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Splinter   /splˈɪntər/   Listen
Splinter

noun
1.
A small thin sharp bit or wood or glass or metal.  Synonym: sliver.  "It broke into slivers"



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"Splinter" Quotes from Famous Books



... I'd started down to town, with that 'ere team of mine, A-haulin' down a load o' corn to Ebenezer Kline, And drivin' slow; for, jest about a day or two before, The off-horse run a splinter in his foot, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... view under cover of a bank. But this took some time. Leary stood by with a stopwatch calling out the minutes. At the end of every fourth minute, the party ran for cover. Then a few seconds later we heard the next shell coming. The Major was hit on the hand once by a shell splinter which drew blood, but nothing more ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton

... a doctor; and when Annie was a very little girl she broke her arm and papa mended it. So he did up Fluffy-dumpty's leg with a splinter, and then wound a bandage round it. Annie took care of her. Mary used to help Annie feed ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various

... for granted that no one was likely to ride up on us, we built a fire in the grove, being careful to feed it with dry twigs that would make little smoke. Over this we toasted bits of meat on the end of a splinter, and presently our hunger was appeased. Then we blotted out the fire, and, stretching ourselves on the ground, had recourse ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... kind of dissipation or expansion, especially a quick one, particularly if there be an r, as if it were from spargo or separo: for example, spread, spring, sprig, sprout, sprinkle, split, splinter, spill, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson

... the nearest thunder; a colossal thump to the earth which seems to move the whole world about an inch from its base; a scatter of flying bits and all sorts of under-noises, rustle of a flying wood splinter, whir of fragments, scatter of falling earth. Before it is half finished another shriek exactly similar is coming through it. Another crash—apparently right on the crown of your head, as if the roof beams of the sky ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean

... kings contending with lions, of sacred trees, winged circles, and the like—scarcely ever introducing any novelty. The greater number of the cylinders are very rudely cut. They have been worked simply by means of a splinter of obsidian,[787] and are barbarous in execution, though interesting to the student of archaic art. The subjoined are specimens. No. 1 represents a four-winged genius of the Assyrian type, bearded, and clad in a short tunic and a long robe, seizing with either ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... whitlow is applied to an acute infection, usually followed by suppuration, commonly met with in the fingers, less frequently in the toes. The point of infection is often trivial—a pin-prick, a puncture caused by a splinter of wood, a scratch, or even an ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... the pan and gave each of us a fragment. To think that anybody at my age could eat such things was an idea possible only to the very artless mind. Mademoiselle Prefere, suddenly awakened from her dream, indignantly pushed away the sugary splinter of earthenware, and deemed it opportune to inform me that she herself was exceedingly skilful ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... spark glittering at me on the unutterable darkness of your eye, bunny? The finest splinter of a spark that you throw off, straight on the ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence

... shut her eyes, bowed her head, and waited for the Superintendent to smite her dead. The smite she felt quite sure would be a noisy one. First of all, she reasoned it would fracture her skull. Naturally then of course it would splinter her spine. Later in all probability it would telescope her knee-joints. And never indeed now that she came to think of it had the arches of her feet felt less capable of resisting so terrible an impact. Quite unconsciously she groped out ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... revolver whistled past my ear. I stayed no longer, but fell back to the stairs and took to my heels. A bullet chipped away a splinter of wood beside me as ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... him take off his muddy shoes in the woodshed. Woe to him if he ever brought a splinter of whittling, or a fragment of nutshell, into the distressingly ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness

... on me, "this all cometh along o' your ill-praying us, for prayer is potent, as I know, which was not brotherly in you, Martin O, not brotherly nor yet friendly!" So saying, he squatted on the gun beside me and sought to staunch the splinter-gash in his brow; but seeing how ill he set about it, I proffered to do it for him (and despite my shackles), whereupon he gave me the scarf and knelt that I might come at his hurt the better; and being thus on his knees, he began to pray in a ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... rowdily on the front lid, and he pushed the pot back to a cooler surface. After that he investigated the biscuits, tested them with a splinter of wood, and placed them aside under cover of a damp cloth. Dick, after the manner of his kind, stifled his interest and waited silently. "A ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London

