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Shred   /ʃrɛd/   Listen
Shred

noun
1.
A tiny or scarcely detectable amount.  Synonyms: iota, scintilla, smidge, smidgen, smidgeon, smidgin, tittle, whit.
2.
A small piece of cloth or paper.  Synonyms: rag, tag, tag end, tatter.



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"Shred" Quotes from Famous Books



... perfectly well what was going on, but she had her own income and lived her own detached and barren life, so she clung to what seemed to her the last shred of duty she owed to her marriage ties—she served in her husband's home as hostess, and by her mere presence she avoided betraying him to the scorn of those who could not know all, and so might not ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock

... near his master, then cried out, "Yes, you cowardly shred of a beeldar; and reply quickly, or a sword will be ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... have been at the Opera. The fact is, we all scramble and jostle so much nowadays that I wonder we have anything at all left on us at the end of an evening. I know myself that, when I am coming back from the Drawing Room, I always feel as if I hadn't a shred on me, except a small shred of decent reputation, just enough to prevent the lower classes making painful observations through the windows of the carriage. The fact is that our Society is terribly over-populated. ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde

... Rais—was no mere wife-killer (though he was such) but from his youth upwards, in the fifteenth century, a man of exquisite culture, and a soldier under Joan of Arc, would have made for disillusionment so emphatic as to have shred the tale of a serious amount of its blood-curdling charm. As I can still enjoy reading them, it is a real pleasure to embrace here these old-time examples of child literature. Such as follow—and all the more popular will be found in the list—are ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford

... also caused by the stinging of a Flea, a Gnat, a Flie, a Wasp, and the like, proceeds much from the very same cause, I elsewhere in their proper places endeavour to manifest. The stinging also of shred Hors-hair, which in meriment is often strew'd between the sheets of a Bed, seems to ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... shred of an idea! And, Hildreth—" he broke off short because once again the subject suddenly grew too large for ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... of bunk or chair, enveloped in her blanket, she squatted disconsolate, greeting all questioners with defiant and fearless shruggings and inarticulate protest. Not a syllable of explanation, not a shred of news could their best endeavors wring from her. Yet her glittering eyes were surely in search of some one, for she looked up eagerly every time the door was opened, and Flint was just beginning to think he would have to send for Mrs. Hay when the couriers came with their stirring news and he ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... across the traps. He selected an open spot instead and dismounted on a sheep pelt spread flat upon the ground; with a hand-axe he hewed out a triangular trap bed a foot across by three inches deep, placing every shred of fresh earth removed from it in a canvas sack; then he fitted a heavy Newhouse four in place with both springs bent far to the rear and drove a slender steel pin out of sight through the swivel ring ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts

... she discovered a tattered shred of tapestry hanging in a corner, and pulled it vigorously. Many efforts, however, were needed before there was a sound of feet in the passage outside. Laura hastily donned a blue ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... by proclaiming a general amnesty, and he sent the proclamation of his pardon into provinces where he had not a shred of authority. The step was a politic one, for it informed the Chinese people that they again had an emperor. At the same time he ordered that the gates and doors of his palace should always be left open, so that the humblest of his subjects might ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... "Shall not lose a shred, sir," said Philip; "the scissors shall only be used to cut the threads, with which the ladies take in a reef here and there, when it ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... didn't mention Natica. Even a broken-to-harness shawl carrier has a shred of cautious decency about him. But I gabbled lightly about a certain feminine party who was keen on exemplars of the genuine thing in the line of the manly art. Whereupon "Boilerplate" acquired a pouter-pigeon chest, which fairly bulged over the bar railing, and gave me his word of honor ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... deliberately making this point, "face to face with—Nature?—rather with Infinitude." We are not in Nature: a part of God aspiring to the whole is there, but not the all of God. And Nature shows forth her glory, not to keep us with herself, but to send us on to her Source, of whom the universe is but a shred. ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... heads, the ordainers worked out to the uttermost consequences their favourite distinction between the crown and the king. The crown was to be strengthened, but the king was to be deprived of every shred of power. The great offices of state in England, Ireland, and Gascony were to be filled up with the counsel and consent of the barons, a provision which, if literally interpreted, meant that the barons intended to govern Gascony as well as England. The king was not ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... they were almost discovered at work on the parachute. The turnkey was heard coming along the passage when Ben was in the act of fitting on the new appendages, and the key was actually in the door before the last shred of them was thrust into the hole in the floor, and the loose plank shut down! Ben immediately flung several of the sacks over the place, and then turning suddenly round on his comrade began to pommel him soundly by way of accounting for the flushed ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne

... been sort of lost too—for the time being. I can see how he's wearing his heart out with wanting you: though I don't suppose he has ever said so. And you—out there, probably thinking he doesn't miss you a mite. I know you—and your ways. Also I know him—which is my ragged shred of excuse for rushing in where an angel would probably think ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... we just left," I continued, for I could not banish the child from my thoughts, "there was a little child playing on the bed without a shred of trousers on." ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... pray, make my humble excuses to Mistress Marget Forbes and her mother, and accept them for yourself, and you may rely upon hearing from me oversea, because I have no intention to relinquish a shred of my attachment to my native Highlands and the well-being of the name I bear; whereof it is the purpose of this epistle to inform you, as between one man ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne

... give a hundred guineas from the mint for a piece of old decayed copper no bigger than his nail, provided it had aukward characters upon it, too much defaced to be read. The whole stock of a great bookseller was, in his eyes, a cheap exchange for a shred of parchment, containing half a homily written by St. Patrick. He would have gratefully given all his patrimonial domains to one who should inform him what pendragon or druid it was who set up the first stone on ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown

... our airing and brought in again as if we were newborns, or people in prams, or flocks and herds, or prisoners suspected of wanting to escape. We haven't had a minute to ourselves day or night. There hasn't been a single exchange of ideas, not a shred of recognition that we're grown up. We've been followed, watched, talked to—oh, oh, how awful it has been! Oh, oh, how awful! Forced to be dumb for days—losing ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... proceeds to no voie de fait, and merely gets himself and the object of his desires arrested by the Austrians! He thus succeeds, while procuring no gratification for himself, in entirely demolishing the last shred of reputation which, virtuous as she is in her own way, Delphine's various eccentricities and escapades have left her; and she takes the veil. In the first form the authoress crowned this mass of absurdities with the suicide of the heroine and the judicial shooting of the hero. Somebody remonstrated, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... it substantial and warm. The green-crested pewee builds its nest in many instances wholly of the blossoms of the white oak. The wood pewee builds a neat, compact, socket-shaped nest of moss and lichens on a horizontal branch. There is never a loose end or shred about it. The sitting bird is largely visible above the rim. She moves her head freely about and seems entirely at her ease,—a circumstance which I have never observed in any other species. The nest of the great-crested flycatcher is ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs

... the two men went out and made search. All was as usual—unless, indeed, a shred of cloth adhering to a jagged rock had not been there before. Stephen soon after left the pair, unconscious that a dark shadow was following him into the upper world, there to ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... opinions strongly derogatory to those who would not stand up for the cause they had been fighting for. A feeble, attenuated old man, who wore the Rebel uniform, if such it could be called, stood by without showing any sign of intelligence. It was cutting very close to the bone to carve such a shred of humanity from the body-politic to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... would never have asked you to marry me if my conscience hadn't been quite clear?' he said slowly. 'Don't you see that the reasons I have for holding my tongue must be overwhelming, or I wouldn't stand by calmly while my good name was torn from me shred by shred?' ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham

... bounce, one tumbler of peach liqueur, or else a tumbler of "peach and honey," Cover with cloth and let stand three days off ice to blend and ripen. Meantime squeeze and strain the juice of the oranges and lemons upon four pounds of best lump sugar, shred a large, very ripe pineapple fine and put it with another pound of sugar in a separate vessel. Hull half a gallon of ripe strawberries, cover them liberally with sugar and let stand to extract the juice. Lacking ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams

... of the night. And as they passed hamlet or cottage ever and anon some frenzied mother would rush upon them and fall on her knees before the Duke, praying him to look well for her darling, and bringing mayhap some pitiful shred of clothing or lock of hair by which the searchers might identify ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... the sudden cessation of the doorbell's ring went unnoticed. He stood there, willing with every cell of his body the miracle that would make that small shred of green ...
— Such Blooming Talk • L. Major Reynolds

... even measures of truth and falsehood in his statement to Dumont—he did need two hundred thousand dollars; and he must have it before a quarter past two that day or go into a bankruptcy from which he could not hope to save a shred of reputation or to secrete more than fifty ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... and were not in existence when the mossy cradle was fabricated in which they first saw light." She asked him, and quite reasonably, "how, upon his principle of imitation, he could account for the nest he then saw building, being constructed even to the precise disposal of every hair and shred of wool upon the model of that in which the pair were born, and on which every other canary bird's nest is constructed, when the proper materials are furnished. That of the pyefinch," she added, "is of much compacter form, warmer, and more comfortable. Pull one of these nests to pieces for its ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... question of the quality of jealousy, whether being wife of a man and mother of his children does not almost necessarily give a woman a feeling of exclusive possession in him, and whether, therefore, if we are earnest in our determination not to debase her, our last shred of polygamy does not vanish. From first to last, of course, it has been assumed that a prolific polygamy alone can be intended, for long before we have plumbed the bottom of the human heart we shall know enough to imagine what the ugly and pointless consequences of permitting ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... be feared that many of those who are interested in the question have not taken the trouble to read what he said. The speech of 1828 is by no means equal in any way to its predecessors in the same field. It is brief and simple to the last degree. It has not a shred of constitutional argument, nor does it enter at all into a discussion of general principles. It makes but one point, and treats that point with great force as the only one to be made under the circumstances, and thereby presents the single and sufficient reason for its author's vote. A few lines ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... with my husband and leaving him for somebody else. I dare say I might have done that. But that coarse suspicion ... a man whom he trusted ... and the notion of concealment. It made me see scarlet. Every shred of pride in me was strung up till I quivered, and I swore to myself on the spot that I would never show by any word or sign that I was conscious of his having such a thought about me. I would behave exactly as I always had behaved, I determined—and ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley

... moor to the Cribserth, she looked round her, but found no shred of comfort. The sea, all rough and torn by the high wind, looked cold and cruel; the brow of the hill, which Gethin's whistle had so often enlivened, looked bare and uninteresting; the moor had lost its gorgeous tints; a rock pigeon, ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... more serious difficulty: the milk must be mixed with water, and water as cold as Clare's legs would kill the drug-dazed shred of humanity! What was to be done? It would be equally dangerous to give her the strong milk of a cow undiluted. There was but one way: he must feed her as do the pigeons. First, however, he must have water! The well was almost inaccessible: to get to it and return would fearfully ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... so shaking, shook the last shred of sleep from his eyes. Then he looked with pride at his warriors, those who yet lay upon the ground and those who had arisen. He was a young chief, not yet thirty years of age, and he was the bloom and flower of Mohawk courage and daring. His ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler

... first contact with the sea," Mr. Conrad set down what is really nothing less than a Testament of all that is most precious in human life. And the sentiment with which one lays it by is that the scribbler would gladly burn every shred of foolscap he had blackened and start all over again with truer ideals for his craft, could he by so doing have chance to meet the Skipper face ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... UFO reports would die out when the thrill wore off had long been discarded. We all knew that UFO reports would continue to come in and that in order to properly evaluate them we had to have every shred of evidence. The Big Flap had shown us that our chances of getting a definite answer on a sighting was directly proportional to the quality of the information we received from the intelligence officers in ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... nearly three hours that morning, and when at length the queen dismissed me the last shred of suspicion raised in my mind against her by Anuti had vanished, and in its stead I was conscious of a feeling of exalted, romantic devotion, such as the knights errant of old must have felt when they went forth to perform some deed of desperate gallantry in honour of the women who ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... How 'mid the hills last night I'd lain Beside a singing moorland burn; And waked at dawn, to feel the rain Fall on my face, as on the fern That drooped about my heather-bed; And how by noon the wind had blown The last grey shred from out the sky, And blew my homespun jacket dry, As I stood on the topmost stone That crowns the cairn on Hawkshaw Head, And caught a gleam of far-off sea; And heard the wind sing in the bent Like those far waters calling me: When, my heart answering ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... French nation, which had a powerful squadron under Admiral Linois in the Indian Ocean, was too absurd for consideration. But Decaen was plainly hunting for reasons for detaining Flinders, and it is possible that he found a shred of justification in the despatches which the Cumberland was carrying from Governor King to the British Government; though the protracted character of the imprisonment, after every other member of the ship's company had been set free, cannot have ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... George! And it may as well leave the room in my pocket. There goes your last shred of evidence. But you have the truth now, Holmes, and you can die with the knowledge that I killed you. You knew too much of the fate of Victor Savage, so I have sent you to share it. You are very near your end, Holmes. I will sit here and ...
— The Adventure of the Dying Detective • Arthur Conan Doyle

... answered the purpose, and the conjurer even offered to carry the articles for her to Platt's house. She so earnestly desired to keep him and her charge apart, that she preferred loading herself with the package. Then the shavings were found to be in such a state that every shred of them must be removed before the sick man could be allowed to lie down. No time was to be lost. In the face of the old woman's protestations that her daughter should not stir, Margaret spread the ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... shred of a character." He knew twenty men who were openly admirers of her, and named them, and the sums each had spent upon her. I know no kind of calumny more frightful or frequent than this which takes away the character of women, no men more reckless ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... liver," he says, "which you are to shred very small with thyme, sweet marjoram and a little winter savory; to these put some pickled oysters and some anchovies, two or three; both these last whole, for the anchovies will melt, and the oysters should not; to these you must add also a pound of sweet butter which you are to ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... parties to this plan. Lord Midleton now looked back on the past as one who had been in the fight since Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill. Every fresh settlement had been wrecked, he said, by standing for the last shred of the demand. In 1885, if Gladstone had abandoned the identity of democratic franchise for both countries and had made to the Irish minority such concessions as this Convention was willing to make, he would ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... had failed to keep their promise, and the bed was not delivered till one day about the middle of January. Muffat was just then in Normandy, whither he had gone to sell a last stray shred of property, but Nana demanded four thousand francs forthwith. He was not due in Paris till the day after tomorrow, but when his business was once finished he hastened his return and without even paying a flying visit in the Rue Miromesnil came direct ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... was said By one as young, as thoughtless as Ginevra, "Why not remove it from its lurking place?" 'T was done as soon as said; but on the way It burst, it fell; and lo! a skeleton, With here and there a pearl, an emerald stone, A golden clasp, clasping a shred of gold. All else had perished, save a nuptial ring, And a small seal, her mother's legacy, Engraven with a name, the name of both, "Ginevra."—-There then had she found a grave! Within that chest had she concealed herself, Fluttering with ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... own reward" seems in her grasp, her heart is lighter, her spirit does not quail. She is tasting perhaps a shred of the martyrs' joy, when they suffered in the cause of right, she is battling down that weaker nature and ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... put it into three or four quarts of water; put in a cup of rice while the water is cold; season it with pepper and salt; some use nutmeg. Let it stew gently, until the chicken falls apart. A little parsley, shred fine, is an improvement. Some slice up a small onion and stew with it. A few pieces of cracker may be ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child

