kind. While he wrote letters to friends in England, asking for remittances, and describing his wretched condition on a bed of straw and eating bran bread, he had a good barrel of Dorchester ale in his lodgings, his usual glass of maraschino, and his bottle of claret after dinner; and though living on charity, could order new snuff-boxes to add to his collection, and new knick-knacks to adorn his room. There can be ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... whether the State flag was that of Massachusetts or Virginia. And behind these came scant three hundred men. All the rest were sleeping between Washington and Richmond, some on almost every battle-field. The uniforms were old and faded from sun and rain. Only gun-barrel and bayonet were bright. And the men were scarred and tired and foot-sore, haggard from hard fighting and long, swift marches. For these men had been trained to be hurried back and forth behind the long line ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... by him, I should follow his example, and be infected by his passion for poetry.... And so it turned out. I, too, began reading poetry, or, as my grandmother expressed it, poring over doggrel trash.... I even tried my hand at versifying, and composed a poem, descriptive of a barrel-organ, in which occurred the ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... taught by the use of literal and interlinear translations; but "a literal translation, or any translation, of a school-book is a contraband article in English schools, which a schoolmaster would instantly seize, as a custom-house officer would seize a barrel of gin." ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... was held is shown in that he was known as Monster to the King, the domdaniel of attorneys. When he died the result of the autopsy was that "his brains were found to be two handfuls of dry dust, his heart a bundle of sheepskin writs, and his belly a barrel of soft soap." He wasn't a man ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... can tell you, gripped his Martini rifle as if he would dig his nails into its steel barrel, sighting it for point-blank range and aiming low, as the captain had told us, to catch the beggars full in the bread-basket as they came up, yelling and waving their weapons about, thinking, ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... undulations, not noticed by all, that appeared to come from every direction. The shock lasted altogether fifteen seconds or more,[25] and was accompanied by a rumbling noise, in the midst of which were detonations as of thunder or of great blows given upon an empty barrel. ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison

... much as they choose to buy. The club gets its beer direct from the brewer, by the barrel. So they get it good; at once much cheaper, and much better, than at the public-house. The members take it in turns to be steward, and serve out the beer: if a man should decline to serve when his turn came, he would pay a fine of twopence. ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens

... approaching for the departure of the railway train to Birmingham, by which they were to leave town: the Native got him into his great-coat with immense difficulty, and buttoned him up until his face looked staring and gasping, over the top of that garment, as if he were in a barrel. The Native then handed him separately, and with a decent interval between each supply, his washleather gloves, his thick stick, and his hat; which latter article the Major wore with a rakish air on one side of his head, by way of toning down his remarkable ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... long time, Patty," Jim declared. "You're more fun than a barrel of monkeys! I'm awfully glad ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells

... wherein the devil's brides were burned at Wolgast, the fool was walking at evening time up and down the great corridor, when a little manikin, hardly three hands high, started out from behind a beer-barrel, riding on a three-legged hare. He was dressed all in black, except little red boots which he had on, and he rides up and down the corridor—hop! hop! hop!—stares at my fool and makes a face at him; then rides off again—hop! ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... tell me nothing of his mother, who had died when he was but an infant. Nor was there much intercourse between our families, except that twice a year, at Lady-day and Christmas, Mr. Gurney would send us a barrel of his best brewing; and once a year, on the 1st of January—for he would give no countenance to the feasts of the Church—my father despatched a pair of fine ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward

... size. "I inconsiderately tasted the spring," records a traveler of years ago, "and, if you are anxious to know what it is like, you may be satisfied without going to Bareges, by tasting a mixture of rotten eggs and the rinsings of a foul gun-barrel." Our spirits fall lower and lower in this damp impluvium; never before have we felt so grateful over our limitless good health; we dodge out with relief into the darkening air, and, under the beginnings of a rain-storm, thankfully slip back to the ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... into the barrel of my pistol with concentrated composure, then glanced at the table-drawer which he had jerked open. A revolver lay shining among the litter of glass tubes and papers in ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... his speech, Jehan le Loup, seizing upon an empty barrel that stood in a corner, trundled it forward, and standing it on one end invited Villon to take his seat upon this whimsical throne. The poet sprang lightly upon the perch thus provided for him, and ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... tell you, except that it ought to be a long way off. I'm not joking, Kent; this is straight. A good long jaunt around the world would do you a barrel of good. Don't stop to think about it, just start, ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... furniture was of the simplest kind. Behind him came Brian de Bois-Guilbert, armed cap-a-pie in bright armour, but without his lance, shield, and sword, which were borne by his two esquires behind him. His face, though partly hidden by a long plume which floated down from his barrel-cap, bore a strong and mingled expression of passion, in which pride seemed to contend with irresolution. He looked ghastly pale, as if he had not slept for several nights, yet reined his pawing war-horse ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... and an hour or so later Craig and I quietly slipped into the Close residence under her guidance. He was carrying something that looked like a miniature barrel, and I had another package which he had given me, both carefully wrapped up. The butler eyed us suspiciously, but Marie spoke a few words to him and I think showed him Mrs. Close's ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... under the plank and filled it with irons and stones weighing about three thousand pounds. Thereupon the barrel was nailed up and the chain wound about it; strong iron rings, through which the chain was pulled, ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... hundred years ago every little brook and streamlet was utilised for producing the power required by our local mill-owners, gun-barrel rollers, &c. Then came the world's revolutioniser, steam, and no place in the universe has profited more by its introduction than this town. Gas engines are now popular, and even water engines are not unknown, while the motive ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... examined the barrel, but, alas, there was only one shot left in it. They searched the hut for more cartridges, but not one ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... influence with the senate to dissuade them from coming to terms with their foe. On his return to captivity, the Cathaginians[TN-120] cut off his eyelids and exposed him to the burning sun, then placed him in a barrel armed with nails, which was rolled up and down a hill till the man ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... horse, which was hitched to something unsubstantial among those fragments, came forward to welcome me. A short row of wagon members which had escaped divorce, and were united in wheeling order, stood along the high board fence. In one of them, a rough wooden cart, shaped somewhat like a barrel sawed in two lengthwise, pillowed on straw, but with his legs hanging down in an uncomfortable attitude, lay my faithless postboy (he was about forty years of age) fast asleep. The neighboring vehicle, which I divined to be the one intended ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... best was the "Sleeping Beauty in the Wood;" for he was sure some lovely creature lived in that garden, and he longed to get in to find and play with her. He actually planted a bean in a bit of damp earth behind the water-barrel, and watched it grow, hoping for as strong a ladder as Jack's. But the vine grew very slowly, and Johnny was so impatient that he promised Patsey his best book "for his ownty-donty," if he would climb up and report what was to be seen in ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott

... stand no more. Springing to his feet, he strode forward, grasping the barrel of his rifle to use it for a club. Shooting was too merciful ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... know what provisions they have with them, so confusedly were things flung into the gig. An examination of their stock proves that it is scant indeed: a barrel of biscuits, a ham, some corned beef, a small bag of coffee in the berry, a canister of tea, and a loaf of lump sugar, were all they had brought with them. The condition of these articles, too, is most disheartening. ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... they have hitherto always lived on good terms." It nearly broke Auguste's heart when one day during the French Revolution he was seized by a howling band of sans culottes and made to exhibit his finest skill on the top of a barrel before this ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris

... personal contact always insured a slight passage at arms. At present, this diverted their thoughts from what might be in store at the will of their mutual enemy, and it came with appalling suddenness. Each small boy was lifted, bidden to shut his eyes and mouth, then plunged downward into a barrel of some cold slippery stuff. Here he was soused vigorously up and down, until every portion of his skin was smeared with the stick mess; after which he was placed on his feet and ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... wore it went slowly up and down the line, front and rear, examining rifles and equipment, while the young officers and the old sergeant were hoping that Jones or Smith hadn't got some dust in his rifle-barrel at ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... home my prize, and put it into a barrel in a dark corner of the store, which was half full of nails. A few minutes afterwards, Dr. Dunlop, as he often did, came in to see me, and drink a glass of cider, of which I had at that time some of excellent quality in bottle. The Doctor, as he said, used to "improve" it, ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland

... dwarfs, and no mistake! Two of each, as Olive had seen at once. And immediately they settled themselves in twos—two squatted on the ground embracing their knees, two strode across a barrel which they had somehow or other brought with them, two began turning head-over-heels, two knelt down with their heads and queer little grinning faces looking over their shoulders, twos and twos of them in every ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... kettles and things I brought!" Felicia mourned. "We'll have to buy some plates and cups, though, Ken." Most of the Sturgis china was reposing in a well-packed barrel in a room over Mr. Dodge's garage, accompanied by many other things for which their ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price

... exposed in a open space of moonlight, and a glimmer reached me from something in the hand. Like a flash it came across me that I was in the presence of the extraordinary act of suicide. The glimmer was from the barrel and mountings of a revolver! Those ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... this holy relic, and, dying in Palestine, he left it in charge of a priest, his chaplain. The priest falling ill on board ship, and perceiving that his end was drawing near, gave the shroud into the hands of a clerk, a native of Perigord. He, after the death of his master, took a small barrel, in the middle of which he placed a partition. In one half he put the sacred sheet, and his drink in the other. In this manner he carried the relic back to his native land, and placed it in a church near Cadouin, of which he had charge. Fearing that someone might steal his treasure, he left it in ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... her practice, either in her words or appearance. If to show you love her you must drink with her she has chosen an ill place for followers, for she is forbid with the waters. Her shape is not very unlike a barrel, and I would describe her eyes, if I could look over the agreeable swellings of her cheeks, in which the rose predominates; nor can I perceive the least of the lily in her whole countenance. You see what L30,000 can do, for without that I could never have discovered all these agreeable particularities. ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville

... still held. The second raft, by some miracle, rode through without collision to ride tilting about the curve into the channel proper. Brent saw, through dazed and uncertain eyes, figures bending to long poles. He felt such a sickening sensation as a man in a barrel may experience at the moment of going over the crest of Niagra. Through it all he felt rather than saw the figure of a girl in man's clothing standing at the center of the raft, poised with bent knees against shock; and with a ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... technically known as 'red dog.' The flour produced from the first grinding was also more or less specky and discolored, and, in everything but strength, inferior to that made from winter wheat, while the 'yield' was so small, or, in other words, the amount of wheat which it took to make a barrel of flour was so large, that milling in Minnesota and other spring wheat sections was anything ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... make me feel so badly. Just step over and say I will send them a barrel of watermelons and cantaloupes, and those Mrs. Brown sent me too, if they will get up a dance or make any kind of cheerful noise. There is a tambourine among the children's toys: you can beat it as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... wind had swept her, embraced Peggy. It was succeeded by a mad beating of her heart. Roy said nothing but clutched his rifle. He jerked it to his shoulder as, out of the shadows, a figure emerged sharp and black against the moonlight. As if she were in a trance Peggy saw Roy's hand slide under the barrel of the little repeater and then came the sharp click of the repeating mechanism, followed by the snap of the ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham

... to kill as many of them as possible, a big, ugly ranchman turned around, swearing, and made for me. He was either out of cartridges or afraid to take time to load his needle gun, for he swung it over his head by the barrel and rushed at me to strike with the butt end. I did the same. We both struck at once and each received a blow on the head. The volunteer's gun put a brand on my forehead that will be seen as long as I live. My blow on his head made him fall on his ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields

... the instant, and he missed him. The shot grazed Tobie's cheek as he knelt inside the room, resting his long gun-barrel on the ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... to watch the old fellow, at any rate," said Dyke Barrel, rising and walking twice across the room, peering nervously out of the window in the direction in which old ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton

... inverse ratio to the distance. The method favoured by Ampere would first of all allow this law of repulsion between the two pistons to be discovered, even if the existence of a gas enclosed in the barrel of the pump were unsuspected; and it would then be natural to localize the potential energy of the system on the surface of the two pistons. But if the phenomenon is more carefully examined, we shall discover the presence of the air, and we shall understand that every part ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare

... out of those little stripes, appear a man and a wife; and, out of the other thing, a barrel-organ on a cart, with a ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels

... a hundred strong, was charging down upon them. Half-naked, their brown arms gleaming, they seemed the inhabitants of some South Sea isle rather than Eskimos of the Farthest North. Copper-pointed spears gleamed yellow and gold, while here and there the dark barrel of a hunting ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell

... make a fine display of fire-works. They use barrels full of fire-crackers, and the Chinese boys do not fire them off, as the American boys do, a cracker at a time; they bring out a large box full, or a barrel full, and fire them off package after package, as fast ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various

... hoped that no reader of this work will be guilty of the atrocities that are often practised. An old fox, or badger, is caught, his under jaw is sawn off, and the lower teeth are forcibly extracted, or broken. A hole is then dug in the earth, or a barrel is placed large and deep enough to permit a terrier, or perhaps two of them, to enter. Into this cavity the fox or badger is thrust, and a terrier rushes after him, and drags him out again. The question to be ascertained is, how many times in a given period the dog will draw this poor tortured ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... been gathered in a compact crowd. Now that the excitement of hustling the gambler off the scene had died away, many of the men were sorry that they had not made their disapproval plainer. Though Tom Reade plainly understood the mood of the men, he mounted a barrel, holding up both hands as a sign ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock

... Bellamy was led on to the bar off Wellfleet by the captain of a snow which he had taken, to whom he had offered his vessel again, if he would pilot him into Provincetown Harbor. Tradition says that the latter threw over a burning tar-barrel in the night, which drifted ashore, and the pirates followed it. A storm coming on, their whole fleet was wrecked, and more than a hundred dead bodies lay along the shore. Six who escaped shipwreck were executed. "At times to this day," (1793,) says the historian of Wellfleet, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... language, as it doth in ours. Whereupon the malicious rogue, watching his opportunity, when I was walking under one of them, shook it directly over my head; by which a dozen apples, each of them near as large as a Bristol barrel, came tumbling about my ears; one of them hit me on the back as I chanced to stoop, and knocked me down flat on my face; but I received no other hurt; and the dwarf was pardoned at my desire, because I had ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... I asked myself, is the mill's attraction and what is the power of this small town? Its population is 3,346. Of these, 1,000 work in the knitting-mill, 200 more in a cutlery factory and 300 in various flour, butter, barrel, planing mills and salt blocks. Half the inhabitants are young hands. Not one in a hundred has a home in Perry; they have come from all western parts of the State to work. There are scarcely any children, few married couples ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... association with man formed the subject of an interesting discussion in the British Association meeting. Mr. Shaw read a paper "On the Mental Progress of Animals During the Human Period," and Dr. Grierson mentioned an instance of intelligence which had come under his own notice. Five years ago a barrel was put up in his garden at the top of a high pole. The barrel was perforated with holes and divided in the centre. In the course of two days two starlings visited the barrel, and returned on the following day, and in about a week afterward two pairs of ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... friars of that monastery to name some island after their house. Before they came to it, and about two leagues distance from its coast, they discovered a very high rock ending in a point, whence issued a stream of water as thick as a large barrel, which made so great a noise in its fall as to be heard on board the ships; yet many affirmed that it was only a white vein in the rock, the water was so white and frothy by reason of its rapid fall. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... brick kilns to Tasmania and to New Zealand, in order to build homes for the first white settlers in those lands. She helped also to establish Lieutenant Bowen's colony at Risdon. On that occasion we read that the little ship lent the colony a bell and half a barrel of gunpowder. The logbooks do not record to what use the bell was put, but whether it served as a timekeeper or to call the people to worship, it was doubtless highly valued by the ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... their cartridges ran short. Tim Rooney took his station with Mr Mackay on the poop, from which the advancing pirates could best be picked off, and where also were gathered the captain, as a matter of course; Mr Saunders, who carried an old single-barrel pistol with a heavy lock, which the second mate intended to make more use of as a club than to shoot with; and Tom Jerrold and Sam Weeks, as well as myself— Sam being sadly jealous of Tom and I from the fact of our having revolvers, ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... co-pilot; I didn't quite catch his first name) is scarlet-faced, barrel-chested and gives the general appearance of belonging under the spreading chestnut tree, not in a metal bullet flinging itself out into airless space. Come to think of it, who does belong where ...
— The Dope on Mars • John Michael Sharkey

