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Oval   /ˈoʊvəl/   Listen
Oval

adjective
1.
Rounded like an egg.  Synonyms: egg-shaped, elliptic, elliptical, oval-shaped, ovate, oviform, ovoid, prolate.



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"Oval" Quotes from Famous Books



... looked somewhat like a toy Swiss Cottage,—a style of architecture so prevalent, that in walking down the block it was quite difficult to resist an impression of fresh glue and pine shavings. The few shade-trees might have belonged originally to those oval Christmas boxes which contain toy villages; and even the people who sat by the windows had a stiffness that made them appear surprisingly unreal and artificial. A little dog belonging to a neighbor was known to the members ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte

... with his portrait. The timepiece was a gift from the Marechal de Saxe, and the china ornaments on the mantelpiece came from the Marechal de Richelieu. My grandmother's portrait, painted at the age of twenty-five, hangs in an oval frame opposite that of the King. The Prince, her husband, is conspicuous by his absence. I like this frank negligence, untinged by hypocrisy—a characteristic touch which sums up her charming personality. Once when ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... surface of the mirror indicate a diminution in the quantity of the milk, with the exception, however, of small oval or elliptical plates which are found in the mirror, on the back part of the udders of the best cows, as represented in the cut already given, marked A. These ovals have a peculiar tint, which is occasioned by the downward direction ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... thoughtfully,—even critically. And presently he came to the conclusion that as a child she had been much prettier than she now was as a woman. Yet her present phase of loveliness was of the loveliest type. No fault could be found with the perfect oval of her face, her delicate white-rose skin, her small seductive mouth, curved in the approved line of the "Cupid's bow," her deep, soft, bright eyes, fringed with long-lashes a shade darker than ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... Buster, swooping down, with all sail set, on the inoffensive oval, brought his right foot against the ball with a tremendous effort. The result was certainly astonishing, for there was a sudden heavy detonation, and the football arose about ten feet, in a sadly flattened condition, while the kicker ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes

... knee. She sat, staring before her, unconscious of the garden outside, or of the passage of time. In some ways she was possessed of more beauty at thirty-seven than she had been at twenty. And yet from childhood her face had been a winning one—with its childish upper lip and its thin oval, its delicate brunette colour, and the lovely clearness of its brown eyes. In youth its timid sweetness had been constantly touched with laughter. Now it shrank from you and appealed to you in one. But the departure ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... one of the wagon beds, and had a regular ferry, and when they pulled the wagons over they sank below the surface but came out all right. We came to Pawnee Village, on the Platte, a collection of mud huts, oval in shape, and an entrance low down to crawl in at. A ground owl and some prairie dogs were in one of them, and we suspected they might be winter ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... lady dressed in black, and shook hands affectionately with the big man, whom he addressed as Esme. Five minutes later dinner was announced, and they sat down at a small oval table covered with pale ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... than wasted. His intaglio ceased to be ornamentation, and passed into the category of ideal work. And there are intaglii of Greek workmanship which are as lovely as it is possible to conceive anything,—all the spirit and perfect proportion of the antique sculpture concentrated in an oval, an inch by three quarters of an inch, executed with a delicacy which defies the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... therefore will now jump five weeks of time and a hundred leagues of space. But since this is a long leap, a few stepping-stones will be convenient. The Parson, then, has brought in on the way a nice batch of velvet duck, noticeable for their extremely large, oval, elevated, scarlet nostrils; we have shot at seals, and almost hit them in the most admirable manner; we have hunted for an indubitable polar bear,—and found a dog and a midnight mystification; we have played at chess, euchre, backgammon, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... best made of pigskin or cordovan leather, which is horse hide. This should be about a sixteenth of an inch thick and cut to such a form that the tips enclose the finger on the palmar surface up to the second joint and leave an oval opening over the knuckle and upper part of the finger nail. The best way to make them is to mould a piece of paper about each of the first three fingers on the right hand, gathering the paper on the back and crimping it with ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... the field, by having recourse to the 'Kogo' or 'Spine Splitting Stroke,' introduced from a local athletic game, some excitement will no doubt be manifested in sporting circles when they meet the Clapham Rovers, as, I believe, it is arranged they shall do at the Oval, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various