... Some shred of her thought, some suggestion of the comparison running through her mind, must have shown in her face, for Chilcote altered his position with a touch of uneasiness. He glanced away across the long sweep of tan-covered drive stretching between the trees; then he glanced ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... to her dismissal from court. Not that she was a greater sinner than many who remained behind, only she was unlucky enough or stupid enough to be found out. Her admirers were so indiscreet that they had not left her a shred of reputation, and in a court where a cardinal is the lover of a queen, a hypocritical appearance of decorum is indispensable to success. So Angelique had to suffer for the faults she was not ...
— Widger's Quotations from Celebrated Crimes of Alexandre Dumas, Pere • David Widger

... by a cry from the girl. Without the slightest warning, she had lost the last shred of her self-control. She began to beat on the covering of her bed with clenched fists. He could see how her ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.

... her army of guests the Countess moved like a Queen, who could stoop to frivolity without losing a shred of dignity. Surely never was such superabundant energy enshrined in a form so beautiful ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... an eye, discussing the theory of shame the while with the theological Hedvig, I presented myself to their gaze in the costume of Adam. Hedvig blushed and parted with the last shred of her modesty, citing the opinion of St. Clement Alexandrinus that the seat of shame is in the shirt. I praised the charming perfection of her shape, in the hope of encouraging Helen, who was slowly undressing herself; but an accusation ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... a low voice, "if you care a shred for Marie, for heaven's sake call her up and tell her that you dote on pink roses, and pink ribbons, and pink ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter

... Walter; the actor's hand, trembling and contracted, was stretched toward them and implored them to speak more clearly. He was horror-stricken at the news he was to hear, but uncertainty was intolerable; and when, after these touching preparations, Arnold himself tore away the last shred of doubt, when he uttered the cry: "My father!" there was not a heart—were it bathed in the waters of the Styx—which did not melt from the counter shock of such ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... more numerous and more zealous in view of the prizes held out to them; star-maps were diligently constructed, and the sidereal multitude strewn along the great zodiacal belt acquired a fresh interest when it was perceived that its least conspicuous member might be a planetary shred or projectile in the dignified disguise of a distant sun. Harding's "Celestial Atlas," designed for the special purpose of facilitating asteroidal research, was the first systematic attempt to represent to the eye the telescopic aspect of the heavens. It was while ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... its terrific fury. Bududreen was no mean sailor, but he was short handed, nor is it reasonable to suppose that even with a full crew he could have weathered the terrific gale which beat down upon the hapless vessel. Buffeted by great waves, and stripped of every shred of canvas by the force of the mighty wind that howled about her, the Ithaca drifted a hopeless wreck soon ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... to make a case," he said at length. "But there's one thing I do know. I've got no proof, not a shred of it, but I'm sure of one thing just as sure as I'm on Mars." He looked at the twins thoughtfully. "Your dad wasn't just prospecting, out in the Belt. He'd run onto something ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse

... Even when gambling adventurers of this sort are known and responsible (as they are in professional politics) their power is a grave danger. Possessing as the newspaper owners do every power of concealment and, at the same time, no shred of responsibility to any organ of the State, they are a deadly peril. The chief of these men are more powerful to-day than any Minister. Nay, they do, as I have said (and it is now notorious), make and unmake Ministers, and they may ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc

... younger man than Phipps—-I should say that he wasn't more than thirty-five—and much better-looking. I must say that in a struggle I shouldn't know which to back. Wingate has sentiment and Phipps has none; conscience of which Phipps hasn't a shred, and a sense of honour with which Phipps was certainly never troubled. These points are all against him in a market duel, but on the other hand he has a bigger outlook than Phipps, he has nerves of steel and the grit of a hero. ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Seest thou this tress?—Oh! still I've worn This little tress of yellow hair, Through danger, frenzy, and despair! It once was bright and clear as thine, 655 But blood and tears have dimmed its shine. I will not tell thee when 'twas shred, Nor from what guiltless victim's head— My brain would turn!—but it shall wave Like plumage on thy helmet brave, 660 Till sun and wind shall bleach the stain, And thou wilt bring it me again. I waver still—O God! more bright Let reason beam her parting light!— Oh! by thy knighthood's honored ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... whan she homward came she wolde bring Wortes and other herbes times oft, The which she shred and sethe for hire living, And made hire bed ful hard, and nothing soft: And ay she kept hire fadres lif on loft With every obeisance and diligence, That child may don ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... eyes fell on the little white shred. "The providence of God has found us out. We have suffered, labored ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... yours," returns Molly, tenderly; "refuse to let me help you, and the little shred of comfort that still remains to me vanishes with the rest. Letitia, you are my home now: ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... And twice he rose to cry, "To horse!" And twice his sovereign's mandate came, Like damp upon a kindling flame; And twice he thought, "Gave I not charge She should be safe, though not at large? They durst not, for their island, shred One ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... turned again to see how they were getting on, I found that they had disappeared, and, walking to the place, saw not a trace of the butchery save the trampled ground and a small heap of undigested grass. Mr. Worcester had told me before that I should find this to be the case; not a shred of hoof, hide, or bone ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox

... and to throw in his lot with Him. In the person of the people he shows himself cruel, hardened, indifferent to suffering and to justice, ready to be made the tool of unscrupulous politicians, unstable and ignorant. As we look on, we succeed in retaining any shred of respect for humanity only through the contemplation of the exceptions—of S. John and the little group of women who are faithful to the end: above all in the sight of blessed Mary standing by ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... the age of 13, though always in the company of girls. I had many boyish passions for girls, always older than myself, but these were never accompanied by sexual desires. I deified all my sweethearts, and was satisfied if I got a flower, a handkerchief, or even a shred of clothing of my inamorata for the time being. These things gave me a strange idealistic emotion, but caused ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... himself against his own will he mechanically drew his gun and glanced at the two empty shells. "Three and two is five," he muttered. "I shot twict." He did not realize that Gary had shot at him—that a shred of his flannel shirt was dangling from his sleeve where Gary's bullet had cut it. "Wonder if Andy heard?" he kept asking himself. ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... age, and she regretted this for nothing more than for the danger it brought her into of spilling the salt. She was past housework, but all day she sat knitting hearth-rugs out of the bits and scraps of cloth that were shred in the tailoring. How far she believed in the wonderful tales she told, and the odd little charms she practised, no one exactly knew; but the older she grew, the stranger were the things she remembered, and the more testy she was if any one doubted their truth. "Bairns ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... Fernhurst station on the last morning, with its waving hands and shoutings, was a shriek from the Buller's day-room: "Wait for the Three Cock!" Gordon laughed for a second, and then looked bored. The jest had ceased to have a shred of humour left upon it. It was naked and ought to ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh

... squint eyes. They never ask one's name, for they can neither pronounce nor write it when it is given. The ticket is an unintelligible tracery of lines, curves, dots and dashes, made by a brush dipped in India ink on a shred of flimsy Chinese paper. It may teem with abuse and ridicule, but you must pocket all that, and produce it on calling again, or your shirts and collars go into the Chinese Circumlocution Wash-house Office. It is very difficult getting one's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... of, even for their crimes. When William Longbeard, leader of the populace of London in the reign of Richard I., was hanged at Smithfield, the utmost eagerness was shewn to obtain a hair from his head, or a shred from his garments. Women came from Essex, Kent, Suffolk, Sussex, and all the surrounding counties, to collect the mould at the foot of his gallows. A hair of his beard was believed to preserve from evil spirits, and a piece of his clothes from aches ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... anything. As Cato is unwell, he has not yet been formally indicted for extortion. Pompey is trying hard to persuade me to be reconciled to him, but as yet he has not succeeded at all, nor, if I retain a shred of liberty, will he succeed. I am very anxious for a letter from you. You say that you have been told that I was a party to the coalition of the consular candidates—it is a lie. The compacts made in that coalition, afterwards made public by Memmius, were of such a nature that no loyal ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... dark house moved over to me. He spoke in whispers, holding the hat an official inch of respect for the dead above the narrow white shred of his skull. ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly

... birdies a pan of water, and placed in it some finely-shred lettuce, with grits and brown bread crumbs, not forgetting suitable food for the poor distracted hen. It was charming to hear the little happy twitterings of the downy babes, how they gobbled and sputtered and talked to each other over their repast, swimming to and fro as if they had ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen

... dislike to a plain girl, we may suppose that such a maiden might accumulate several bride-prices and so acquire some wealth. This may explain Herodotus's idea that the handsome girls made a dowry for the plain ones. But there is not a shred of evidence for their doing so in the way he suggests. A girl was a ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... wife did call to invite us.' 'Then I shall certainly go,' I exclaimed. I applied to Madame B., who said she would like it very much, and we had better go, children and all. Some of the servants were already gone. We rushed away to put on some shawls, and put off any shred of black we might have about us (as the people would have been quite annoyed if we had appeared on such an occasion with any black), and we started. When we reached the farmer's, which is a stone's throw above our house, we were received with great enthusiasm; the only drawback being, ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter

... light no thicker, nor one thousandth part so thick, as the finest needle ever silk-threaded by lady's finger; or you may dance it in with a flutter of sunbeams; or you may splash it in as with a gorgeous cloud-stain stolen from sunset; or you may bathe it in with a shred of the rainbow. Perhaps the highest power of all possessed by the sons of song, is to breathe it in with the breath, to let it slip in with the light of the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... island in the loch called Innis Maree contains an ancient chapel and a burial place. Near it is a deep well, renowned for the efficacy of its water in the cure of lunacy. An oak tree hard by is studded with nails, to each of which was {70} formerly attached a shred of clothing belonging to some pilgrim visitor. Many pennies and other coins have at various times been driven edgewise into the bark of the tree, and it is fast closing over them. These are the Protestant equivalents to votive offerings at ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett

... came by boat to Crowland all Torfrida's wealth: clothes, jewels: not a shred had Hereward kept. The magic ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... He told me how once at the fair of Tralee he saw an old tinker-woman taken by the police, and she was struggling with them in the centre of the fair; when suddenly, as if her garments were held together with one cord, she hurled every shred of clothing from her, ran down the street and screamed, 'let this be the barrack yard,' which was perfectly understood by the crowd as suggesting that the police strip and beat their prisoners when they get them shut in, in ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats

... OR MEAT PULP.—Take a rare piece of round or sirloin steak, cut the outer part away, scrape or shred with a blunt knife. Cutting the meat into small pieces is not satisfactory. One teaspoonful to one tablespoonful may be given well salted, to a child a year and a half old. It is best to begin ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... as he went up and offered the old tar both hands, to seat him in state upon the sofa; but the legless sailor condemned "them swabs," and crutched himself into a hard-bottomed chair. Then he pulled off his hat, and wiped his white head with a shred of old flag, and ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... black, glossy hair caught by a splinter in the wood. They were Myrtle's of course. A simpleton might have constructed a tragedy out of this trivial circumstance,—how she had cast herself from the window into the waters beneath it,—how she had been thrust out after a struggle, of which this shred from her tresses was the dreadful witness,—and so on. Murray Bradshaw did not stop to guess and wonder. He said nothing about it, but wound the shining threads on his finger, and, as soon as he got home, examined them with ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Shred one head of Romaine or a bunch of cress. This of course must be crisp and dry. Put a layer of the chicken mixture on the buttered side of a slice of bread, put on top another slice of buttered bread, then a thick layer of the shredded cress ...
— Sandwiches • Sarah Tyson Heston Rorer

... should be those embodied in General Grant's famous demand—"Unconditional Surrender." Anything less than this is treachery. The truth of the Lord Jesus, which cost His blood in its purchase and the blood of martyrs in its defence, should be maintained to the very last shred, with the tenacity of unconquerable faith. Unfaithfulness in the least degree may result in greatest disaster. Once a ship was cast upon the rocks, and the lives of the passengers were jeopardized simply because the compass varied, it was said, a millionth ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... anything!" laughed Arisa. "I should like to see you tear him into little strips, so that every shred should keep alive ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... loose as soon as he heard the tones of Holmes's well-remembered voice that had bawled him out at the inquisition the day before, and in a second had escaped by the back door, leaving Holmes with a shred of cloth out of his coat-tail held ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry

... it for the honorable function of a parish clerk, which he considered as an office appertaining in some wise to ecclesiastical dignity; since by wearing a band, no small part of the ornament of the Protestant clergy, he thought he might not unworthily be deemed, as it were, "a shred of the linen vestment of Aaron." Nor was Roger one of those worthy parish clerks who could be accused of merely humming the psalms through the nostrils as a sack-butt, but much oftener instructed and amused his fellow-parishioners ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... and Egyptians lashed with courbashes until they bled; hungry, thirsty, bending under burdens which they were commanded to carry or under buckets of water. They saw European women and children, who were reared in affluence, at present begging for a handful of durra or a shred of meat; covered with rags, emaciated, resembling specters, with faces swarthy from want, on which dismay and despair had settled, and with a bewildered stare. They saw how the savages burst into laughter at the sight of these unfortunates; how they pushed ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... by to watch the contest, not to deprive his loved master of a shred of glory, till he saw the crocodile opening his monstrous jaws to snap at his legs. Then he saw that the time for action had arrived, and, rushing up, began to assail the brute with ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston

... pounced upon this shred with incredible avidity. An old document, enclosed an immemorial time within the folds of this old book, had for ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... anything to leave," says she, "not a shred! Sometime, though, I hope I may meet your ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford

... of men's souls! The fact is, Mr. Morton, that the spirit of conservatism in this country is so strong that you cannot bear to part with a shred of the barbarism of the middle ages. And when a rag is sent to the winds you shriek with agony at the disruption, and think that the wound will be mortal." As Mr. Gotobed said this he extended his right hand and laid his left on his breast as though ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... in an autobiography, however sedulously he may have set about it; that in spite of his candid purpose he omits necessary touches and adds superfluous ones; that at times he cannot help draping his thought, and that, of course, the least shred of drapery is a disguise. But, Aldrich to the contrary notwithstanding, I believe Mr. Burroughs has pictured himself and his environment in these pages with the same fidelity with which he has interpreted nature. He is so used to "straight seeing and straight thinking" that these gifts do not desert ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... be modified to turn out fusion-bomb materials while a space-fleet was made ready for an anti-blueskin crusade. They confidently demanded such a rain of fusion-bombs on Dara that no blueskin, no animal, no shred of vegetation, no fish in the deepest ocean, not even a living virus-particle of the blueskin plague could remain alive on ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster

... artistic England for the Academy proceeds from the knowledge that the Academy is no true centre of art, but a mere commercial enterprise protected and subventioned by Government. In recent years every shred of disguise has been cast off, and it has become patent to every one that the Academy is conducted on as purely commercial principles as any shop in the Tottenham Court Road. For it is impossible to suppose that Mr. Orchardson and Mr. Watts do not ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... are still on the warpath, and one, owning to the solid name of John Brown, having secured judgment against him, is compelled to report to the court that "the defendant hath no property whereon to levy." Shortly after this, John Shakespeare is shorn of the last shred of his civic honours, being deprived of his office of alderman for non-attendance at the council meetings. In this condition of things we may realise the feelings of an imaginative and sensitive youth of his son's calibre; how keenly he would feel the helplessness and the reproach of his position, ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson

... Brother,—For the last time I claim your help. I know quite well that I am being hunted to death by you and those you employ. Without a shred of evidence you are willing to believe me a murderer. I suppose I have no right to complain. It would be convenient to you to have me out of the way, and the best way of getting rid of me is to get up this cry against me. A nice brotherly act, and worthy of an Ingleton! It is no use my telling ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... reservations, no doubt. There were details in Comte's work which did not satisfy her. But all who knew her were aware—and I speak from an acquaintance of eighteen years—that she had not only cast away every shred of theology and metaphysics, but that she had found refuge from mere negativism in the system of Comte. She did not write her positivism in broad characters on her books. Like Shakspere, she was first an artist ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... heart. It was this mighty love that brought him to earth on the mission of redemption. It was this that impelled and constrained him in all his seeking of the lost. He had come to be the Saviour of all who would believe and follow him. Therefore he was interested in every merest fragment or shred of life. No human soul was so debased that he did not ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... sovereign remedy for this malady. Pliny said that any person might be immediately cured of the headache by the application of any plant which has grown on the head of a statue, provided it be folded in the shred of a garment, and tied to the part affected ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... which I have unceasingly poured out my strength and energy, and so constantly worn the springs of desire, has, so to speak, undermined my vitality. With all the appearance of a strong man of good health, I feel myself a wreck. Every day carries with it a shred of my inmost life. At every fresh effort I feel that I should never be able to begin again. I have no power, no vigor left but for happiness; and if it should never come to crown my head with roses, the me that is really me would cease to exist, I should be a ruined ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac

... what the rewards of such industry, it must not be imagined that its disabilities did not insist upon due recognition and ugly ravel, and that such shred and fibre did not obtrude their unwelcome appeals for repair upon their ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... Portsmouth. My father and the minister nod in due time over their ale-cup, and Bob and I go our ways till dark, or till the house bell rings for prayers and exposition. Well, dear good lady, I will not grieve you by telling you how often they make me wish to be again the imp devoid of every shred of self-respect, and too much inured to flogging to heed what my antics ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... another knight of the steel-bar had come from—nobody knew where—a place often talked of, yet still a terra incognita; had taken a great house opposite, hoisted a tremendous sign, and threatened to carry away every shred ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... enlist against the whole instrument, the whole of the anti-bank party in Pennsylvania. Whereupon it was rejected, as was every other special power, except that of giving copyrights to authors, and patents to inventors; the general power of incorporating being whittled down to this shred. Wilson agreed to ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... the demure little person in a mourning frock and white chemisette, that might just have fitted a good-sized doll—perched now on a high chair beside a stand, whereon was her toy work-box of white varnished wood, and holding in her hands a shred of a handkerchief, which she was professing to hem, and at which she bored perseveringly with a needle, that in her fingers seemed almost a skewer, pricking herself ever and anon, marking the cambric with a track of minute red dots; occasionally ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... reliquiis quae continentur in Ecclesiis, seemed indeed to have cured the madness of Denys, but certainly did not restore his gaiety. He was left a subdued, silent, melancholy creature. Turning now, with an odd revulsion of feeling, to gloomy objects, he picked out a ghastly shred from the common bones on the pavement to wear about his neck, and in a little while found his way to the monks [70] of Saint Germain, who gladly received him into their workshop, though secretly, ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater

... transparently fine: without this quality no beer can be acceptable to the consumer, and should be always a particular aim of the brewers to obtain. Take five pounds of isinglass, beat each piece in succession on a stone or iron weight, until you find you can conveniently shred it into small pieces, and so treat every piece until you have got through the whole; thus shredded, steep it in sour porter or strong beer that is very fine, then set the beer and the isinglass on the fire, and there let it remain till you raise the heat to one ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... rather apathetically, pushing back the fallen lock of hair, "it has come to that. I can't remain here and keep any shred of self-respect. All my life I've been taught to believe divorce a terrible thing—a crime, almost; now I think it is sometimes a crime not to be divorced. For months I have been coming slowly to a decision, so ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower

... the three had expected was in full progress. The hunt had been successful, and the Indians, with their usual appetites, were enjoying the results. They broiled or roasted great pieces of deer over the coals, and then devoured them to the last shred. But Tayoga saw that while the majority were absorbed in their pleasant task, a half dozen sentinels, their line extending on either side of the camp, kept vigilant watch. It would be impossible for the three to pass there. They would have to go down to the lake ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Labour's Lost" is an early example of a plot woven out of masked allusions to current topics, so even as definitely plotted a comedy as "The Merchant of Venice" here and there worked in an animating shred ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke

... not as if to gain Help from the staff he bore; for mien and air Were hardy, though his cheek seemed worn with care 5 Both of the time to come, and time long fled: Down fell in straggling locks his thin grey hair; A coat he wore of military red But faded, and stuck o'er with many a patch and shred. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... reputation, my life, my liberty, are in your hands, and are at your discretion. I am so confident in your high sense of duty that I have no anxiety as to the verdict. My calmness does not arise from the presumption that you will acquit me. Although you are only half a jury, only a shred of that proud old British constitution, I respect you. I can only trust, Judge and gentlemen, that good and practical results will arise from your judgment conscientiously rendered. I would call your attention to one or two points. The first is that the House of Commons, Senate and Ministry, which ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... saw seen Seek sought sought Sell sold sold Send sent sent Set set set Shake shook shaken Shape shaped shaped, shapen Shave shaved shaven, R. Shear sheared shorn Shed shed shed Shine shone, R. shone, R. Show showed shown Shoe shod shod Shoot shot shot Shrink shrunk shrunk Shred shred shred Shut shut shut Sing sung, sang[9] sung Sink sunk, sank[9] sunk Sit sat set Slay slew slain Sleep slept slept Slide slid slidden Sling slung slung Slink slunk slunk Slit slit, R. slit Smite smote smitten Sow sowed sown, R. Speak spoke spoken Speed sped sped Spend ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... certainly,' said Marcus; 'but it is so long since I have bestowed any thought upon philosophical inquiries, that to me the labor would be very great, and the difficulties extreme—for, at present, there is scarcely so much as a mere shred or particle of faith, to which as a nucleus other truths may attach themselves. In truth, I never look even to possess any clear faith in a God—it seems to be a subject wholly beyond the scope and grasp of my mind. I cannot ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... processes, its opposing and coordinating power. If his brain is small, its texture is fine and its convolutions are deep. There have been broader and more catholic natures, but few so towering and audacious in expression and so rich in characteristic traits. Every scrap and shred of him is important and related. Like the strongly aromatic herbs and simples,—sage, mint, wintergreen, sassafras,—the least part carries the flavor of the whole. Is there one indifferent or equivocal ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... never will attend to anything." The wife had long since ceased to take the husband's part when accusations such as this were brought against him. Nothing could make Mr. Palliser think it worth his while to give up any shred of his time to such a matter as the ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... of the large animals, every Cave-man made his own thread. All the children learned to prepare sinew and to shred the fibers with a jagged ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp



Words linked to "Shred" :   smidgen, bust, piece of material, pine-tar rag, small indefinite amount, tease, piece of cloth, tear, small indefinite quantity, rupture, snap



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