... was doing. I saw him pull a dead Spaniard out of the door with a listless movement, and then pick up his rifle as if he thought the whole thing a bore. Suddenly, a bullet came in with a zip along the underside of his gun barrel, glanced against the strap, and took the skin off the negro's knuckles as if they'd been scraped with a knife. And then you should see the change! He wasn't scared—not a bit; but he was mad enough to have charged the whole Spanish army ...
— Young Peoples' History of the War with Spain • Prescott Holmes

... graceful as a barrel, Scalawag," chuckled Mr. Sorber. "He's too fat. But I just can't help feedin' critters well. I like to feed well myself. And I know where he's going to live in Milton he'll be well tended. Hullo! what's ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill

... are apt to miss fire the first time if not properly clean, the greatest precaution is to be taken to see that the nipple is perfectly clear before loading; first, by blowing down the barrel and placing the finger before the nipple, to feel that the air passes through it, and afterwards snapping a cap off to dry up any oil or moisture that may be in the barrel. To avoid accidents, it is better not to cap the muskets until ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... keeps them in a dry place ready for use when he dies. Old women save up money and sew it in their dresses, to be used to pay their funeral expenses. If a farmer is able to afford it he generally keeps a barrel of whisky in his cellar, to be drunk ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols

... fresh wood and piled it on the hearth. At a corner of the cabin stood an old rain barrel half full of water. He emptied the barrel and brought it inside. Then, by means of many trips to the little spring with the iron pot, he filled it with fresh water. All the while he moved soundlessly, and Paul's deep, peaceful ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the latter part of 1895. Besides climbing with bare feet a ladder whose rungs were sharp-edged swords, and lying on a bed of nail points with four men seated upon him, he curled himself up in a barrel, through whose inner edges nails projected, and was rolled about the stage at a rapid rate. Emerging from thence uninjured, he gracefully bows himself off ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... ranged warily through the pines and over the snow-clad hills, seeking for traces of the man-eaters, being joined towards noon by the British Consul. Carrying my twelve-bore fowling-piece loaded with a bullet in the right barrel and a charge of big shot in the left, the latter being full-choke, I was passing along the side of a steep hill at the foot of which, and some fifty feet below me, lay a frozen stream, when my dog-coolie, pointing downwards, cried, "Look at ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... but not a free-booter of the Manchester school;" and he dubbed the blue-book of the Import Duties Committee "the greatest work of imagination that the nineteenth century has produced." He said that the government, by acting upon it, and taking it for a guide, resembled a man smoking a cigar on a barrel ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... the last of the groups of children disappearing in the distance, she walked slowly away toward her "home"—a dilapidated-looking cottage in a potato patch, enclosed by a broken-down fence, patched up by Nelly and her new mother with old barrel-staves and branches of trees. The outdoor work which fell to her lot Nelly did not so much dislike. It was the nursing of a screaming baby, or scrubbing dingy, broken boards—work often imposed upon her—which sorely tried her childish strength ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar

... is dark and the lamps are lighted, there is dancing on the digue to the music of a barrel-organ. The Belgians are very fond of this dancing, and often the English and other ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Belgium • George W. T. Omond