... Duroc, who was in the trench, was wounded in the right thigh by the a splinter from a shell fired against the fortifications. Fortunately this accident only carried away the flesh from the bone, which remained untouched. He had a tent in common with several other 'aides de camp'; but for his better accommodation ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... that room lit up as it were with the early sunbeams. It was an old-fashioned room;—the windows with chintz shades, the floor painted, with a single strip of rag carpet; the old low-post bed-stead, with its check blue and white spread, the high-backed splinter chairs, told of life that had made but little progress in modern improvement. And Jonathan Fax himself, lean, long-headed, and lantern-jawed, looked grimmer than ever under his new veil of solemn feeling. He ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... still. "Was he in danger?" she asked herself; yet she felt no fear, and shook her head under her plaid, sure that, even if he were, no danger would reach him: the gun aimed at him would strike some broken branch, the knife drawn against him would break like a splinter before it struck him, the man who rushed on him would stumble and fall before he could touch that haughty head. He was above all danger, above all fear; he knew neither care nor grief; alas! he did not feel like ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... no money," replied the savage; and, stooping down, he began to split some dry wood into very small pieces to kindle with. Joe looked on in despair, and seemed to anticipate a blister from every splinter he saw. It was different with Sneak. Almost hid by the wood heaped around him, he embraced every opportunity, when the eyes of the savages were turned away, to endeavour to extricate himself from the cords that bound him to the tree. Hope had not yet ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... from the splinter to my first stake, and that will be the distance across the pond," ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... all put down below that remained out of the schooner's crew, about eighteen or nineteen, not more, and I was glad to find Captain Toplift, although badly wounded with a splinter, was among the number. We remained there huddled together with a guard of ten men over us for more than an hour, when we heard, from the conversation on deck, that the schooner had sunk. After that the guns of the corvette were secured, and the ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... the silver branch Frank had set down, and as the boy returned his sword to its sheath, and his mother took his arm, the officer preceded them, and lit them down the stairs, where Lady Gowan stopped in the splinter-strewn hall to speak ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... husband forbade her from this, but she conjured him to let her kill the spider; then, of her fear and her eagerness, she took a piece of wood and smote it. The wood broke in sunder, of the force of the blow, and a splinter from it entered her hand and wrought upon it, so that it swelled. Then her arm swelled also and the swelling spread to her side and thence grew till it reached her heart and she died. Nor," added the vizier, "is this more extraordinary or more wonderful than the story of the weaver who ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... it as neatly as possible. The work was not hard, and he was quite satisfied with his task. He was alone, anyway, and could think about his beloved falls. His hands, however, were soft, and ere long they were bruised and bleeding from the rough sticks. At length a sharp splinter entered his finger, and he sat down upon a stick to pull it out. In trying to do this, it broke off leaving a portion deeply embedded in the flesh, which caused him considerable pain. Not knowing what to do, he sat looking upon the ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... twice stumbled and went under while wading deep reaches of the river, and once he fell from a ledge, bruising himself severely and knocking a splinter from the rod. Half an hour later he lost his footing in descending a swift and narrow place that would have been impassable at high water. Had not Blake been below him he would ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... material. As the breakfast, which was excellent for a country place, was being placed upon the table, Kate perceived that one side of the woman's face was discolored, and being moved to make some inquiries regarding the cause, was informed, that while breaking up some kindling wood, a splinter had accidentally struck her face. This went to satisfy her, of course, although she thought the large, black patch which fell down along the cheek was singularly dark and wide to be traceable to the small splinter that the woman asserted to be the cause of it. A strange look from Martha, too, ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... deeper than ever, but he went stolidly forward and started a little fire with a splinter or two of pitch that he had carried up from a log down below. Hank had taught him the value of pitch pine, and Jack remembered it now with a wry twist of the lips. He supposed he ought to be grateful to Hank for that much, but ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... the cellar had vanished, but there were bits of them to be seen on the roof. My rifle, which had been torn from my hands, was in fragments, and I was stupefied at not having been hit. I noticed, however, that my wrappings that were rolled around my knapsack had been pierced by a splinter of shell that had stuck an it. Later in the evening when I started cutting at my bread the knife stuck. I broke the bread open and found another bit of shell in it. I don't yet know why I was not made mincemeat of that day. There were fifty ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... widened fairway, Bertrand's squad beaches itself. It is much reduced this time, for beyond the losses of the other night, we no longer have Poterloo, killed in a relief, nor Cadilhac, wounded in the leg by a splinter the same evening as Poterloo, nor Tirioir nor Tulacque who have been sent back, the one for dysentery, and the other for pneumonia, which is taking an ugly turn—as he says in the postcards which he sends us as a pastime from the base ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... sumpit is usually made of a thin splinter of the nibong palm, stuck into a round piece of very light wood, so as to afford a surface for the breath to act upon. These darts are sharpened to a fine point, and are carried in neatly-carved ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes

... there are various passages and nooks and corners and square recesses in the stone, some of which must have been intended for dungeons, and the ugliest and gloomiest dungeons imaginable, for they could not have had any light or air. There is not, the least, splinter of wood-work remaining in any part of the castle,—nothing but bare stone, and a little plaster in one or two places, on the wall. In the front gateway we looked at the groove on each side, in which the portcullis used to rise and fall; and in each ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... I'd never get back to the lake. I was tired to begin with, and after I'd gone about four miles and was limping with a splinter in my heel and no needle to get it out with, I found I still had the fungus message to the spring-wagon person under ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Association to the Presidential Conventions held by the Liberal Republicans at Cincinnati, the Democrats at Baltimore, and the Republicans at Philadelphia. The fruit of all the earnest labor of this delegation was a splinter in the Republican platform. This, however, was something to be grateful for, as it was the first mention of woman in the platform of either of the great political parties during our National existence. On the strength of this plank the following ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... passed across the deadly tool and seemed to fix themselves for a moment on a splinter broken out of the handle. "I do not know," he added firmly. It was the axe which they had found ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... on the way to the bar to get their morning dram; curse the news-boy who cries the paper; curse the breakfast for being cold; curse at the bank, and curse at the store; curse on the way to bed; curse at the stone against which they strike their foot; and curse at the splinter that gets under the nail. If you do not know that this is so, it is because your ear has been hardened by the perpetual din of profanities that are enough to bring down upon any city the hurricane ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... job; but how about a saw? If we could have chloroformed him, we could, after making the cuts through the flesh, have put the leg on a log of wood and have cut clean through the bone with a chopper. It would not be a good plan, for it would probably splinter the bone, but it might have been tried, but without chloroform it is not to be ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty

... of any sort, is nursed and cared for by all the women of the place. One other regulation, mentioned by Schomburgk, is certainly quaint; the interesting father may not scratch himself with his finger-nails, but he may use for this purpose a splinter, specially provided, from the mid-rib of a cokerite palm. This continues for many days, and sometimes even weeks. Couvade is such a wide-spread institution, that I had often read and wondered at it; but it was not until I saw it practised ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... The most anybody could say in favor of the steel rail was largely theoretical. The Bessemer steel rail had had only a few months of actual service, long enough, however, to demonstrate that at the joints it would not batter and splinter like the iron rail. This was, indeed, a desideratum and many orders came in. Not only was the steel mill kept running day and night, but orders accumulated so rapidly that large additions were made to ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... upon the table." Then the girl rose to her feet with eyes glittering coldly and lips pressed to a tight line. "Find me a lighted brand—swiftly!" she said, and when the giant snatched up a splinter of dry wood, lighting it at the steward's brazier in the little pantry off the saloon, she swept majestically aft to suddenly confront the roaring ruffian at ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... that Eleseus must fall to whistling, and looking to his shoes, and finding a splinter in his finger, and searching after something in his pockets; some papers, he said, couldn't make out ... Oh, 'twould have gone ill with them if Sivert had not saved things at the last. "Touch!" ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... it went along so till last week. Sonny ain't but, ez I said, thess not quite six year old, an' they seemed to be time enough. But last week he had been playin' out o' doors bare-feeted, thess same ez he always does, an' he tramped on a pine splinter some way. Of co'se, pine, it's the safe-t-est splinter a person can run into a foot, on account of its carryin' its own turpentine in with it to heal up things; but any splinter thet dast to push itself up into a little pink foot is ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... mercies and courtesies, though, to women and unarmed folk, which win the hearts of the vanquished, and live till this day in well-known ballads. The Flemings begin a 'merciless slaughter.' Raleigh and the Lord Admiral beat them off. Raleigh is carried on shore with a splinter wound in the leg, which lames him for life: but returns on board in an hour in agony; for there is no admiral left to order the fleet, and all are run headlong to the sack. In vain he attempts to get together sailors the following morning, and attack the Indian fleet in Porto Real ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... the New World to welcome and shelter the homeless children of the Old. There she lay now, the weather-beaten, clumsy, strained, and groaning old bark whose name is glorious in the annals of our country while Time shall endure, and whose merest splinter would to-day be enshrined in gold; there she lay swinging gently to the send of the great Atlantic whose waves broke sonorously upon the beach outside, and came racing around the point a flood of shattered and harmless monsters, moaning and hissing, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... little thin bag and pouring boiling water over them and let set for a few minutes. This had to be given very weak or else it would be harmful, Aunt Arrie explained.) Garlic and whiskey, and den, dar ain't nothin' better fer the pneumony dan splinter tea. I've cured bad cases with it." (That is made by pouring boiling water over ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... nearly did I fetch him over that he let go his muffle to balance himself with the jamb, and same moment a strong rush of wind laid bare the whole of his wicked face to me. For a bad wicked face it was, as ever I did see; whether by reason of the kick I gave, and a splinter in the shin, or by habit of the mind, a proud and 'aughty and owdacious face, and, as I said to my poor wife, reminded me a little of our Master George; not in his ordinary aspect, to be sure, but as Master George might look if he was going to ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... of magic. In a small skiff, almost unattended, Tristan, obscuring his glory under the name of Tantris, came to Isolde to be healed. The high-born physician gave him faithful care. No one suspected him, until Isolde, remarking a trifling notch in his sword, made the discovery that a steel splinter which she had removed from the severed head of Morold fitted it. This man, then, completely in her power, was Tristan, the enemy of her land, the slayer of her betrothed. The duty of a princess of the time was clear. She caught up the sword and approached his bed with the ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... bait impaled upon the bone, the cord or sinew hauled the bone by the middle so that it usually snagged in the fish's throat or gills. A sharp, tough splinter or a small nail will do the ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin

... forward almost at the charge, the Germans waiting for them from behind the hedges, whence poured a hail of lead. Gougeard's horse was shot under him, a couple of bullets went through his coat, and another—or, as some said, a splinter of a shell—knocked off his kepi. Still, he continued leading his men, and in the fast failing light the Germans, after repeated encounters, were driven back to the verge ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... Runs evenly and true; But let a splinter swerve, 'T were easier for you To put the water back When floods have slit the hills, And scooped a turnpike for themselves, And blotted ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... hoar-frost, were harnessed to the sleigh; the centre animal was in the shafts and had his head fastened to a huge wooden head-collar, bright with various colors. From the summit of the head-collar was suspended a bell, while the two outside horses were harnessed by cord traces to splinter-bars attached to the sides of the sleigh. The object of all this is to make the animal in the middle trot at a brisk pace, while his two companions gallop, their necks arched round in a direction opposite to the horse in the ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... Comstock. "Any one would think you would be satisfied with having a splinter new mother, without setting up a kick on her ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter

... bursting rocks, or the yell of the Titans as they were hurled headlong into the abyss; it mingles with the war of the blast, and the blast swells to a hurricane, and the rain pours down in torrents. And again the lightning blinds him, and again the thunder, answering from afar to the splinter-crash, deafens him. The terrified steed rears, starts backward—the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... put before me a cup of cold beef tea, which she had simmered so carefully for a long time that it was then a delicious jelly; I swallowed it in a second. I was in a great hurry to start. On rising from my chair, I moved so brusquely that my dress caught on to an invisible splinter of wood, and was torn. My mother turned to a visitor, who had arrived about five minutes before and had remained ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... his figure grew vague in the darkness. Came the crack of a revolver. A bullet tore a splinter from the wall of the shack in front of which Dave was standing. A jeering laugh floated to the two men, carried on the light ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine

... the lieutenant. The Indian crept on his belly to the door, dropped his chin on the ground, and placed his open palms behind his ears. The distant wail of a bugle was heard, then three or four dropping shots again, in rapid succession. Mr. Splinter stooped to go forth, but the Indian caught him by the leg, uttering ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various

... use weapons could be, situated as we were, when I saw Deschamps with a sudden movement jump up from her bed, her eyes blazing. With an involuntary cry in my throat I hammered the glass in front of us with the butt of my revolver, but it was at least an inch thick, and did not even splinter. Sir Cyril sprang from the ledge instantly. Meanwhile Rosa, the change of whose features showed that she divined the shameful trick played upon her, stood up, half-indignant, half-terrified. Deschamps was no more dying than I was; her eyes burned with the lust of homicide, and with uplifted twitching ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... Wail the winds of winter; Shaken from the frozen eaves Many an icy splinter. On the hillside, in the hollow, Weaving wreaths of snow: Now in gusts of solemn music Lost in murmurs low; Howling now across the wold In its shroudlike vastness, Like the wolves about a fold In some Alpine ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various

... woods uplift Spectral arms the storm-blasts splinter, And the hoary trapper, Winter, Builds his camp of ice and drift, With his snow-pelts furred and shod,— All the land is ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein

... throne, Ready to spring, waiting a chance: for this He chilled the popular praises of the King With silent smiles of slow disparagement; And tampered with the Lords of the White Horse, Heathen, the brood by Hengist left; and sought To make disruption in the Table Round Of Arthur, and to splinter it into feuds Serving his traitorous end; and all his aims Were sharpened by ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... not to have given that "one more struggle" which would have indeed settled the whole question, and obliged us to foot it on our ten toes home. Curiously enough the shafts were not broken, but the splinter-bar was. There was quite a procession back to the shanty, the half-breed woman and one girl dragging the buggy, one child carrying the cushion, another the whip and wraps, and E—— leading the horse. We set to work to make good the damage as best we could, with thin strips of buffalo-hide, ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall

... and modern Herschel, Had something in them; but who's Purcel? The devil, with his foot so cloven, For aught I care, may take Beethoven; And, if the bargain does not suit, I'll throw him Weber in to boot. There's not the splitting of a splinter To chuse 'twixt him last named, and Winter. Of Doctor Pepusch old queen Dido Knew just as much, God knows, as I do. I would not go four miles to visit Sebastian Bach (or Batch, which is it?); No more I would for ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... we were employed in distant expeditions, and at length, at the end of that time, when storming a fortress held by a body of insurgents, a splinter entering one of my eyes destroyed the sight of it, and the inflammation extending from it not long after destroyed the sight of the other, rendering me totally blind; while Mohammed, poor fellow, still more unfortunate, was hurled backwards from the walls of the same fortress and injured ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin

... "be on your guard, and if the glasses of our carriage-windows begin to splinter, close ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... dusky sky. At last night settled on the landscape, and the girls expressed a wish to see the hollow lighted up with torchlight. Scattering ourselves amongst the trees of the bank, some splinters of the pitch pine were procured, and matches kindled each splinter into thick crimson flame. I clambered up as far as the basin of the first "bound" of the "Deer," and looked down to enjoy the scene. Scores of dark red torches were flashing in every direction, disclosing ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... like hail; it was like being without warning exposed to the fiercest fire of batteries of an implacable enemy. A woman was dashed at his very feet torn and bleeding, her face mangled so that he grew sick and faint at the sight; pinned against the seat opposite, transfixed by a long splinter as with a javelin, was the dapper young man, horribly writhing and mowing, and then stark dead in an instant, staring with wide open eyes and distorted face like a ghastly mask. Moans and shrieks, grindings and roarings, howlings and babbling cries that ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... of wounded. Their last trip took them nearly to the scarp of blasted ground on which stood the half-destroyed hamlet. True, there had been shells bursting within a hundred yards of Jeb; but it so happened that he was particularly engrossed with lifting or easing some of the wounded. Once, when a splinter of steel cut Hastings' sleeve, the lanky westerner gave ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... let her come down rather suddenly, she caught her frock in a splinter of wood in the fence, and it was torn from top to bottom. 'Oh, my!' said Nannie, looking at her dress, 'what ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... height to which the faith of this pair of imperfect Christians did not soar. But they uttered no word of exultation, and quickly resumed their examination of the deck and hold, discussing this or that rent, debating over every splinter, proving that such and such a groove was ploughed by a ball from such and such an angle, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... cuttin' sprouts, then when I got big enough to make a field hand, I went to the field then. I done lots of kinds of work—worked in the field, split rails, built fences, cleared new ground and just anything old marster wanted me to do. I members one time I got a long old splinter in my foot and couldn't get it out, so my mammy bound a piece of fat meat round my foot and let it stay bout a couple days, then the splinter come out real easy like. And I was always cutting myself too when I was a chap. You ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... word "shuttle," although, strictly speaking, the Navajo has no shuttle. If the figure to be woven is a long stripe, or one where the weft must be passed through 6 inches or more of the shed at one time, the yarn is wound on a slender twig or splinter, or shoved through on the end of such a piece of wood; but where the pattern is intricate, and the weft passes at each turn through only a few inches of the shed, the yarn is wound into small skeins or balls and ...
— Navajo weavers • Washington Matthews

... him in the water and by other means, warned the said Wehle not to return to the State. Now, therefore, I give notice to all and several of those concerned in these criminal proceedings that the said Wehle has returned by my advice; and that if so much as a hair of his head or a splinter of his property is touched I will appear against said parties and will prosecute them until I secure the infliction of the severest penalties made and provided for the punishment of such infamous crimes. I hope I am well enough known here to render it certain ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... light waves splinter Into silvery shafts the streaming light; And I said I loved thee, Konigswinter, For the glory ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.