... resting the heel of her hoe on the earth, and both hands on the end of its handle. Bob saw a dark, oval countenance, with very red cheeks, very black eyes and hair, and an engaging flash of teeth. The eyes looked at him as frankly as a boy's, and the flash of teeth made ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... throat as though he were stifling. Many, many years ago he had worn the locket there. And now? Now an impulse seized him, and he yielded to it. He thrust his hand in his coat and drew out a cowhide wallet, and from the wallet the oval locket itself. There it was, tarnished with age, but with that memorable inscription still legible,—"Cynthy, from Jethro"; not Cynthia, but Cynthy. How the years fell away as he read it! He handed it in silence to the storekeeper, and in silence ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Thus he thought that each planet is the seat of an intelligent principle, and that there is a relation between the magnitudes of the orbits of the five principal planets and the five regular solids of geometry. At first he inclined to believe that the orbit of Mars is oval, nor was it until after a wearisome study that he detected the grand truth, its elliptical form. An idea of the incorruptibility of the celestial objects had led to the adoption of the Aristotelian doctrine of the perfection of circular motions, and to the belief that there were none but circular ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... down." So she sat down and he signed to the brunette. Now she was endowed with grace and beauty and symmetry and perfection, delicate of body, with coal-back hair, slender shape, rosy, oval cheeks, liquid black eyes, fair face, eloquent tongue, slim waist and heavy buttocks. So she rose and said, "Praised be God who hath created me neither blameably fat nor lankily slender, neither white like leprosy nor yellow like colic nor black like coal, but hath made ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... islands. Mr Banks's servant, Peter Briscoe, was the first to see it, bearing south, at the distance of about ten or twelve miles, and the ship was immediately run in that direction. It was found to be an island of an oval form, with a lake, or lagoon, in the middle of it. In fact, it was like an irregularly-formed ring of land, with the ocean outside and a lake inside. Coral islands vary a good deal in form and size, but the above description is true of many ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne

... country, while cries from afar reach the ear, as well as those from below. But from the mast-head you hear only the few subdued sounds under your feet—all beyond is silence; you behold only the small, oval-shaped platform that is your world—beyond lies the calm desolate ocean. On deck you cannot realize this feeling, for there sails and yards tower above you, and masts, and boats, and cordage intercept your ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... of Altoona, Pa., and probably of Pennsylvania origin, though there are no marks. Similar to the Kentucky style of rifle, except for back-action lock and small oval patch-box. Brass mountings and curley maple ...
— A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks" • Henry W. Shoemaker

... in which our journalist found himself was severely furnished: its walls were white, on them hung a great ivory crucifix, and here and there, a simple religious picture framed in ebony. A few chairs were ranged in a circle about an oval table: on the floor, polished till it shone like a mirror, were a few small mats, which gave a touch of common-place comfort to the icy regularity of this parlour, ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... seal-heads, slipped ends, "puritans," and trifids. The majority were made of either pewter or latten metal (a brasslike alloy), although 3 in the collection were made of silver. The earliest spoons found have rounded bowls and 6-sided stems (handles), whereas those made after 1650 usually have oval bowls and flat, 4-sided handles. One of the silver spoons, with rounded bowl and slipped end, bears the initials of its owner, "WC/E," on the slipped end of the handle. This spoon appears to have been made between 1600 and 1625, and is still in ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter

... picture was so pretty! Her hair was dark brown and waved naturally away from her forehead, making her face rather oval than round; her gray eyes were clear and large, and, when she was not smiling or talking, there was a serious shadow far down in them. She had a dear little mouth, and I liked to make her laugh that I might see the dimples come and go in ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... church in Madrid. The walls are covered with faded Cordova leather hangings figured in gold and dull colours, and a magnificent rococo screen separates the sacristy from the middle aisle. Venetian lustres are suspended from the ceiling, pictures of martyrs, Venetian glasses in carved oval frames hang on the wall, richly ornamented wooden benches and a library of missals and gospels in sparkling silver clasps, and shining marble tables and glistening braziers form part of the scene in which the marriage ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... flat tire, the driver stopped the car beside a little stream in which two extremely pretty girls were bathing. With the evening sun glinting on their brown bodies and their piquant, oval faces framed by the dusky torrents of their loosened hair, they looked like those bronze maidens which disport themselves in the fountain of the Piazza delle Terme in Rome, come to life. I felt certain that they would ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... couch, an antique table, weighed With gold and crystal; here, a carven chair, Whereon her raiment,—that suggests sweet curves Of shapely beauty,—bearing her limbs' impress, Is richly laid: and, near the chair, a glass, An oval mirror framed in ebony: And, dim and deep,—investing all the room With ghostly life of woven women and men, And strange fantastic gloom, where shadows live,— Dark tapestry,—which in the gusts—that twinge A grotesque cresset's slender star of light— Seems moved of cautious hands, assassin-like, ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein

... the genial heat began to spread Marcia Lowe set a kettle of water on the stove and then gave her maternal instincts full play. She gathered the slight form close and kissed again and again the thin oval ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... believed it a rare one. It was oval in shape, and had a stencilled rim in a conventional design. The coloring was exquisite, and the central design was a wonderful basket over-flowing with gorgeous fruit. The touches of gold on the decorations was the ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... the perception of this unity in diversity, of this similarity of plan, for instance, in all tree-like forms, however diverse,—the sprig of mignonette, the rose-bush, the fir, the cedar, the fan-shaped elm, the oval rock-maple, the columnar hickory, the dense and slender shaft of the poplar,—which charms the eye of those who have never heard in what algebraic or arithmetical terms this unity may be defined, in what geometrical or architectural figures ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... temper to make severity necessary. She looks perfectly timid, dejected, and penitent. She is very pretty, though not so handsome as her mother, nor at all like her. Her complexion is delicate, but neither so fair nor so blooming as Lady Susan's, and she has quite the Vernon cast of countenance, the oval face and mild dark eyes, and there is peculiar sweetness in her look when she speaks either to her uncle or me, for as we behave kindly to her we have of course ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... cut it, they were obliged to use a saw. Still longer ago, they used to despatch a special cheese to London in the road-waggon; it was made in thin vats (pronounced in the dairy 'vates'), was soft, and eaten with radishes. Another hard kind was oval-shaped, or like a pear; it was hung up in nets to mature, and traded to ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies

... pointed to the highest reach of the forehead. Thus the face, in all its contour, was rising, or falling, to a point. This sharpness of feature was in her verylaugh itself; while in that hair-encircled oval was the light of elfish mockery, ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis

... old town with the wax brigand displayed to fierce advantage, and the child seated in it also dispersing bills. As many flags and inscriptions about Jarley's Wax Work fluttering from the cart as you please. You know the wax brigands, and how they contemplate small oval miniatures? That's the figure I want. I send you the scrap of MS. which contains ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens

... of huge green fans towards the strip of sky. Many flowers and a creeper with shiny foliage clung to the exposed stems. On the water of the broad, quiet pool which the treasure seekers now overlooked there floated big oval leaves and a waxen, pinkish-white flower not unlike a water-lily. Further, as the river bent away from them, the water suddenly frothed and ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... was a friend of my family before he wrote Lavengro, few men have ever made so deep an impression on me as George Borrow. His tall, broad figure, his stately bearing, his fine brown eyes, so bright yet soft, his thick white hair, his oval, beardless face, his loud rich voice, and bold heroic air, were such as to impress the most indifferent of lookers-on. Added to this there was something not easily forgotten in the manner in which he would unexpectedly come to our gates, singing some gipsy song, and as suddenly ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... this path she came at length to a point where it was possible to see some distance ahead. The ascent became hardly noticeable. Then, as she turned a bend of the trail, the light grew brighter and brighter, until presently all was open and clear. An oval space, covered with stones, lay before her. A big, blasted chestnut stood near by. Beyond was the dim, purple haze of distance. Above, the pale, blue sky just faintly rose-tinted by the setting sun. Far to her left the scraggly trees of a low hill were tipped with orange and russet shades. ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... dome palm spreads into branches, each of which invariably represents the letter Y. The fruit grows in dense clusters, numbering several hundred, of the size of a small orange, but of an irregular oval shape; these are of a rich brown colour, and bear a natural polish as though varnished. So hard is the fruit and uninviting to the teeth, that a deal board would be equally practicable for mastication; the Arabs pound them between stones, by which rough ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... She stood just across the room, her back to the motionless curtains. Whence she had come and how, he did not know. She was smiling at him and for the first time he saw her eyes clearly and her dark passionate face and scarlet mouth. He did not know if she were fifteen or twenty-five. The oval face, the curving lips were those of a young maiden; her tall, slender figure was obscured by the loose folds of a snow white garment which fell to the floor about her; her eyes were just now of any age or ageless, unfathomable, and, though they smiled, filled ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... nerves have suffered tension from protracted pain, he even falls into a pleasant sleep. He is allowed to lie quietly on this lower slab for about fifteen minutes. An attendant then lathers him from head to foot with a perfumed cake of soap and gives him a gentle but thorough scrubbing with an oval brush like that in use among hostlers—finishing the operation by vigorously shampooing, Oriental fashion, each separate joint of his whole body, with a result of exquisite relief not exaggerated by Eastern ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... foreman was sitting still in his saddle, his eyes taking stock of a fresh bit of pasture into which he planned turning his horses a little later. It was one of a dozen small meadows on the mountain creeks where the canon walls widened out into an oval-shaped valley, less than a half-mile long, where there was much ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory

... that well-known group of curves which mathematicians describe as the conic sections. The particular form of conic section which denotes the orbit of a planet is known by the name of the ellipse: it is spoken of somewhat less accurately as an oval. The ellipse is a curve which can be readily constructed. There is no simpler method of doing so than that which is familiar to draughtsmen, and which we shall ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... went straddling to the place where he and Morse had left their horses. On the way he came face to face with a girl, a lithe, dusky young creature, Indian brown, the tan of a hundred summer suns and winds painted on the oval of her lifted chin. She was carrying a package of sacks to the place where the pemmican was ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... class in every particular, very large, the finest in Marseilles and said to be unsurpassed in France. It is approached by a hall-way fifty feet long from Rue Canebrian (the street), which leads you into an oval-shaped court 100 by 200 feet. Around this court in niches are finely-sculptured statuary, paintings and choice flowers in porcelain vases. Out of this court you are conducted into the hotel proper. Spacious stairways of Italian marble, the tread of which covered ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... I tried to imagine the youthful figure on which I gazed as belonging to another, and not myself. Were the outlines softened by the dark-flowing sable, classic and graceful? Was there beauty in the oval cheek, now wearing the warm bloom of the brunette, or the dark, long-lashed eye, which drooped with the burden of ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... faintly smiled, while at her voice Her father turned his tear-dimmed eyes to hers, As one who hears soft music with delight. The sunset glow fell full upon her face,— A rich, dark oval, crowned with raven hair; Her lustrous eyes were shrines of tenderness, Large, dark, profound, and tremulously bright, And fringed by lashes of the deepest hue, Which swept the downy smoothness of her cheek; While her full lips, inimitably arched And exquisitely mobile, told her thoughts, Ere ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard

... number of several hundreds—in front of the Englishmen's hut, where the Captain was seen calmly seated on a packing-case, with a solemn expression on his face. The rest of his party had been warned to behave with dignity. Even Benjy's round face was drawn into something of an oval, and Butterface made such superhuman attempts to appear grave, that the rest of the party almost broke down ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... drop of very dilute methyl violet solution. Cover with the cover glass and examine under the microscope. The living active cells appear colorless while the decayed and lifeless ones are stained. Yeast cells are circular or oval ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder

... and pencils. Remembering what the princess had said to Abricotina touching her own portrait, he immediately (for he could paint as well as the most excellent masters) seated himself before a mirror and drew his own picture first; then, in an oval, that of the princess. He had all her features so strong in his imagination that he had no occasion for her sitting; and as his desire to please her had set him to work, never did portrait bear a stronger ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik

... elfin-like than when she had been three inches shorter, and dressed more childishly. As Edgar said, she was less Riquet with a tuft than the good fairy godmother, and her twin sisters might have been her princess-wards, so far did they tower above her—straight as fir-trees, oval faced, regular featured, fair skinned, blue eyed, and bright haired. During those long dreary hours, Edgar often beguiled the time with sketches of them, and the outlines—whether of chiselled profiles, shapely heads, or Cupid's-bow lips—were still almost exactly similar; yet it had become impossible ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... corner of an enormous green sofa in the big crowded sitting-room, with a book in her lap, we found a young woman with curly brown hair and sparkling brown eyes set in a small oval face. She looked no more than twenty, but when her mother addressed her as Matilda I knew that I was facing the heroine of the sensational divorce. She was singularly interesting, but pretty she certainly was not. Her Gentile name had a world of ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... portrait has been sketched for us at this time by the Dominican Friar, Padre Alberto Gugliel-motto, author of "La guerra dei Pirati e la marina Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560." The description runs thus: "Andrea Doria was of lofty stature, his face oval in shape, forehead broad and commanding, his neck was powerful, his hair short, his beard long and fan-shaped, his lips were thin, ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... of this aroma, the condensation of it into form. A drop of dew symbolizes a poem; for a true poem should be oval, without angles, transparent, compact, complete in itself, graceful from inward quality and fullness. It may be of a few lines, or of hundreds or thousands; but there must be no superfluous line or word. A poem drops out of the brain ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... rather than by the hand of time: she had the remains of great beauty, although wanting in the intellectual; and the expression of her face, her compressed lips, and the fixed look of her eyes, went far to neutralize the charm which her regular features, and the classical oval of her physiognomy, would otherwise have possessed. The outline of her tall figure was veiled, but not concealed, by her monastic robe, from the loose sleeves of which protruded her long thin white hands. After closing the door, she seated herself beside ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... was oval; eyes black and large; and her hair black as the raven's wing; her features were small and regular; her teeth white and good; but her complexion was very pallid, and not a vestige of colour on her cheeks. As I have since thought, it was more like a marble statue than anything I can compare her ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... lids and dark long lashes, so dark that they gave a peculiar expression to the eyes—one of beauty, thought, and originality. The lips were sweet and sensitive, beautiful when smiling, but even more beautiful in repose. The oval contour of the face was perfect; from the white brow, where the veins were so clearly marked, rose a crown of golden hair, not brown or auburn, but of pure pale gold—a ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)

