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Cul   /kəl/   Listen
Cul

noun
1.
A passage with access only at one end.  Synonyms: cul de sac, dead end.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Cul" Quotes from Famous Books



... English squadron had anchored just below the Narrows, in Nyack Bay, between New Utrecht and Coney Island. The mouth of the river was shut up; communication between Long Island and Manhattan, Bergen and Achter Cul, interrupted; several yachts on their way to the South River captured; and the blockhouse on the opposite shore of Staten Island seized. Stuyvesant now despatched Counsellor de Decker, Burgomaster Van der Grist, and the two domines Megapolensis with a letter to the English commanders inquiring ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... now goaded to courage by the loss of his papers, and she, finding herself in a cul-de-sac, turned at bay, launched the cat at his head, and attempted to spring past him. But he caught the whirling feline in one white-gloved hand and barred her way with the other; and she turned once more in desperation to seek an egress which ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers

... which led under a high, bare hedge, went forth again down the high road until, after crossing the brook, they turned to the right into Asheldham village, where, half-way between that place and New Hall, they turned up a short by-road, a cul-de-sac, at the end of which a big, old-fashioned, red-brick house of the days of Queen Anne, half hidden by a belt of high Scotch firs, came ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux

... under their own officers, Captains Hamilton and McKenzie, Hamilton being made a lieutenant-colonel and McKenzie a major while doing duty ashore. Fifty masters and mates of trading vessels were enrolled in the same battalion. The whole of the shipping was laid up for the winter in the Cul de Sac, which alone made the Lower Town a prize worth taking. The 'British Militia' mustered three hundred and thirty, the 'Canadian Militia' five hundred and forty-three. These two corps included practically all the official and business ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... only get out of this cul-de-sac," Jack said, as the savages gathered closer about the Black Bear, "and make the Beni river, we could leave them behind like they were painted ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson

... seems as innocent of a destination as a boy on an errand; but, after taking at least six times as long as any other road in the kingdom for its amount of work, you usually find it dip down of a sudden into some lovely natural cul-de-sac, a meadow-bottom surrounded by trees, with a stream spreading itself in fantastic silver shallows through its midst, and a cottage half hidden at the end. Had the lane been going to some great house, it would have made more haste, we may ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... edges, and rough to the touch when the finger is drawn forwards. It has the simple intestinal canal without caeca, which is proper to the Labridae. The intestine of Pseudochromis is similarly formed, the stomach being continuous with the rest of the alimentary canal, and not distinguished by any cul de sac. Having but one specimen of Assiculus for examination, I have not been able to submit it to dissection to see whether the structure of its intestines be the same or not, but both it and Pseudochromis differ very widely from the labroid type in their scales, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... the quadriceps extensor as a cul-de-sac, which either communicates with the sub-crural bursa, or forms with it one continuous cavity. When the joint is distended with fluid, this upper pouch bulges above and on either side of the patella, and this bone is ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... have had its name from the hucquan-sauk, 'hook mouth,' by which the waters of Newark Bay find their way, around Bergen Point, by the Kill van Cul, to ...
— The Composition of Indian Geographical Names - Illustrated from the Algonkin Languages • J. Hammond Trumbull

