Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Indentation   /ɪndˌɛntˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Indentation

noun
1.
A concave cut into a surface or edge (as in a coastline).  Synonym: indenture.
2.
The formation of small pits in a surface as a consequence of corrosion.  Synonyms: pitting, roughness.
3.
The space left between the margin and the start of an indented line.  Synonyms: indent, indention, indenture.
4.
The act of cutting into an edge with toothlike notches or angular incisions.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Indentation" Quotes from Famous Books



... on deck were getting delirious in their prophecies, the ship steered a path round two outlying islets, and entered the deep indentation in Lemnos Island, which is the mighty, hill-locked harbour of Mudros. A little French destroyer, pearl-grey in the evening light, steamed past us, and the French sailors waved their arms, and danced a welcome to this troopship of their allies. The Rangoon yelled ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... as it neared the sea, and fled down a water lane not over fifteen or twenty feet wide, absolutely walled with impenetrable nipa growths. From this we emerged just as the day played its last spectacular effects, and found ourselves in a deep oval indentation, glassy as an inland lake, whose bosom caught the changing cloud tints like a mirror, and whose deep cool green borders were alive with myriads of delighted birds, skimming, chattering, calling. Half a mile away, at its farther end, the surf leaped frothily over a bar, and beyond ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... people, as of the Negritos, are less constant than those of their skin and hair. The Maori has a long skull; the Sandwich Islander a broad skull. Some, like these, have strong brow ridges; others, like the Dayaks and many Polynesians, have hardly any nasal indentation. ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley

... some ten feet, worn smooth by the beating of the waves. Holding with his hands to the edge, he let himself fall down this height, and found himself standing, a little shaken though unhurt, in a small pebbly bay or indentation of the shore formed by a curve in the line of cliffs, with a series of headlands and precipices trending away on one side far to his right, and with the Ness of Saint Winifred's reaching out to his left. Once ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... see," resumed the captain, pointing to a spot on the chart. "Here is the island of Cuba, and here"—pointing to a little indentation in the coast-line—"are we in latitude 20 north, ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... had happened. Within a minute, looking back, Bassett had seen him trudging patiently along under his burdens. Then Bassett's own trouble had come upon him. He looked at the cruelly healed stumps of the first and second fingers of his left hand, then rubbed them softly into the indentation in the back of his skull. Quick as had been the flash of the long handled tomahawk, he had been quick enough to duck away his head and partially to deflect the stroke with his up-flung hand. Two fingers and a hasty scalp-wound had been ...
— The Red One • Jack London

... frequently occurs throughout the embossed stamps of Gambia a small spot of colour on the back hair, which in later embossed stamps becomes a large spot, and even develops into a coloured indentation from the coloured ...
— Gambia • Frederick John Melville

... being in the habit of marking the cards, the effect being to create a very slight and almost imperceptible indentation, and to make a ridge or wave on the back, so that a practised eye would be able, on looking at the right place, knowing where to expect a mark, to discern whether the ace was there or not. He was also charged with cheating by reversing ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... purpose, these ledges were of no avail; and, after observing their relative situations, he passed on with looks of disappointment. At the farthest end of the valley—that is, the place farthest from the hut—there was a little bay, or indentation, in the cliffs. As already stated, there were several of these at intervals around the valley, but the one in question was the largest of any. It was very narrow, only a few yards in width, and about a hundred ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid

... ahead Nick still bent over the footprint. The delicate shape, the deep hollow of the ball of the foot, the round cup which marked the heel, and, between them, the narrow, shallow indentation which formed the high-arched instep. In fancy he built over the marks the tall, lithe, straight-limbed creature Victor had told them of. He saw the long flowing hair which fell in a shower upon her shoulders; and the beautiful eyes blue as the summer sky. In a moment his tanned face was transformed ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum

... made a rapid examination of the island, and soon fixed upon the spot for their camp. Toward one end the island was split in two, and an indentation ran some distance up into it. Here a clear spot was found some three or four feet above the level of the water. It was completely hidden by thick bushes from the sight of anyone approaching by water. There the canoe was turned over, and the girls, who were ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... kitchen and the altar at which he once ministered. In the graveyard of one of the churches is a curious stone cross, of considerable size, evidently monumental, though the inscription has been so defaced as to be illegible. On the front of the cross there is a deep indentation much resembling that made by the hoof of a cow in soft earth, the bottom of the indentation being deepest at the sides and somewhat ridged in the middle. Concerning this cross and the depression in its face, the following legend was related by an ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.