... with great curiosity and not a little fear, partly as a man may look in a mirror, partly as he might look into the barrel of an enemy's gun to judge if it be truly aimed. Alan was advertised as "a small, pock-marked, active man of thirty-five or thereby, dressed in a feathered hat, a French side-coat of blue with silver buttons, ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Haven't you seen what the Morning Advertiser says about me? 'For the first time in our recollection he (that's me) bears on his political escutcheon a deep smudge of dishonour': and that's all because JOKIM wouldn't take a penny off a barrel of beer, and twopence off a gallon of spirits. It's the injustice I feel most acutely. It doesn't seem fair that Mr. BUNG should try to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various

... cider had been mounted on the cheese-press. It was evidently just beginning to ferment, for drops were foaming up from the bung, and creaming down each side the barrel ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... short crape veil; and he was carrying a box that he evidently would n't trust on his pack-horse, but whether it was a violin-case or a child's coffin, I was n't rude enough to ask. Old-fashioned Manton single-barrel slung on his back. Good-looking black-and-tan dog. Brown saddle-horse; small star; WD conjoined, near shoulder; C or G, near flank. Bay mare, packed; JS, off shoulder; white hind-foot. Horses in ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... their Confederacy was nearly in collapse. Lee sent a despatch saying he had not two days' rations for his army. Richmond was already in a panic at rumors of evacuation. Flour was selling at a thousand dollars a barrel in Confederate currency. The recent fall of Fort Fisher had closed the last avenue through which blockade-runners could bring in foreign supplies. Governor Brown of Georgia was refusing to obey orders from ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... these tools as our best amateur riflemen are constantly in the habit of performing with the heavy thick-barrelled American rifle. The short Enfield is found to shoot better than the long, owing to the increased "spring" of the long, thin barrel of the latter; and the English themselves are becoming aware that they have carried the point of reducing the weight too far, and their best gun-makers are now insisting upon the fact which General Jacobs told them years ago,—that a "heavy conical ball cannot be used effectively from a long, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... Lacoste was hunted for everywhere. The roads to Tarbes, Toulouse, and Vic-Fezensac were patrolled by brigades of gendarmes day and night, but there was no sign of the fugitive. It was rumoured that she had got away to Spain, that she was cached in a barrel at Riguepeu, that she was in the fields disguised as a shepherd, that she had ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... I am as firmly and resolutely determined that I will tilt under my own cognisance. The hazard, indeed, remains of being beaten. But there is a prejudice (not an undue one neither) in favour of the original patentee; and Joe Manton's name has borne out many a sorry gun-barrel. More of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... BARREL MIRABEAU, Viscount de Mirabeau, brother of the great tribune of the name, so called from his bulk and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... whey is run out through the trough from the factory into the large trough that is placed over the row of barrels, as seen in the foreground. Each patron thus has allotted to him in his individual barrel his portion of the whey, which he is supposed to remove day by day. No attempt is made to clean out these receptacles, and the inevitable result is that they become filled with a foul, malodorous liquid, especially in summer. When such material is taken home in the same ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell

... collation with Idington and others, a dollar. Given to my wife to buy a plaid with, 3 dollars. Given to my wife to buy lace with to hir apron, a dollar. Then on the end of December 1670 given to my wife 4 dollars and a halfe to pay 8 barrell of ale furnished us at 32s. the barrel, 4 dolars and a halfe.[644] Item given to my wife, 18 pence. Item payed for another pair of shoes, 3 shilings 3 pence. Item for wine with Mr. G. Dickson in Caddell's, 16 pence. Given to my wife, a dollar. Payed for wine, 10 pence. Given to my wife, halfe ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... journeyed across Slieve Gua till he came to the church called Ceall Clochair [Kilcloher]. The saint of that church, scil.:— Mochua Mianain, prepared a supper for Mochuda to the best of his ability, but he had only a single barrel of ale for them all. Although Mochuda with his people remained there three days and three nights and although the holy abbot (Mochua) continued to draw the ale into small vessels to serve the company, according to their needs, the quantity in the barrel grew no less but increased after the manner ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda

... blind grinder is almost invariably found furnished as we have described him, jammed up in some cranny or corner in a third-rate locality, where, having opened or taken off the top of his box, that the curious spectator may behold the mystery of his too quiet music—the revolving barrel, the sobbing bellows, and the twelve leaden and ten wooden pipes—he turns his monotonous handle throughout the live-long day, in the all but vain appeal for the commiseration of his fellows. This is really a melancholy spectacle, and one which we ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various

... house, its home. If better could be done for it, or for thee, would I have sent it hither? Through thy love, my little one must learn my love and be blessed. And thou shall not keep it without thy reward. For thy necessities—in thy little house, is there not yet room? in thy barrel, is there not yet meal? and thy purse is not empty quite. Thou canst not eat more than a mouthful at once. I have made thee so. Is it any trouble to me to take care of thee? Only I prefer to feed thee from my own hand, and not from thy store.'And the schoolmaster sprang up in joy, ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald

... what he wants?" said a quiet little man, sitting lazily on a barrel,—a clergyman, Vandyke; whom his clerical brothers shook their heads when they named, but never argued with, and ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis

... had no time to procure these luxuries, and I had to proceed ammonialess and puddingless to the seat of war. My comrades were quite right. Why not do yourself well if you can? One of them even went in for the luxury of having three shooting irons, two revolvers and a double-barrel slug pistol, so that when either of the weapons got hot while he was holding Baggara horsemen at bay, there was always one cooling, ready to hand. He also, which I believe is a phenomenal record with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various

... "bawheady" with a thud that carried desolation to Beth's tender heart. Four others followed in quick succession before Beth could protest. Then clinging to Arabella, she started to run. Nan tried to run after her, but caught her foot on the barrel's brim and straightway joined the five dolls. Elizabeth opened her mouth to shriek, when in an opportune moment, a young man appeared on the scene, and speedily fished out Miss Nan, who dripped and coughed and choked; inarticulate, but evidently wrathy sounds wrestled for ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden

... speculation only for lonely brooks and pastoral hills. Maltravers delighted to contemplate nature in men as well as in sheep or trees. The humblest alley in a crowded town had something poetical for him; he was ever ready to mix in a crowd, if it were only gathered round a barrel-organ or a dog-fight, and listen to all that was said and notice all that was done. And this I take to be the true poetical temperament essential to every artist who aspires to be something more than a scene-painter. ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... skin and color are those of an ass somewhat modified; the legs are slender and the hoofs high, narrow and contracted, like those of an ass. In fact, in all these respects it is an ass somewhat modified. The body and barrel, however, of the mule are round and full, in which it differs from the ass and resembles ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale

... antelope—boks, as they were generally called—while as game was so abundantly plentiful, the boys were asked by the doctor what they would seek for that day when they would sometimes decide on devoting one barrel of their double guns to small shot, the other in case of danger being loaded with a bullet. Then they would make the Illaka understand what they required, and he would lead them to where there was abundance of a large kind of partridge, or francolin, which was delicious eating; ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn

... and its head drooped. This figure, which was entirely hidden in a long cloak with a hood, appeared to be watching our camp just as a spy might do. Higgs lifted his rifle and fired at it, but Oliver, who was standing by him, knocked the barrel up so that the bullet ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... a barrel-shaped man who was unaccountably cheerless, as if the inside structure had been carefully removed, and then replaced by sawdust, Jonas thought. Even the offer of seven kroner for a single week's stay failed to produce the delirious ...
— Wizard • Laurence Mark Janifer (AKA Larry M. Harris)

... ahead past a spacious glade where six tracks met. "There's a hut we could use for a mess," said Major Veasey. "Mark it up, Kelly; and look at that barrel, it would be big enough for you to sleep in." Snapped-off branches, and holes torn in the leaf-strewn ground, showed that the guns had not neglected this part of the wood; and in several places we noted narrow ruts a yard or so in length, caused by small-calibre projectiles. ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)