... them napping; for they are so subtle that they will sometimes tell you the truth because they think you will suppose it to be a lie. I do not wish to catch them napping, however; I cling to the wisdom of ignorance, and childishly enjoy the way in which things work themselves out— the cul-de-sac resolving itself at the very last moment into a promising corridor toward the outer air. At every rebuff it is my happiness to be hopelessly bewildered; and I gape with admiration when the Gordian knot is untied. If the ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... carriage, one of them wore a hat, the other a bonnet. They passed, and then Mr. Hyndford, going through the gap in the bushes, rode after them to ask his way. There was no carriage in sight, the avenue ended in a cul-de-sac of tangled brake, and there were no traces of wheels on the grass. Mr. Hyndford rode back to his original point of view, and looked for any object which could suggest the illusion of one old-fashioned carriage, ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... towards the goat. They danced about half an hour, and then his master told him they must adore the goat who was the Devil et ce fait et dict, veit que ledict Bouc courba ses deux pieds de deuant et leua son cul en haut, et lors que certaines menues graines grosses comme testes d'espingles, qui se conuertissoient en poudres fort puantes, sentant le soulphre et poudre a canon et chair puant meslees ensemble seroient tombees sur plusieurs drappeaux en sept doubles. Then the oldest, ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... are useless, as we cannot depend upon their contradictory statements. We are in a deplorable position—the whole fleet in a cul-de-sac; the river has disappeared; an unknown distance of apparently boundless marsh lies before us; there is no wood, and there is no possibility of moving ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... chet cul a terre (Between two stools one sits on the ground).—Les Proverbes del Vilain, MS. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... on the alleged presence of decomposed animal matter, human and of lower type, concealed amid the debris. The alleged odor of burnt flesh coming from the enormous mass of conglomerated timber and iron lodged in the cul-de-sac formed by the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge is extremely mythical. There is an unmistakable scent of burnt wood. It would not be strange if the carcasses of domestic animals, which must be hidden in the enormous mass, were finally to be realized ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... in abandoned quarries—which, at the first glance, partake somewhat of the character of subterranean cities—the different galleries excavated by the removal of the stone end in a cul de sac; that is to say, at a point in the mine where the work stops. One of these streets seemed to prolong itself indefinitely. Nevertheless, there came a point where the mine would naturally have ended, but there, in the angle of the tunnelled way, was cut (For what purpose? ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... the boyaux which ran out of the support line to the front trench. Only when one got into it did the difference become apparent, for whereas the boyaux had continued until finally opening into a new trench, the sap was a cul-de-sac, and finished abruptly in a little covered-in recess built into a miniature mountain of newly-thrown-up earth. And this great, tumbled mass of soil was the near lip of Vesuvius crater—blown up half way between the two ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... foxes, beavers, martens and mink, and also the burrowing rodents, take great pains to den up in winter just as far from the "fresh air" of the cold outdoors as they can attain by deep denning or burrowing. The prairie-dog not only ensconces himself in a cul-de-sac at the end of a hole fourteen feet deep and long, but as winter sets in he also tightly plugs up the mouth of his den with moist earth. When sealed up in his winter den the black bear of the north draws his supply ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... vaillant plat ni escuelle N'eut oncques, n'ung brain de percil. Il fut rez, chief, barbe et sourcil, Comme un navet qu'on ret ou pelle. Repos eternel donne a cil. Rigueur le transmit en exil Et luy frappa au cul la pelle, Non obstant qu'il dit "J'en appelle!" Qui n'est pas terme trop subtil. Repos eternel ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc

... place qui son amy y lesse. Il n'y a melieur mirroir que le vieil amy. Amour fait beaucoup, mais l'argent fait tout. L'amour la tousse et la galle ne se peuvent celer. Amour fait rage, mais l'argent fait marriage. Ma chemise blanche, baise mon cul tous les dimanches. Mieux vaut vn tenes, que deux fois l'aurez. Craindre ce qu'on peut vaincre, est vn bas courage. A folle demande il ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence

... problem was maddening me. In my investigations I now found myself in a cul-de-sac from which there seemed no escape. The net, cleverly woven without a doubt, was slowly closing about my poor darling, now so ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux

... il en avoit moins que le colon, car son diametre n'etoit que de quatorze pouces dans la partie la plus large; il avoit trois pieds et demi de longueur: l'orifice superieur etoit a-peu-pres aussi eloigne du pylore que du fond du grand cul-de-sac qui se terminoit en une pointe composee de tuniques beaucoup plus epaisses que celles du reste de l'estomac; il y avoit au fond du grand cul-de-sac plusieurs feuillets epais d'une ligne, larges d'un pouce et ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... study was complete. However, I have been obliged to recommence it, to study the special facts bearing on the alimentary question, and I must say that all the results obtained by Mr. Bertsch, Mr. Trcul, and myself agree with ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... Jesson explained, "the city itself stands at the arm of the river, in a sort of cul-de-sac, with absolutely untraversable mountains on three sides of it. All the roads have to come around the plain and enter from eastwards. There is only one line of railway, so that all the approaches into the city are ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... bedroom has two great glass bird-cages (inclosed balconies), one looking toward the Rhine Valley and sunset, the other looking up the Neckar cul de sac, and, naturally, we spent nearly all our time in these. We have tables and chairs in them . . . . It must have been a noble genius who devised this hotel. Lord! how blessed is the repose, the tranquillity of this place! Only two sounds: the happy clamor of ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine

... arrangements being left as they were. On the morning of December 12th the entire force sailed again, the main changes in it being in the chief command, and in the addition of Barrington's two ships of the line. On the afternoon of the 13th the shipping anchored in the Grand Cul de Sac, an inlet on the west side of Santa Lucia, which is seventy miles east-north-east from Barbados. Part of the troops landed at once, and seized the batteries and heights on the north side of the bay. The remainder were put on shore the next ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... Caisel Catholicus Catholicus Catlac Cellach Celsus Cellach Christian Christianus Gilla Crist Coleraine Culratim Cul Rathin Columbanus Columbanus Columban Comgall Congellus Comgall Connor Connereth Coindire Conor Conchobar Cork ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor

... surer protection from meddling law-dogs in Britain than any amount of mere innocence and purity of character. But instead of doing the natural thing, the officer took me at my word, and followed my instructions. And so, as I came trotting out of that cul de sac, full of satisfaction with my own cleverness, he turned the corner and I walked right into his handcuffs. If I had known it was a cul de sac—however, there isn't any excusing a blunder like that, let it go. Charge it up to profit ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... broke in another officer, whose rather rubicund face told of credit somewhere, and the product of credit,—good wine and good dinners generally. "That is true, Monredin! The old curmudgeon of a broker at the corner of the Cul de Sac had the impudence to ask me fifty per cent. discount upon my drafts on Bourdeaux! I agree with Des Meloises there: business may be a good thing for those who handle it, but devil touch ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... worked up to the head of the kloof, which made a cul-de-sac. It was formed of a wall of rock about fifty feet high. Down this rock trickled a little waterfall, and in front of it, some seventy feet from its face, rose a great piled-up mass of boulders, in the crevices ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard

... I, has determined my cul-de-sac in life," rejoined her companion. "It is like this: my father, who lacks an artistic soul, consented to my becoming a painter only upon the understanding that I should gain the Prix de Rome and pursue my studies in Italy free of any expense to ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... it and emerge at the other end, or whether it would be necessary to make a rather wide detour round one or the other extremity of the range. The route through the ravine would suit us best from every point of view, provided that it did not prove to be a cul de sac, because it led straight in the desired direction, and appeared to be tolerably level, also it would probably save us nearly forty miles; therefore I ordered Jan to outspan upon his arrival at the mouth of the ravine, while Piet and I rode on ahead to reconnoitre, ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... residence of Altuna at Paris, instead of going to eat at a 'Traiteurs', he and I commonly eat in the neighborhood, almost opposite the cul de sac of the opera, at the house of a Madam la Selle, the wife of a tailor, who gave but very ordinary dinners, but whose table was much frequented on account of the safe company which generally resorted to it; no person was received without being introduced by one of ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... alto-stratus. The 'Aurora' steamed north-east, it being our intention to round the northern limit of the Mertz Glacier. Gradually a distant line of pack, which had been visible for some time, closed in and the ship ran into a cul-de-sac. Gray, who was up in the crow's-nest, reported that the ice was very heavy, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... for why?—because we chose to go what Arthur calls "a bee-line across country," having thought we had sighted a route from the top of Fiesole. But in the valley we lost it, and after breaking our necks over precipices and our hearts down cul-de-sacs that led nowhere, and losing all the ways that were pointed out to us, for lack of a knowledge of the language, we came out again into view of Florence about half a mile nearer than when we started and proportionately far away from ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous

... pass was impossible and where, unless they stuck fast, they would have—which was always awkward—publicly to back out. They were touching bottom assuredly tonight; the whole scene represented the terminus of the cul-de-sac. So could things go when there was a hand to keep them consistent—a hand that pulled the wire with a skill at which the elder man more and more marvelled. The elder man felt responsible, but he also felt successful, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... the paths of history. Broad and shining channels get mysteriously silted up. How many a time what seemed a glorious high road proves no more than a mule track or mere cul-de-sac. Think of Canning's flashing boast, when he insisted on the recognition of the Spanish republics in South America—that he had called a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old. This is one of the sayings—of ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... standard which you or I would aim at, a man needs not only political insight, but he needs to be able to adopt his views to the practical programme of one of the existing parties, or else to be strong enough to form a party of his own. That is where I have come to the cul-de-sac in my career. It was my ambition to guide the working classes of the country into their rightful place in our social scheme, but I have also always been an intensely keen Imperialist, and therefore at daggers ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... sits enthroned at the foot of a cul-de-lampe in the choir, is so familiar to every child, now, through his photographs and casts, that it is hardly necessary to describe him. But many visitors to the cathedral fail to come across the old legend of his origin. It is as follows: ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... narrow lane driven between the tall sides of the houses. It was a cul-de-sac. At the open end I could see the glimmer of street lamps. It had stopped raining and the air was fresh and pleasant. Carrying my bag I walked briskly down the lane and presently emerged in a quiet thoroughfare traversed by a canal—probably the street, I thought, ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... Still, while I was there, I thought I might as well see all that was visible. I strolled repeatedly through the town. I became excessively familiar with its narrow streets, low houses, mud walls, cul-de-sacs, and mosques. I saw no fine bazaars, market-places, or shops. The chief wants of life were supplied by peddlers. Platters, jars, and baskets of fruit, vegetables, and meat, were borne around twice or thrice daily. Horsemen ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... Catamarans and Canoes. Friendly relations with the Natives of New Guinea. Are well received at their Village. Tatooing and Dress of the Women. The Huts described. Large Canoe from the Mainland. Tassai ladies return our visit. The Natives described. Their Weapons, Ornaments, Food, etc. Cul de Sac de l'Orangerie, and Communication with the Natives. Redscar Bay and its Inhabitants. Leave the Coast of New Guinea. Arrive at ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... to Seymour Terrace, is a cul-de-sac on the same side of the main Fulham Road, between Manor Hall and the Somerset Arms public-house, which last forms the west corner of ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... death's valley of shadow. The manifestations of the presence of spirits and the evidences of their identity, which have been accumulating during all these years, have solved the 'great secret,' and we know that death is not a CUL-DE-SAC, but a thoroughfare. The dread of death disappeared altogether with the mists of ignorance, as, through the gateway of mediumship, the shining presence of ministering spirits, 'our very own dear departed,' illumined ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita

... of June land was seen to the north. It was the bottom of the Gulf of the Louisiade, which had received the name of Cul-de-sac de l'Orangerie. The country was magnificent. On the sea shore, a low land covered with trees and shrubs, the balmy odours of which reached the ships, rose like an amphitheatre towards the mountains, whose summits were lost in the skies. However, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... get it straight, cul," replied the mucker, "I tink youse know a whole lot more about it dan you'd like to have de rest ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... that he had wandered into a cul-de-sac. He had found his way into one of those branch avenues leading from the great road of his imperial success. He was man enough to know when to ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... gone by the time she rang off. I felt, instead, a sort of relaxation that was most comforting. The rear hall, a cul-de-sac of nervousness in the daytime and of horror at night, was suddenly transformed by the light of my lamp into a warm and cheerful refuge from the darkness of the lower floor. The purring of the cat, comfortably settled on the ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... a little courtyard, a cul-de-sac cut off at one end by a sheer wall, and as the girl put back her diary into her little net bag a man came swiftly down from the street entrance of the court and passed her. As he did so the dim light of the lamp showed for a second his face, ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace

... his head despondently. "It seems as though every road is a cul-de-sac. I have followed up hundreds of clues, and they have all ended ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... off his hat and switching his knee with it, "Lode knows I'd do jes 'bout as much fer five dollehs er week as ainy cul'd man, but—but this yere business is awful, jedge. I raikon 'ain't been no sleep in—in my house sence docteh done ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane

... that in which was situate the convent where they had parted with Sybil. This one was populous, noisy, and lighted. It was Saturday night; the streets were thronged; an infinite population kept swarming to and fro the close courts and pestilential cul-de-sacs that continually communicated with the streets by narrow archways, like the entrance of hives, so low that you were obliged to stoop for admission: while ascending to these same streets, from their dank and dismal dwellings by narrow flights of steps the subterraneous nation ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... Oenanthe, Linnaeus. French, "Motteux cul blanc," "Traquet moteux."—A very common summer visitant to all the Islands, arriving in March and departing again in October, none remaining through the winter—at least, I have never seen a Wheatear in the Islands as late as November ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith

... Adjutant, Murat is the name of him, gallops; gets thither some minutes within time, for Lepelletier was also on march that way: the Cannon are ours. And now beset this post, and beset that; rapid and firm: at Wicket of the Louvre, in Cul de Sac Dauphin, in Rue Saint-Honore, from Pont Neuf all along the north Quays, southward to Pont ci-devant Royal,—rank round the Sanctuary of the Tuileries, a ring of steel discipline; let every gunner have his match burning, and all men ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... fire that leapt close at his heel. It was burning at the back of a caravan, in a dark cul-de-sac away from the main thoroughfare; to its blazing light the bare boards and ugly plankings of the booth, splashed here and there with torn paper that rustled a little in the evening breeze, were all that offered themselves. Near by a horse, untethered, ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... cornfields, skirted by open downs, where there is a rabbit warren, and great plenty of the birds so much admired at Tunbridge under the name of wheat-ears. By the bye, this is a pleasant corruption of white-a-se, the translation of their French name cul-blanc, taken from their colour for they are actually ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... "Cul and Frecul and Forcul, the three charioteers of the King: three of the same age: three sons of Pole and Yoke. A man will perish by each of their weapons, and they will share the triumph ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various

... the evolution of life on a grand scale, nature seems to feel her way, like a blind man, groping, hesitating, trying this road and then that. In some cases the line of evolution seems to end in a cul de sac beyond which no progress is possible. The forms thus cornered soon become extinct. The mystery, the unaccountable thing, is the appearance of new characters. The slow modification or transformation of an existing character may often be traced; natural selection, ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... points, facing each other, exactly twenty yards.' The diary goes on to state that they explored three chasms, and that in a fissure of the third of these Peters discovered some 'singular-looking indentures in the surface of the black marl forming the termination of the cul-de-sac.' It is surmised by Pym and Peters that the first of these indentures is possibly the intentional representation of a human figure standing erect, with outstretched arm; and that the rest of them bore a resemblance to alphabetical characters—such, ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... impotent, Cul-de-jatte, goutteux, manchot, pourvu qu'en somme Je vive, c'est assez; je ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell

... it were the raising of a curtain upon another world. He stood upon the edge of a sheer precipice of a thousand feet, and looked down upon a green amphitheatre through the bottom of which the brawling river, an amber thread in the summer foliage, seemed trying to get an outlet from this wilderness cul de sac. From the edge of this precipice the first impulse was to start back in surprise and dread, but presently the observer became reassured of its stability, and became fascinated by the lonesome ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner



Words linked to "Cul" :   passage, dead end, cul de sac



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