... For it was a Thing, and as she stood staring, with wild heaving breast, this she saw. 'Twas but a thing—a thing lying inert, its fair locks outspread, its eyes rolled upward till the blue was almost lost; a purple indentation on the right temple from which there oozed a ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... her father came a little closer, and the speaker pointed with his finger to a little dent imprinted on the left side of each neck; running from this indentation was a curious little furrow, well ridged above, showing how tightly Jack Ketch's necktie had been drawn when its wearer was hurried through the ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... liable to be read off as mere empty symbols. Thus, on the figure representing political disorder—the Centaur—in the "Pallas," Botticelli has lavished his most intimate gifts. He constructs the torso and flanks in such a way that every line, every indentation, every boss appeals so vividly to the sense of touch that our fingers feel as if they had everywhere been in contact with his body, while his face gives to a still heightened degree this convincing sense of reality, every line ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson

... black streak came crashing through the window-pane and upon the table, where it shivered into fragments a dozen pieces of crystal and china ware, and then glanced between the heads of the guests to the wall, imprinting therein a deep, round indentation, at which, to-day, the visitor to Bellemeade marvels as he gazes upon it and listens to this tale ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... fleet were directed towards the rocky shore of Gabarus Bay, a flat indentation some three miles across, its eastern extremity, White Point, being a mile to the west of Louisbourg. The sea was rough, and the white masses of surf were thrown high up upon the face of the rock, along the coast, as far as the eye ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... therefore, watch the man yonder, one of the glass-blowers, as, by means of an iron rod, he carefully lifts a ball of liquid glass, about the size of a small melon, from the open furnace, and with another simple instrument makes an indentation in the outer circle, nearly the size of that one sees at the bottom of a wine-bottle. His colleague, meanwhile, has done exactly the same to another ball of glass, and as they both press their balls together, the ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... the peculiar character of the place in which Shasta had run the canoe. It was a small indentation covered with overhanging limbs and shrubbery in such manner that while the whites could peer out upon the river there was no danger of their being seen by any passers-by, unless particular suspicion was directed ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis

... distinctly repeating a shout as loud as the original, and multiplying a rifle shot to peals of thunder. There had been people here before any white men, for Steward found an artificial wall across an indentation of the cliff, the first work of the ancient builders we had encountered. It was mysterious at the time, the South-western ruins having then not been discovered with one or two exceptions. We ascribed this wall, however, to the ancestors of ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... had been the first one to rush in, was deliriously clapping his hands in front of a terra cotta Venus, whose head at last had been blown off; and each picked up broken pieces of China, wondering at the strange indentation of the fragments, examining the new damage done, claiming that some of the damage had been caused by previous explosions. And the Major was contemplating, with a paternal look, the large salon upset by this Neronian firework and strewn with the debris of the objects ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... see that it was in order in case of callers. It is difficult to keep a living-room in order when your spoiled young society-sister is visiting you. Today in the middle of one of the large cushions on the sofa appeared an indentation. From beneath one corner of the cushion escaped the edge of a crushed handkerchief. Open, face down, upon the floor lay an abandoned book. I straightened the pillow and ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty

... has been examined and found to contain ordinary grain powder. Two of the cartridges were exploded in a closed box sent herewith. The effect of the explosion was an indentation on one ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham

... trees, but scampering on through light and darkness, all the same, as if the light of London fifty miles away were quite enough to travel by, and some to spare. Yoho, beside the village green, where cricket players linger yet, and every little indentation made in the fresh grass by bat or wicket, ball or player's foot, sheds out its perfume on the night. And then a sudden brief halt at the door of a strange inn—the "Bald-faced Stag"—an exchange of greetings, a new passenger, ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey

... them the craggy mountain arose against the sky, facing the valley with an uncommonly precipitous wall. In this grim face of granite could be seen what looked like a mere indentation. When they came to it, however, they discovered that Yellow Pine's "notch" was much narrower at its mouth than beyond it, owing to some ancient overturn and "landslide" of great rocks and small, which almost shut it in. Beyond this barrier, the opening ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard

... tempered all voices from below and made a sounding board for the winds. The beach, however, was not as broad then as now. To the east for a mile is a shallow sickle of shore with breakers on the point. In itself this indentation is but a squab of the main Pigeon Bay, which stretches around for twenty miles and is formed of Pelee Point, the most southern extension of Canada. The nearer and lesser point is like a bit of the Mediterranean. It takes the greys ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort

... they rounded a point, and beyond was the first cove, or indentation along the coast. To that John directed the course of the vessel, and they ran in very close, since he knew from the abrupt sloping beach that it must be ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay

... find the cache. The Arab was no doubt familiar with the location anyway, but to head off all danger of the boys getting there first, it was vital to stop Diego at all costs. In a few bounds Frank reached the little indentation in the bank where the ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... In one indentation—a spot where the flat-bottomed boat lay moored— Scarlett felt certain that they had found the entrance; but when they lay flat on the overhanging bank and peered down below, there was nothing to be seen but black leaves ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... continued on their trip around the lake, scanning every indentation of the shore for a possible glimpse of the Dora. There were many winding places, so it was noon before the ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield

... The old woman had lived amongst all her property. She had eaten and drunk and slept amidst the dirty rags of Eastthorpe, but Mike could not. Fortunately the cottage was at the end of the alley. One window looked out on it, but the door was in a kind of indentation in it round the corner. On the right-hand side of the door was the room looking into the alley, and this Mike made his shop; on the left was a little cupboard of a living-room. He kept the shop window open, so that no customer came through the doorway, and he begged some scarlet geranium cuttings, ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford

... to the southward of Gun Island, opposite a singular-looking indentation in the outer side of the reefs, a small cluster of cliffy islets approaches within half a mile of them. It is rather singular that in another of the group—larger than Gun Island, lying in the centre of the ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... had fallen. It lay on its side, apparently just as it had been left when I shot the brute that was moving it. A couple of feet to the right of the nearer end, was a great dent in the ground; showing where it had struck. The other end was still within the indentation—half in, and half out. Going nearer, I looked at the stone, more closely. What a huge piece of masonry it was! And that creature had moved it, single-handed, in its attempt to reach ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson

... hairs which is invisible except under the lens. The head consists of a little knob much smaller in diameter than the body. In this head, the microscope reveals mandibles consisting of fine spikes of a tawny red, which spread into a wide, colorless base. Deprived of any indentation, incapable of chewing anything between their awl-shaped ends, these two tools serve at best to fix the grub slightly at some point of the fostering larva. Useless for carving, therefore, the mouth is a pure osculatory sucker, which drains the provisions by a process of ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... had already forgotten the affair; his most vivid impressions lasted no longer than an indentation ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... and to nail a triangular bead strip to the face at each edge. These bead strips mark the joints between courses as shown by Fig. 48. When a "board" is taken off it is cleaned and oiled and reset for a new course by inserting the bottom bead strip in the half indentation left by the top bead in the concrete. This is, of course, for work of such size that one course is a day's work of concreting. In such work, two carpenters with perhaps one helper will remove a course of "boards" say ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... conflict stiff, wild and savage. Much natural skill and dexterity were displayed in their mutual efforts to preserve their respective ranks unbroken, and as the sallies and charges were made on both sides, the temporary rash, the indentation of the multitudinous body, and the rebound into its original position, gave an undulating appearance to the compact mass—reeking, dragging, groaning, and buzzing as it was, that resembled the serpentine motion of a ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... the summit of one of the White Mountains a few summers ago, I was shown a dim little indentation of the sky at the northwest which I was told was Mont Real. And since seeing that I have imagined Jacques Cartier in 1535 looking off to the southeast, when his disappointed vision of the west had tired his eyes, and catching ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... of cloud-wraith, Chirikoff found himself at the entrance of a great bay, girt by forested mountains to the water's edge, beneath the high cone of what is now known as Mount Edgecumbe, {47} in Sitka Sound. Sitka Sound is an indentation about fifteen miles from north to south, with such depths of water that there is no anchorage except south and southwestward of Mount Edgecumbe. Impenetrable woods lined the mountains to the very shore. Great trunks of uprooted trees swept past the ship continually. Even as the clouds ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... the general sense that he must keep the sea on his left. He was but a few hundred feet from it. Once or twice he divined the water, almost indistinguishable from cloud, when a great indentation in the cliff made its edge sweep in towards him; and once a ship's light flashed out of it for half a second. He swung along steadily, and after a time found himself traversing a great, dusky stretch of land. ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... condition of things occurs when a guinea pig already suffering from tuberculosis is inoculated. An animal successfully inoculated from four to six weeks before is best adapted for this purpose. In such an animal the small indentation assumes the same sticky covering at the beginning, but no nodules form. On the contrary, on the day following, or the second day after the inoculation, the place where the lymph is injected shows a strange change. It becomes hard and assumes a darker coloring, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various