... came running out of breath, crying out, "The bread-fruit tree! I have found the bread-fruit tree! Here is the fruit,—excellent, delicious bread. Taste it, father; here, Ernest; here, Jack;" and he gave us each a part of an oval fruit, about the size of an ordinary melon, which really ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... made his will) he had planned a complete renovation and this room had been meant for the drawing-room. Furniture had been made for it specially, upholstered in beautiful ribbed stuff, made to order, of dull gold colour with a pale blue tracery of arabesques and oval medallions enclosing Rita's monogram, repeated on the backs of chairs and sofas, and on the heavy curtains reaching from ceiling to floor. To the same time belonged the ebony and bronze doors, the silver statuette at the foot of ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... boys, and her uncommon beauty, coupled with the magnetism belonging to her sex, secured for her a popularity which almost amounted to adoration. She was tall for her age, as are most young daughters of Han; and her perfectly oval face, almond-shaped eyes, willow-leaf eyebrows, small, well-shaped mouth, brilliantly white teeth, and raven-black hair, completed a face and figure which would have been noticeable anywhere. By the boys she was worshipped, and no undertaking ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various

... him a little while, fascinated myself by his beauty, his dainty motions, his soft ears with a bright oval of light about them, his wonderful eyes glowing like burning rainbows kindled by the firelight. Far behind him the mother's cry ran back and forth along the hillside. Suddenly it changed; a danger note leaped into it; and again I heard the call to follow and the crash of brush as ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... could use a saw to block the wheels out of a pine board, and he could use a hatchet to rough off the corners of the blocks, but he had to use his knife to give them any sort of roundness, and they were not very round then; they were apt to be oval in shape, and they always wabbled. He whittled the axles out with his knife, and he made the hubs with it. He could get a tongue ready-made if he used a broom-handle or a hoop-pole, but that had in either case to be whittled so it ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells

... education. She was tall and fair, with a mass of red-gold hair tucked away under the mannish hat which was part of her dark green, tightly-fitting riding habit. Her brow was broad, and her face, a perfect oval, was open and starred with a pair of fearless blue eyes of so deep a hue as to be almost violet. Her nose and mouth were delicately moulded, but her greatest beauty lay in the exquisite peach-bloom ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum

... varied according to taste; minced mushrooms, herbs, parsley, grated lemon peel, are suitable for poultry and veal; minced anchovies should be used instead of mushrooms when the croquettes are made of fish. Form the mixture into balls or oval shapes the size of small eggs; dip them into beaten eggs, thickly sprinkle with bread crumbs or pounded vermicelli, and ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore

... the green smudge of Battery Park beyond the river. There wasn't a soul in sight in any of the rooms and yet I felt as if some one was there. Perhaps it was just that I was awed by the disconcerting loveliness of the portrait of the brunette lady that hung in a tarnished oval frame above the drawing-room mantel. I looked at her and waited. ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... cigarette in hand, lounged the nephew of the Khedive, Mahmoud Bey; scarce twenty, slight, oval face with full lips, hair black as sealskin and as soft, and eyes that smouldered under heavy lids. Four rowers in blue and silver attended his Highness, the amber-colored boat skimming the waters as a ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... hopeful that she would yet do them credit and become a young lady of the highest fashion. Her figure was really good, if somewhat Amazonian, and her face, if not quite regular—with those black eyebrows as wide as one's finger, and that square chin, when all the beauties had oval contours and delicate arches above limpid eyes—was, as she had before maintained, singularly striking and handsome, and if perhaps too warmly coloured, this was not held to be a ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton

... high-born and wealthy visitors—the magistrates and those of senatorial or equestrian dignity; the passages which, by corridors at the right and left, gave access to these seats, at either end of the oval arena, were also the entrances for the combatants. Strong palings at these passages prevented any unwelcome eccentricity in the movements of the beasts, and confined them to their appointed prey. Around the parapet which was raised above ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... that numerals are represented by dashes; (5) that hieroglyphics may read either from the right or from the left, but always from the direction in which the animal and human figures face; (6) that proper names are surrounded by a graven oval ring, making what he called a cartouche; (7) that the cartouches of the preserved portion of the Rosetta Stone stand for the name of Ptolemy alone; (8) that the presence of a female figure after such cartouches in other inscriptions always denotes the female ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... FORM of the object deified. Thus, it appears that certain objects,—particularly upright objects,—stones, mounds, poles, trees, etc., were erected, or used as found in nature, as typifying the male generative organ. Likewise certain round or oval objects, discs, certain fruits and certain natural caves, were worshipped as representing the female generative organ. (The ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... of possible combinations; the combinations spin, turn head over heels, and gyrate in endless ways. Each aggregation is surrounded with an apparent cell-wall, the circle or oval, due to the pressure on the surrounding matter caused by its whirling motion; they strike on each other[16] and rebound, dart hither and thither, for ...
— Occult Chemistry - Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements • Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater

... bottom is visible. Even a pin, dropped upon the stones below, is seen shining quite distinctly. A stone wall, level with the water, thirty feet high, encloses it, on which I ventured to walk all round the tank, which is of an oval form, with the assistance of our host, going one by one. A fall would be sufficiently awkward, involving drowning on one side and breaking your neck on the other. The water is beautiful—a perfect mirror, with long green feathery ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... sleep. If you look at it some time, as people in the old enchanted days used to look into a mirror, or the magic ink, until they saw living figures therein, you can almost trace a miniature human being in the oval of the grain. It is narrow at the top, where the head would be, and broad across the shoulders, and narrow again down towards the feet; a tiny man or woman has wrapped itself round about with a garment and settled to slumber. Up in the far north, where the dead ice reigns, our arctic explorers used ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... at the head of a deep green valley, carved from out the mountains in a perfect oval, with a fence of sheer rock standing round it, eighty feet or a hundred high; from whose brink black wooded hills swept up to the sky-line. By her side a little river glided out from underground with a soft dark babble, unawares of daylight; then growing brighter, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... individuals. And yet—this was the strange part—by actual count less than fifteen hundred persons, exclusive of the policemen, who were there because their duty sent them there, attended Tuesday night's meeting. To be exact there were fourteen hundred and seventy-five of them. In the vast oval of the interior they made a ridiculously small clump set midway of the area, directly in front of the platform that had been put up. All about them were wide reaches of seating space—empty. The place was a huge vaulted cavern, cheerless as a cave, full of cold drafts and strange ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... and the black and the white robes, and then he looked at the face beside him. It was faded, and had lost its oval shape; but its coloring was yet beautiful, and the large, dark eyes tender and bright below the snow-white hair. After a few minutes' consideration, he touched, gently, a robe of white satin. "Put this on, Maria," he said, "and your white ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... a portrait framed in the wainscotting over a side table, pointed to one little oval nut in the carving, twisted it slightly, and the picture swung forward, showing a shallow closet behind fitted with shelves, and in which were swords and pistols, with flasks of powder and ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... a cowled garment of some dark blue material which enveloped him from head to feet. It possessed oval eye-holes, and through these apertures gleamed two eyes which looked scarcely like the eyes of a human being. They were of that brilliant yellow color sometimes seen in the eyes of tigers, and their most marked and awful peculiarity was their unblinking ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer

... any small table is suitable. It ought not to be so high that the hostess seems submerged behind it, nor so small as to be overhung by the tea tray and easily knocked over. It is usually between 24 and 26 inches wide and from 27 to 36 inches long, or it may be oval or oblong. A double-decked table that has its second deck above the main table is not good because the tea tray perched on the upper deck is neither graceful nor convenient. In proper serving, not only of tea but of ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... she turned with him and walked along the mosaic pavement of the terrace. She was little more than a girl, with a slim, graceful figure, and clad in a simple white morning gown, which served to enhance her youthful beauty. Her face was a pure oval, with clear-cut features and an exquisitely curved, sensitive mouth, while her grey-blue eyes gazed from beneath their thick lashes with a calm serenity that bred faith and confidence in those who looked upon them. Crowned with ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... be straight and muscular, neither in nor out at elbows, with a fair amount of bone; the forearm somewhat fleshy, the pasterns showing flexibility without weakness. THE HIND-LEGS should be muscular at the thighs, clean and sinewy below the hocks, with well bent stifles. THE FEET should be oval in shape, soles well padded, and the toes arched and close together. The hind feet less arched, the hocks well let down and powerful. THE BRUSH should be moderately long carried low when the dog is quiet, with a slight upward "swirl" at the end, and may be gaily carried when the dog ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... cutting things to me, but suddenly she stopped and ran out of the room, and presently I saw her in the garden, this garden, my dear, and she was flying around the oval path, as if she were walking for a wager, her thin ruffles swirling around her, and the strings of her bonnet fluttering ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey

... she came upon a large, rusty pebble, snuggled on the downstream side of an over-hanging rock right at the water's edge. It attracted her first by its symmetrical form, a perfect oval; then, when she lifted it, by its astonishing weight. She continued her search for the pinkish-red stones, carrying the rusty pebble along. Presently she worked her way back to where Roaring Bill ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... drop off, so that it was an easy matter for Morris to impale it on his scarfpin. By dint of a little scraping he managed to draw one edge of it through the "eff" hole and the next moment he was examining the faded printing. Then he turned the label over and in one corner he discovered an oval mark. Simultaneously the door opened ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass

... sarcophagi, were of oblong shape, having flat straight sides, like a box, with a curved or pointed lid. Sometimes the figure of the deceased was represented upon the latter in relief, like that of the Queen of Amasis in the British Museum; and some were in the form of a King's name or oval. Others were made in the shape of the mummied body, whether of basalt, granite, slate, or limestone, specimens of which are met with in the British Museum. These cases were deposited in the sepulchral chambers. Various ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... a moment. The sparkle of fun had died out of her eyes, which had become dark with the steadier fires of imagination. The strands of her thick hair, falling down on each side of her oval face, gave to it a whimsically mediaeval look, suggestive of legend. Her long-fingered, delicate, but strong little hands were clasped in her lap, and did not move. It was evident ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... thought to be a distinct affection, is now believed to be a form of scleroderma; as typically met with it is characterized by one or more rounded, oval, or elongate, coin- to palm-sized, pinkish, or whitish ivory-looking patches. In some instances such patches are seen in association with the more classic ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon

... seemed to be past the Danger Period, so Uncle Jabe took him to the Train and told the Conductor where to put him off. On the way back to the City he bought an oval Box of Figs from the Train Boy and lost his Hat out of the Window. When he arrived at Home and entered the House, it sounded like a Crowd coming in. His Mother took one Look and fell backward. There was a Neutral Zone between his ...
— People You Know • George Ade

... moustaches. Besides this, the Chief had a sort of feather-dress reaching half way down to his knees; this was simply a quantity of mutum feathers tied together as a girdle by means of plant-fibres. The women wore no clothing whatever, their only ornamentation being the oval wooden piece in the lower lip and fancifully arranged designs on face, arms, and body. The colours which they preferred were scarlet and black, and they procured these dyes from two plants that grew in the forest near by. ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange

... the room for something to read; there was nothing. The old-fashioned best bedrooms never did have anything. Only on the large dressing-table, on the left-hand side of the oval swing-glass, was one book covered in red velvet, and on it, very twistily embroidered in yellow silk and mixed up with misleading leaves and ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit

... with indignation, but hesitated. His handsome oval face, as smooth as a girl's, flushed with the shame of his perplexity. Its nature humiliated his spirit. His hairless upper lip trembled; he seemed on the point of either bursting into a fit of rage or into ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... Corean is a fine-looking fellow; his face is oval-shaped, and generally long when seen full face, but it is slightly concave in profile, the nose being somewhat flat at the bridge between the eyes, and possessing wide nostrils. The chin is generally ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor

... allowed Mr. Bradlaugh and myself to walk on in front, and they followed us across the roar of Fleet Street, down past Ludgate Hill Station, to the Police Office. Here we passed into a fair-sized room, and were requested to go into a funny iron-barred place; it was a large oval railed in, with a brightly polished iron bar running round it, the door closing with a snap. Here we stood while two officers in uniform got out their books; one of these reminded Mr. Bradlaugh of his late visits there, remarking that he supposed the 'gentleman you were ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant

... a flat oval form, furnished with fins, and ending in a long tail; the whole body covered with strong plates which overlap each other, and the head forming only a slight rounded projection from the general figure. The specimens in the lower beds are not above the size of ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers

... side to the south to catch the soft sunlight and warm breezes. Ravdin strode across the deep carpeting of the terrace. There was other music here, different music, a wilder, more intimate fantasy of whirling sound. An oval door opened for him, and he stopped short, staggered for a moment by the overpowering beauty in ...
— The Link • Alan Edward Nourse

... and despite her reluctance to glancing into the inner room, Edna raised her eyes timidly, and saw, in a richly-carved oval frame, hanging on the opposite wall, a ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... color than when under glass." And again, "Let us suppose that you wish to have an aquatic garden, fifty, sixty, or a hundred feet in diameter. We will not build it in the stiff form of a circle or oval. There is a small bay, across which we will throw a rustic bridge to a peninsula: somewhere on the margin we will ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan

... of the most irregularly shaped bodies of water that can be imagined. It has no well-defined form, being neither oval nor circular, but rather a combination of curves and varied outlines made by peninsulas and bays, of which only a map could convey any accurate idea. Ten islands are found upon its surface, and seven rivers and creeks enter ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... we had almost reached the carriage, a young girl, with large laughing eyes set like flashing jewels in her soft oval face, threw down in my path a cluster of red roses. A sudden fury of impotent passion possessed me, and I crushed my heel instantly and savagely upon the crimson blossoms, stamping upon them again and again so violently that my wife ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... from an inner pocket a mutilated photograph; originally of cabinet size, it was cut down to an oval, so that only the head remained. The portrait had been taken in London between Lilian's return from Paris and her arrival at Polterham. Glazzard was one of the few favoured ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing

... be Rajputs; and the Chitaur family have so often married the daughters of the former, that several members of it have acquired the Tartar countenance, while some of the mountain families, by intermarriages with pure but indigent Rajputs, have acquired oval faces and high noses. Not only the colony, therefore, from Chitaur, if the Palpa family be such, but all the descendants of the hill chiefs, are now called Rajputs; and, until the absorption of all power in the Gorkha family, ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... that you would hardly dare either to avert your eyes or to return her gaze. Sir Florian had not known whether to do the one thing or the other, and had therefore seized her in his arms. Her face was oval,—somewhat longer than an oval,—with little in it, perhaps nothing in it, of that brilliancy of colour which we call complexion. And yet the shades of her countenance were ever changing between the softest and most transparent white, and the ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... perfect in their kind, and at least as dangerous to the senses. Languid, yet full, brimful of life; dark, yet very lustrous; liquid, yet clear as stars; they are compared by their poets to the shape of the almond and the bright timidness of the gazelle. The face is delicately oval, and its shape is set off by the gold-fringed turban, the most becoming head-dress in the world; the long, black, silken tresses are braided from the forehead, and hang wavily on each side of the face, falling behind in a glossy cataract, that sparkles with such golden drops as ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... probably made in the fourteenth century. The cumdach of the Stowe Missal (1023) is a much more beautiful example. It is of oak, covered with plates of silver. The lower or more ancient side bears a cross within a rectangular frame. In the centre of the cross is a crystal set in an oval mount. The decoration of the four panels consists of metal plates, the ornament being a chequer-work of squares and triangles. The lid has a similar cross and frame, but the cross is set with pearls and metal bosses, a crystal in the centre, and a large jewel at the ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... make sure that they were unobserved, he opened a sandalwood box that he held in his hand and took out a large, oval leather case, which he ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... Lincoln changed the situation of affairs at a blow. From holding a little oval of territory about the mouth of the Severn as the utmost she had gained, with small immediate prospect of enlarging it, Matilda found the way to the throne directly open before her with no obstacle ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... your way: Come, bring out a bottle here presently, wife, Of the best Cheshire hum he e'er drank in his life.' Straight out comes the mistress in waistcoat of silk, As clear as a milkmaid, as white as her milk, With visage as oval and sleek as an egg, As straight as an arrow, as right as my leg: A curtsey she made, as demure as a sister, I could not forbear, but alighted and kissed her: Then ducking another, with most modest mien, The first word she said was, 'Will 't please you walk in? I thanked her; but told her, I then ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan



Words linked to "Oval" :   ovoid, Oval Office, circle, conic, rounded, conic section



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