... of the condition of the colony at the period which we have now reached. Everything appeared to be going on well. The Henlopen arrived, discharged, loaded, and went out again, carrying with her the last barrel of oil in the Bight. The whalers had a jubilee, for their adventures made large returns; and the business was carried on with renewed spirit. In a word, the colony had reached a point where every interest was said to be prosperous—a state of things with communities, ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... was bulky, and, breathing asthmatically, had the additional motive for making her remarks unexceptionable and giving them a general bearing, that even her whispers were loud and liable to sudden bursts like those of a deranged barrel-organ. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... the siege, begun in December 1572, was turned into a blockade, and still the Spaniards could not enter. The heads of the leaders of relief armies which had been defeated were flung into Haarlem with insulting gibes. The reply to this was a barrel which was sent rolling out carrying eleven heads, ten in payment of the tax of one-tenth hitherto refused to Alva and the eleventh as interest on the sum which had not been paid quite promptly! It was in July ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... piece of apparatus in the place was one queer contrivance at one side. It looked partly like a machine-gun, because of a long brass barrel projecting from it. But the brass tube came out of a bulging casing of cast aluminum and there was no opening through ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... pair of coarse gray trowsers and a red shirt,—it was a raw, cold, wintry day,—and with cotton bandannas bound about their heads, were 'tending the still.' The foreman stood on a raised platform level with its top, but as we approached very quietly seated himself on a turpentine barrel which a moment before he had rolled over the mouth of the boiler. Another negro was below, feeding the fire with 'light wood,' and a third was tending the trough by which the liquid rosin found its way into the semi-circle of rough barrels ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... every man. Musket or bayonet could be of little use to men obliged to clamber up rocks, along slender paths, leading they know not where. And they were aware that armed men nowadays worshiped God; men of iron hearts, who feared not the glitter of the soldier's arms, neither barrel nor bayonet; men of long stride, firm step, and broad breast, who, on the open field, would have overthrown the marshaled line, and gone first and foremost, if a city had to ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... Rhode Island, on an elevated portion of an immense swamp. Here his men erected about five hundred wigwams, of a superior construction, in which was deposited an abundant store of provisions. Baskets and tubs of corn (hollow trees cut off about the length of a barrel) were piled one upon another around the inside of the dwellings, which rendered them bullet-proof. Here about three thousand Indians had taken up their winter quarters, and among them were Philip's ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... those in the North; and at the opening of August Charles moved against the city with hope of a speedy surrender. But the gallant resistance of the town called Essex to its relief. It was reduced to a single barrel of powder when the Earl's approach forced Charles to raise the siege on the sixth of September; and the Puritan army fell steadily back again on London after an indecisive engagement near Newbury, in which Lord Falkland ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... Electoral Assembly was returning to his quarters, accompanied by a sergeant and three volunteers of his own company, when they were stopped on the Petit-Cours by Froment, commonly called Damblay, who, pressing the barrel of a pistol to the captain's breast, said, "Stand, you rascal, and give up your arms." At the same time the red-tufts, seizing the captain from behind by the hair, pulled him down. Froment fired his pistol, but missed. As he fell the captain drew his sword, but it was torn from his hands, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... quickly round I saw to my horror two huge dogs galloping straight at me. Quick as lightning I stood on the defensive, and when they with open mouths and bloodshot eyes were within five yards, I pulled the trigger. The gun missed fire with the first barrel. The second barrel luckily went off, scattering the brains of the nearest dog, the whole charge having entered his mouth, and gone through the palate into his brain. This occurrence seemed to check the advance of the second brute, who, while hesitating for a moment before coming at me, ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha



Words linked to "Barrel" :   breech, hoop, pose, tubing, stave, vessel, Imperial gallon, United States liquid unit, beer keg, containerful, Imperial capacity unit, hogshead, put, ring, gal, cylinder, tun, set, lay, tube, rear of tube, tap, wine cask, British capacity unit, congius, spigot, position, spile, gun, butt, place, shook, bung, lag, keg, gallon



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