... was warm, but the closed window and the flannel wrapper had not sufficed him: round his shoulders he had an old crocheted scarf of Alice's; his legs were wrapped in a heavy comfort; and, with these swathings about him, and his eyes closed, his thin and grizzled head making but a slight indentation in the pillow supporting it, he looked ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington

... us brightly illuminated by a brass lamp which stood upon the table. The bedclothes had not been turned down, but there was an indentation upon the counterpane which showed that some one had lain there. One-half of the lattice window was swinging on its hinge, and a cloth cap lying upon the table was the only sign of the occupant. My uncle looked round him and ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... bed, was the impress of a body, where Field had lain and slept. There was the mark of the head on the pillow, and the slight indentation at the foot of the bed where the boots had rested on the counterpane. And there, plainer than ever—for he was ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... of the main air tank. They headed along the broader corridor which went past the indented inner door of the air lock. They had reached that indentation when Baird saw that the inner air-lock door was closing. He saw a human pressure suit past its edge. He saw the corner of some object that had been put down on the ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster

... torrents, they forced their way, with no thought of turning back or checking the speed of their animals. Occasionally the bright eyes of the pursuers glanced at the ground in front, when the displaced gravel or the indentation in the soft earth showed they had ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis

... before Jamestown, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, or New Amsterdam were settled, Sir Francis Drake, British explorer, careened and repaired his ship, the Golden Hind, on the shore of what is now Drake's Bay, an indentation on the California coast just north of the Golden Gate. This was nearly two hundred years before Padre Junipero Serra led his band of zealots and soldiers up out of New ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood

... outer one, tucking in all around, and then turn over the upper sheet at the head, so as to show a part of the pillows. When the pillow-cases are clean and smooth, they look best outside of the cover, but not otherwise. Then draw the hand along the side of the pillows, to make an even indentation, and then smooth and shape the whole outside. A nice housekeeper always notices the manner in which a bed is made; and in some parts of the country, it is rare to see ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... termites erect with such perseverance and durability that they frequently rise to the height of ten or twelve feet from the ground, with a corresponding diameter. They are so firm in their texture that the weight of a horse makes no apparent indentation on their solidity; and even the intense rains of the monsoon, which no cement or mortar can long resist, fail to penetrate the surface or substance of an ant hill.[3] In their earlier stages the termites ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... was sweating profusely, and chewed gum. It may be said that he was not the proud young Spike Brennon of the photograph. He was all of twenty-five, and his later years had told. Where once had been the bridge of his nose was now a sharp indentation. One ear was weirdly enlarged; and his mouth, though he spoke through narrowly opened lips, glittered in the morning sun with the sheen of purest gold. Wilbur Cowan was instantly enmeshed by this ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... text the tables were laid out in four columns: Firms and Wholesale Agents. Brands. [Impress of Cork Design] Qualities. On side of Corks. For this e-text, the table has been changed to a list format, with the columns represented by levels of indentation. The "Brands" are indicated by the bracketed word [Cork]; the "Side of Cork" text—if any—is given in the same line as its ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly

... of great interest in the National Collection. One is the remarkable alder-wood shield found 10 feet deep in a bog in 1863 at Annadale, County Leitrim. This shield is oval in shape, and has a central boss and seven raised ribs. It will be noticed that the ribs show an indentation at one side; but too much emphasis must not be placed on this, as the shield shrank a good deal after its removal from the bog, and the alteration may be due to this. This shield has a handle at the back. It is interesting to note that 'sciath,' one of the Irish words for 'shield,' denotes ...
— The Bronze Age in Ireland • George Coffey

... regular, the skin a pale olive, the hair and eyes intensely black. Whereas Falloden's features seemed to lie, so to speak, on the surface, the mouth and eyes scarcely disturbing the general level of the face mask—no indentation in the chin, and no perceptible hollow tinder the brow,—this man's eyes were deeply sunk, and every outline of the face—cheeks, chin and temples—chiselled and fined away into an almost classical perfection. The man's aspect indeed was Greek, and ought only to have expressed the Greek ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Face is adapted to the sole of the os pedis. Its highest point, therefore, is at the point of its V-shaped indentation. From this point it slopes in every direction downwards and outwards until near the circumference. Here it curves up to form a kind of a groove in which is lodged the inferior edge of the os pedis. In the centre of its anterior portion—that ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks

... the ravages of an inundation: the names of the witnesses and magistrates before whom the act was confirmed were also added to those of the contracting parties. The method of sanctioning it was curious. An indentation was made with the finger-nail on one of the sides of the tablet, and this mark, followed or preceded by the mention of a name, "Nail of Zabudamik," "Nail of Abzii," took the place of our more or less ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... at all, and then, not shores such as the shores of Andalusia, but a bluff and precipitous cliff, in its geological features resembling exactly the stern and barren rock that she had coasted beyond the site of Malta. Here the sea made a decided indentation on the coast; it ran up in an acute-angled triangle till its apex coincided with the very spot upon which Madrid had stood. But as hitherto the sea had encroached upon the land, the land in its turn now encroached upon the sea; for a frowning headland stood ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... by the most wonderful and complicated processes of overlapping, pushing out, indentation, enfolding, budding, pressing, and curving, the majority of the important structures are formed—the eyes, ears, nose, hands, feet, abdominal organs, and numerous glands. Thus, at the end of two months, almost every structure and organ necessary ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... but none of the original spelling has been modified. Text which was centred has been indented eight spaces from the left margin. Right justified text is indifferently aligned in the original text; here all right justified text is aligned to the right-hand margin. The horizontal and vertical indentation of lines reflects the ...
— The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke - The First ('Bad') Quarto • William Shakespeare

... Cumberland bay is called La Baya by the Spaniards, who seem now to have established a fort here. East bay is by them called Puerta de Juan Fernandez. There is yet a fourth bay, or small indentation of the coast, with a landing place and stream of water, named Puerta Ingles, or Sugar-loaf bay, between West bay and the north point ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... hills to the left. The first one seemed endless, and he sought a break in it in every shadowed indentation upon its face. He was feeling more anxious than his own words suggested. He was a shrewd man who had understood the ring of truth in Elia's story at once, but now, in face of this stupendous world, he was wondering if he had been well advised in leaving ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... ancient house de la Tour Roland, at the corner of the Place upon the Seine, on the side of the street with the Tannerie. At night, one could distinguish nothing of all that mass of buildings, except the black indentation of the roofs, unrolling their chain of acute angles round the place; for one of the radical differences between the cities of that time, and the cities of the present day, lay in the facades which looked upon the places and streets, and which were ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... before his three expatriated subjects. Two of them noted the traits of his house, even to his ears, which were full at top, and without any indentation at the bottom where they met ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... corn, and also hide themselves from their enemies. I could detect no terraces on the land, but, if I am right in my supposition, the form of this part of the continent must once have resembled the curves or indentations seen on the southern extremity of the American continent. In the indentation to the S.E., S., S.W., and W. of this, lie the principal gold-washings; and the line of the current, supposing it to have struck against the hills of Mburuma, shows the washings in the N. ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... where that war-eagle Napoleon was chained for a while. Then she fell asleep again, and when she roused in full daylight the steamer was off the coast of Ostia and nearing the mouth of the Tiber. Dreamy mountain-shapes rose beyond the far-away Campagna, and every curve and indentation of the coast bore a name ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge

... cords seem to have been originally left on the clay in the process of baking, and used as a mould; at other times they may have been employed afterwards as handles, as is still done in the case of some South African pots: and, when the rope handle wore off, the pattern made by its indentation on the plastic material before sun-baking would still remain as pure ornament. Probably the very common idea of string-course ornamentation just below the mouth or top of vases and bowls has its origin in this early and almost ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... I have investigated many crimes, but I have never yet seen one which was committed by a flying creature. As long as the criminal remains upon two legs so long must there be some indentation, some abrasion, some trifling displacement which can be detected by the scientific searcher. It is incredible that this blood-bespattered room contained no trace which could have aided us. I understand, however, from the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... each moment to hear the exulting yell or crack of a rifle that should announce his discovery, Donald was thus obliged to paddle doggedly forward within a hundred yards of the shore. His suspense was well-nigh unbearable. Every nerve was strung to its utmost tension. In each new indentation of the coast he expected to see the waiting fleet of canoes, and with each fearful backward glance he wondered at not finding them ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... very popular, says The Autocar. We understand that they have always been preferred by pedestrians, who realise that they make only a slight indentation in the person as compared with the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various

... of amazement into the lads' countenances. The soft, sweet, bracing air of morning floated from the glorious shore, all cliff and indentation looking of a pearly grey, almost the same tint as the surf that curled over upon the ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... to the room where the government maps were kept. These showed every creek and inlet and cove and indentation of the Maine coast, together with the depths of water at these points and a host of other details that were of use to ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... beautiful indeed. Here on the western side of the great peak a bay had been formed in the mountain, which might have measured eight hundred or a thousand yards across by three-quarters of a mile in depth. At the back of this indentation the sheer cliff rose to the height of several hundred feet, and behind it and above it the great Babyan Peak towered up towards the heavens. The space of ground, embraced thus in the arms of the mountain, ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard

... tide of migratory peoples swept ever southward and westward, seeking room for expansion and economic independence, a series of frontiers was gradually thrust out toward the wilderness in successive waves of irregular indentation. The true leader in this westward advance, to whom less than his deserts has been accorded by the historian, is the drab and mercenary trader with the Indians. The story of his enterprise and of his adventures begins with the planting of European civilization upon American ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson

... gifted sculptor engaged in his work. How absorbed he is!—standing erect by the mass of clay,—with graduated touch, moulding into delicate undulations or expressive lines the inert mass,—now stepping back to see the effect,—now bending forward, almost lovingly, to add a master indentation or detach a thin layer,—and so, hour after hour, working on, every muscle in action, each perception active, oblivious of time, happy in the gradual approximation, under patient and thoughtful manipulation, of what was a dense heap of earth, to a form of vital expression or beauty. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... that long, sandy beach stretching for more than seventy miles in an unbroken, melancholy line, without cove, curve, or indentation to break its cruel monotony, and with the wild waves of the German Ocean, lashed by a wintry storm, breaking into white foam as far as the eye could reach, appalled the fugitive criminal. With the certainty of an ignominious death ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... regard to the ivy which had often puzzled me; and that is, the different shapes of its leaves in the different stages of its growth. The young ivy has this leaf; but when it has become more than a century old every trace and indentation melts away, and it assumes this form, which I found afterwards to be the invariable shape of all the oldest ivy, in all the ruins of Europe ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... ground about 1631. One of Rembrandt's drawings exists which, unlike most of his sketches is an exact prototype (in reverse) of a specific etching, Diana at the Bath.[24] The back of this drawing is covered with black chalk, and its lines show the indentation of tracing. The only reasonable explanation of this evidence is that Rembrandt placed his prepared drawing on top of a white-grounded plate and traced the lines, depositing the black chalk lines on the ...
— Rembrandt's Etching Technique: An Example • Peter Morse

... forehead, he paused for a moment and finally gave his opinion that they were life preservers. He said that in Boston all women wore them, especially when they were out on excursions, or picnics. "See," says he, as he hefted it, and made an indentation in it, which resumed its natural position as soon as he took his finger off, "it is filled with wind. Now, in case of accident, that would float a woman on top of water until she could be rescued. Let us demonstrate this matter by putting it on Mr. Boyington, of the Sentinel, ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... indicates a change in thought. If a debater, therefore, makes a longer pause than usual at this point, and in addition alters his position slightly, he helps interpret his argument. He does for the hearer exactly what indentation does ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... territory of German Southwest Africa, Walfish Bay with 20 miles of coast on either side is a British possession, and that two tiny islets which commands the entrance to the harbor of Angra Pequena, also belong to Great Britain. On the uniform coast of East Africa, the single considerable indentation formed by Delagoa Bay assumes immense importance, which, however, is due in part to the mineral wealth of its Transvaal hinterland. From this point northward for 35 degrees of latitude, a river mouth, like that ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... perceptible on the edges, forming, as in the inoculated smallpox, an appearance not unlike a grain of wheat, with the cleft, or indentation in the centre. ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... aristocratical old edifice, which sits, like a brooding hen, on the southern bank of the James River. It looks down upon a shady pocket, or nook, formed by an indentation of the shore, from a gentle acclivity, thinly sprinkled with oaks, whose magnificent branches afford habitation to sundry friendly colonies of squirrels ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... deeply indented, and rich in islands, are situated opposite to those possessing a different character. I long since drew attention to the geognostic importance of entering into a comparison of the western coast of Africa and of South America within the tropics. The deeply curved indentation of the African continent at Fernando Po, 4 degrees 30' north latitude, is repeated on the coast of the Pacific at 18 degrees 15' south latitude, between the Valley of Arica and the Morro de Juan Diaz, where the Peruvian coast suddenly changes the direction from wouth to north which it had ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... reached Cogne. Our route was bordered with gum-trees, the yellow flowers of which, arranged in circular bunches, spread a delicious perfume. We also saw some rates. The bark of this tree yields a yellow dye; its leaf is without indentation, and of a beautiful green; it is not very high; the wood is white, and the bark is easily reduced to powder. This was the first time that I saw the baobab, that enormous tree which has been described by Adanson, and which bears his name. I measured one, and found it to be forty feet in circumference. ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... successor. Both transepts have aisles, but in the south transept the western aisle is walled off. Along the western wall in the north transept is a stone bench. The square capitals of the piers here have indentations at the corners, and this is an early example of such indentation. Some slight ornamentation may be noticed in the cushions of the capitals, especially in the south transept, where there are traces of ancient colouring. The three chapels to the east of the north transept are divided by walls, and two have wooden ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting

... inlets, is a deep indentation of the Pacific coast, one hundred miles north of the Columbia. It has spacious harbors, securely land-locked, with a surrounding country abounding in timber, with exhaustless beds of coal, rich in agricultural resources, and with numerous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... flour-mills, breweries, foundries, forges, engineering works, and manufactures of blocks, candles, chemicals (from sea-weed), boots, shoes and linen. Brest communicates by submarine cable with America and French West Africa. The roadstead consists of a deep indentation with a maximum length of 14 m. and an average width of 4 m., the mouth being barred by the peninsula of Quelern, leaving a passage from 1 to 2 m. broad, known as the Goulet. The outline of the bay is broken by numerous smaller bays or arms, formed by the embouchures of streams, the most important ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... began to eat it. As he did so his glance explored the place and brought up on a mark at the water's edge. It interested him, and still gnawing the pear, he crawled down to it—a footprint, large and as clearly impressed as if cast in plaster. Not far from it was a triangular indentation, its point driven deep—the mark of ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... would have wandered devious. It is surely a better devotion that, instead of thus creeping over the earth to a mouldy sepulchre, can at once launch into the sky, secure of finding Him who once arose from one. In less than an hour we were descending on the Bay of Laig, a semi-circular indentation of the coast, about a mile in length, and, where it opens to the main sea, nearly two miles in breadth; with the noble island of Rum rising high in front, like some vast breakwater; and a meniscus of comparatively level land, walled in behind by a semi-circular rampart ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... to a very simple but laborious contrivance. Each Indian supplies himself with two dried stalks of the Mexican soap plant, about three-fourths of an inch in diameter. One is made flat on one side; near the edge of the flat surface a small indentation is made to receive the point of the other stick, and a groove cut from this down the side. The other stick is made with a rounded end, and placed upright upon the first. Placing the stick with a flat surface between the feet, the point of the other is placed in the hole made to receive ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... Length Paragraphing of Speech Indentation of the Paragraph Essential Qualities of the Paragraph ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood

... red mark running about his forehead, just as there would be on the forehead of a man whose hat fitted too tightly; and that mark, gentlemen, had the undulating outline of nothing more nor less than a tiara, and on the apex of the uppermost extremity was a deep indentation about the size of a shilling, that could have been made only by some adamantine substance! The mystery was solved! The robber of the Duchess of Brokedale stood ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs

... had, namely, that Mr. Mauleverer announced that he was about to return to St. Herbert's, the very large and fashionable watering-place in the next indentation of the coast. He had duties there, he said, and he had only come to Avonmouth for a brief holiday, a holiday that was to result in such happy effects. He lived in an exceedingly retired way, he said, being desirous ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... these, Walter," he said. "Now take this deep and sharp indentation. Well, there's a corresponding one in the photograph. So you can pick them out one for another. Now here's one missing altogether on the paper. So it is in ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... course impracticable. The first place of any importance is Saluafata, fifteen miles from Apia (I must mention that Apia is in the centre of Upolu, and on the north side), then Falifa|, an exquisitely pretty place, and then Fa|goloa Bay and village, eight miles further on. This is the deepest indentation in Samoa, except the famous Pa|go Pa|go Harbour on Tutuila, and the scenery is very beautiful. After leaving Fa|goloa, the open sea has to be taken, for there is now no barrier reef for ten miles, ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke

... total abstainer. His integrity was so well known that he was exempted from attendance at the police roll-call. He was death on secret societies, and was thought to know too much. In the soft twilight of a summer's eve he left the main street and sauntered down Church Street. When he reached the indentation above-mentioned a man shot him with a revolver, and fled into the main street. The unfortunate officer gave chase, pursuing the assassin along the principal thoroughfare, his life-blood ebbing fast, until, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... difficulty he reached it and he leaned awhile against the pillar, for his mind wandered, and he knew nothing for a space. After that he took off his brooch, and removing the torn bratta [girdle], he passed it round the top of the pillar, where there was an indentation in the stone, and passed the ends under his arms and around his breast, tying with languid hands a loose knot, which soon was made fast by the weight of the dying hero; thus they beheld him standing with the drawn sword in his hand, and ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman

... of the Persian Gulf. Here, after leaving the open sea, we met a recurrence of the heat, and, in general features, of the scenery we had left at Aden; the whole confirming the association of the name Arabia with scorching and desert. The Cove of Muscat, though a mere indentation of the shore-line, furnishes an excellent harbor, being sheltered by a rocky island which constitutes a natural breakwater. There is considerable trade, and the position is naturally strong for defence, with encircling cliffs upon which forts have been built; but from our experience, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... to where, in a position corresponding to that of the "mark of the Valdeschi" in her own hand, there was an indentation that ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... it appears simply as an indentation of the margin of the hemisphere, but, in others, it extends for some distance more or less transversely outwards. I saw it in the right hemisphere of a female brain pass more than two inches outwards; and on another specimen, also the ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... he was standing at the edge of a caverned indentation. Dead grasses dropped against the walls, withered weeds thickened toward the apex in a tangled carpet. There had once been water there, but it was gone, dried, or sunk to some hidden channel in the rock's heart. They stood staring at the scorched herbage and the basin ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... embryo of the middle of the fifth week, one-third of an inch long. (From Rabl.) Letters as in Figure 1.180, except sk curve of skull, ok upper jaw, hb neck-indentation.) ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel

... sort of inlet or indentation in the rock-wall, which rises so steeply up to the plain above that, though covered with grass, it seems hardly to afford foothold for goats. No man in his senses would venture to descend from above in a straight line, nor even by zigzag, were it not for the fact that here and there through the smooth ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables

... ago the pages of THE WRITER contained some interesting suggestions as to the advisability of a uniform indentation for sonnets when printed; the writer favoring a New York method, which would bring out even the first, fifth, ninth, and twelfth lines, setting all the other lines an equal space to the right of these. I give ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various

... habits, pronounced it to be as equally ready as herself. Turning her body lengthways, but still on her knees, the doctor scrambled up behind her, and first stooping, licked up the foam on her cunt, for she had already spent once; and then, rolling his tongue about the beautiful indentation leading to her delicious bottom-hole, he thrust it in as far as he could there. Then rising on his knees, he first plunged his jolly good prick into her cunt for two or three shoves, and then drawing it out well lubricated, presented its point to her exquisite bottom-hole, and plunged ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... just one inlet," said Captain Hamilton, pointing to an indentation that bit deeply into the ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes

... still attached. Five years later, in 1627, De Nuyts coasted round the south coast of Australia; while in the same year a Dutch commander named Carpenter discovered and gave his name to the immense indentation still known as the ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs

... is usually pointed slightly, the opposing one being left flat. The pointed die leaves a slight indentation on one side of the metal, while the other side is left smooth. The dies may be reversed so that the outside surface of any work may be left smooth. The current is allowed to flow through the dies by a switch which is closed after pressure ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly

... the main body of the text, smaller for the text of the tales, and smallest for the square bracketed author notes. As font size cannot be varied in this version of the e-text, the effect has been reproduced here using indentation: no indentation for the main body of the text, small indentation for the tales, and larger indentation for the square ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... desarted her, an' went ashore. We sunk ther ship, an' mannin' ther boats, we pulled ashore arter ther crew. We found ther shore lined with cliffs a thousand feet high. Thar wus no coast, that water beatin' up again ther base o' ther cliffs on all but ther seaward side o' ther lagoon. There wuz one indentation in the cliffs, covered wi' trees an' bushes, inter which ther hull crew went an' hid. Waal, sir, we landed thar, an' beat about lookin' fer 'em. Thar wuzn't no possible way fer 'em ter git away unseen, with ther water in front, them high cliffs surroundin' 'em on three sides, an' only ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"

... indentation of the land, the shores of which are very low: its extent was not ascertained, but, by the bearings of some land at the bottom, it is seventeen miles deep; and its greatest breadth, at the mouth, is about fourteen ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King



Words linked to "Indentation" :   corrosion, indent, concavity, corroding, blank space, place, notch, incurvation, incurvature, erosion, pitting, concave shape, roughness, change of shape, cleft, indention, space



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com