... of flax. When the girl was ten years old, the king's son passed through the street, saw her at the window, and fell in love with her. An old woman discovered that he loved Sittoukan, the daughter of a merchant, and promised to obtain her. She contrived to set her to spin flax, when a splinter ran under her nail, and she fainted. The old woman persuaded her father and mother to build a palace in the midst of the river, and to lay her there on a bed. Thither she took the prince, who turned the body about, saw the splinter, drew it out, and the girl awoke. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... Nelson lost his right arm before he could touch ground, and was compelled to return to his flag-ship, with the other officers of his boat all badly wounded. [Footnote: The grape-shot was fired from the Castle of San Pedro; others opine from San Cristobal; and the Canarese say that a splinter of stone did the work. According to most authorities, Nelson was half-way up the mole. James declares that Nelson's elbow was struck by a shot as he was drawing his sword and stepping out of his boat. In Nelson's Despatches, ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... (31.) A splinter of thin glass gummed to apex, after 9 h. no effect, but it was then found not to be touching the apex of the radicle. Next morning a square of card was fixed with shellac to it, and after 9 h. radicle greatly deflected from the card. After two additional days the deflection had decreased ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... men were to take things easily for half an hour or so, as the attack could not possibly be developed within that time. The officers established themselves in a splinter-proof shelter at the back of the supporting trench, and partook of ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... summer or winter, Hurricane nights like these, When spar and topsail are rag and splinter Hurled ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various

... of it and rub it on their feet and under their arm-pits; and if there are little children in the house, they eat of it. And if the young wife has a kinsman who is absent from the village, some of the relish is put on a splinter of bamboo and kept against his return, that when he comes he, too, may rub his feet with it. But if the woman finds that her husband is impotent, she does not rise betimes and go out in the dark to lay the relish at the doors of her ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... let me see what you have written," said Rameau, somewhat imperiously, in the sharp voice habitual to him, and which pierced Graham's ear like a splinter of glass. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... so as to shed rain. Several times he complained about the little finger of his left hand. It had been bothering him all day he told Saxon, for several days slightly, in fact, and it was as tender as a boil—most likely a splinter, but he had been unable ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... together swing the beam backwards and forwards, so that each time it strikes the wall or door a heavy blow. As the beam is of great weight, and many men work it, the blows are well nigh irresistible, and the strongest walls crumble and the most massive gates splinter under the shock of its ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... Nietzel had crept out slowly and sorrowfully, the count hastened to his writing table, took up flint, tinder, and steel, and made the sparks fly until one fired the tinder and made it glow. Now he held a splinter of wood to the glowing tinder, and by its flame lighted the wax taper in the golden candlestick. Then he quickly fetched, from a secret drawer of his writing table, a small knife with a fine thin blade, heated this at the light, ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... boulder. At every ten steps the guide glanced up the dripping steep, and listened. Even the mules were not without a prescience of this peril. The sharpest lightning did not make them wince, but at the faintest sound of a splinter of rock or a pebble rustling down the slope, their ears instantly went forward at an acute angle. The footing soon became difficult on account of the gullies formed by the rain. In spite of his anxiety concerning Ruth, Lynde could not help admiring the skill with which the sagacious ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... as it were, exchanged heaven for purgatory, leaving the lightsome sphere of the royal court of England for a remote nook in this inaccessible desert—quitting the tilt-yard, where I was ever ready among my compeers to splinter a lance, either for the love of honour, or for the honour of love, in order to couch my knightly spear against base and pilfering besognios and marauders—exchanging the lighted halls, wherein I used nimbly to pace the swift coranto, or to move ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... disembowelled a second. One went into the "Scotch House" and cleared the shop. A third pitched close to the Anglican Church, and brought the Archdeacon out of burrow. But there was no real loss, except that one of the Naval Brigade got a splinter in the forehead. My little house had another dose of shrapnel, and on coming in I found a soldier digging up the bits in the garden; but the Scotch owner drove him away for "interfering with the mineral rights." At 3.30 the mist fell again, and there was very little firing after 4. ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson

... with a butchering apparatus who cups and bleeds me unmercifully, says I'll walk ten days after, and exit. Enter another. Croton oil and strychnine pills, that'll set me up in two weeks. And exit. Enter a third. Sounds my bones and pinches them from my head to my heels. Tells of the probability of a splinter of bone knocked off my left hip, the possibility of paralysis in the leg, the certainty of a seriously injured spine, and the necessity for the most violent counter-irritants. Follow blisters which sicken even disinterested people to look at, and a trifle of suffering ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... was struck by a sudden thought that trickled all the way down my spine like a splinter of ice. "If I ever had the luck to get that far," thinks I, "would I have to go through any such an act with ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford

... in possession of the facts yet," said Holmes. "This splinter of wood, which I have every reason to believe to be poisoned, was in the man's scalp where you still see the mark; this card, inscribed as you see it, was on the table; and beside it lay this rather curious ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle

... "If you see 'im, just tell me," he gasped, meeting Thomas gallantly—with the loss of only one splinter. ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates

... staircase until the water reached to his chest and then struck out. The water had risen slightly, but he got through the door without any trouble. Passing through the window he was not so lucky, for a projecting splinter of glass scraped him as he dived through, making a long but shallow cut in the upper part ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

... dreary prison civilities with the cells either side, through little tunnels pierced in the wall by former prisoners, which allowed passage to anything of a calibre not exceeding that of a rolled newspaper. A deep, narrow trough, ingeniously excavated in a pine-splinter, enabled us to pledge each other in mutual libations, devoted to our better luck and speedy release. The neighbors, with whom I chiefly held commune, were an Episcopal clergyman and a captain in the Confederate army. Of these, more hereafter. I breathed more freely when the temporary ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... shot will not pound him much at this range, my good sir," said the lieutenant. "With his hull so badly listed toward us, you can no more than splinter the decks while his ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... ate with the rest, until he satisfied his hunger, and then rising he felt along the hewed logs which formed the walls, until he found a splinter to serve as a tooth-pick. Using this for a minute industriously, he threw it ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... knocked wide open, and the mogul was flying. Miles was thrown down, his head cut open by a splinter, and his foot pretty badly hurt. He picked himself up instantly, and took a look back as he closed the throttle. Everything was "coming" all right, he remembered the emergency of the case, and opened the throttle again. A hasty inspection showed the engine in condition ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... The material is the coralline rock common in this part of the island. It is a soft stone, and would prove, it is feared, something like the cotton-bag defence of New Orleans memory,—as the balls thrown from without would sink in, and not splinter the stone, which for the murderous work were to be wished. A little perseverance, with much perspiration, brought us to a high point, called the Lantern, which is merely a small room, where the telescope, signal-books, and signals are kept. Here we were received by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... blew across the ridge under which stood Ib's sheltered home. One spring day the sun shone brightly, and he was guiding the plough across his field. The ploughshare struck against something which he fancied was a firestone, and then he saw glittering in the earth a splinter of shining metal which the plough had cut from something which gleamed brightly in the furrow. He searched, and found a large golden armlet of superior workmanship, and it was evident that the plough ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... cane had penetrated the upper arm near the shoulder, making a nasty wound. As the cane had broken off in the flesh it was necessary for me to play the surgeon. Using a pair of bullet-molds I managed to secure a grip on the ugly splinter and pull it out. She gave a little ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... hedge of splinter'd teeth, Yet strangers to the tongue, and with blunt stump Pitch-blacken'd sawing the air, said the maim'd churl, "He took them and he drave them to his tower— Some hold he was a table-knight of thine— A hundred goodly ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... Captain! They've got us and our guns! One of them has—" but Johnny's knee thudded into his chest and ended the sentence as a bullet sent a splinter flying from ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... glittering light! How swift a change from the dusk sodden night Of London in mid-winter! Titania here might revel as at home; Fair forms are floating soft as Paphian foam, Bright as an iceberg-splinter. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various

... little army had to be supplied with every single thing over thousands of miles of water. General Hamilton said the navy was father and mother to us, and when it is remembered that every cartridge, every ounce of food, every drop of water, every splinter of firewood had to be brought by the ships, it will be seen that we could not have existed a single day without their aid. The Turks said often enough that they would push us into the sea—they continually ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... blisters and shrivels away from the raw, quivering flesh. A few additional degrees either way, and the life and the light in me go out. A drop of poison injected into my body from a snake, and I cease to move—for ever I cease to move. A splinter of lead from a rifle enters my head, and I am wrapped around in ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... of all this tumult and confusion we were suddenly confronted by an additional horror—Williams, badly wounded in the head by a splinter, staggering on deck, closely followed by his men, with the news that the schooner was rapidly sinking, and that it was impossible to free ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... Finally, he picked up his hunting-crop and struck Napoleon a sharp blow on the top of the head. The figure broke into fragments, and Holmes bent eagerly over the shattered remains. Next instant, with a loud shout of triumph, he held up one splinter, in which a round, dark object was fixed like ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... all," he said, "house-breaking." And he forced the blade into the crevice of the wood and broke away a huge splinter, leaving a gap and glimpse of the dark window-pane inside. The room within was entirely unlighted, so that for the first few seconds the window seemed a dead and opaque surface, as dark as a strip of ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton

... ten feet from the entrance, stood a guard, armed to the teeth, with a rifle, a sword, two pistols and a long curved Khyber knife stuck handy in his girdle. He spoke to the man and received no answer. He picked up a splinter of rock and threw it. The fellow looked at him then. He spoke again. The man transferred his rifle to the other hand and made signs with his free fingers. King looked puzzled. The man opened his mouth and showed that his tongue was missing. He had been made dumb, as pegs are made to fit square ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... sufferers. Mr. Hungerford, the second lieutenant, appeared to be the only principal officer who had escaped uninjured; while Mr. Lenwold, the third lieutenant, had his arm in a sling in consequence of a wound received from a splinter in the early part of the action. These gentlemen, who had seemed like demons only a few minutes before, so earnest were they in the discharge of their duties, were now as tender and devoted ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... he was thus employed one morning a splinter flew up and wounded one of his eyes. An inflammation took place; he lost the sight of that eye, and subsequently of the other. Poor Joe gradually pined away, and grew melancholy. Colonel Wildman kindly tried to cheer him up—"Come, come, old boy," cried ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... so. But a very few minutes exhausted the patience of my new hearer. When he had kicked a loose splinter of wood satisfactorily off the leg of one of the desks he began to look at the clock, which quickened my pace from my remoter ancestors to what the colonel of the regiment in which my father was an ensign had said of him. I completed my narrative at last with the lawyer's remark, and added, ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... expeditious, and to gain time, put a thick Mat upon a Table, and spread the Kernels upon it as they come hot from the Shovel, and roll a Roller of Iron over them to crack and get off the Skins of the Kernels; afterward they winnow all in a splinter Sieve, till the Kernels ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus

... larboard quarter the slope or shoulder of the acclivity had been broken by the rupture, and you looked over the side into the clear sea beyond the limit of the ice there; but abreast of the foreshrouds the ice rose in a kind of wall, a great splinter it looked of what was before a small broad-browed hill, and the wind or the sea having caused the body on which the schooner lay to veer, this wall stood as a shield betwixt the vessel and the surges, and was now receiving those blows which had heretofore ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... bad luck Be mine, if I can bear that Gluck! Old Tycho Brahe and modern Herschel Had something in them; but who's Purcel? The devil, with his foot so cloven, For aught I care, may take Beethoven; And, if the bargain does not suit, I'll throw him Weber in to boot! There's not the splitting of a splinter To chuse 'twixt him last named, and Winter. Of Doctor Pepusch old queen Dido Knew just as much, God knows, as I do. I would not go four miles to visit Sebastian Bach-or Batch-which is it? No more I would for Bononcini. As for Novello and Rossini, I ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... drop and the right one which was over the cheek with the mole was splashed red between the fingers. On the cheek was a raw spot, from which ran a slight trickle. The mole had gone. A splinter of rock, or perhaps a bullet, with its jacket split, ricocheting sidewise, had torn ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... my feet, just as I was going into my dug-out. . . . Mouldy luck, and one splinter smashed the last bottle of whisky." The gunner relapsed into moody silence at ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile

... speaking, or ill will—all of them variants of the basic ill, unlove. And that, says the Lord Jesus, is far, far worse than the tiny wrong (sometimes quite unconscious) that provoked it. A mote means in the Greek a little splinter, whereas a beam means a rafter. And the Lord Jesus means by this comparison to tell us that our unloving reaction to the other's wrong is what a great rafter is to a little splinter! Every time we point one of our ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession

... Dakota brave wishes to "propose" to a "dusky maid", he visits her teepee at night after she has retired, or rather, laid down in her robe to sleep. He lights a splinter of wood and holds it to her face. If she blows out the light, he is accepted; if she covers her head and leaves it burning, he is rejected. The rejection however is not considered final till it has been thrice repeated. ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... aloud as I do. Sceptred curse, Who all our green and azure universe Threatenedst to muffle round with black destruction, sending 340 A solid cloud to rain hot thunderstones, And splinter and knead down my children's bones, All I bring forth, to one void mass ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... reply. There was a shout outside, and Manners exclaimed: "Confound the fellows, they have got a big log of wood that will soon splinter the door." ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... a green log that is burning at one of its ends, and from the other drips, and hisses with the air that is escaping, so from that broken splinter came out words and blood together; whereon I let the tip fall, and stood like a man who ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... most candies and should be boiled to such a degree, that when a fork or splinter is dipped into it the liquid will run off and form a thick drop on the end, and long silk-like threads hang from it when exposed to the air. The syrup never to be stirred while hot, or else it will grain, but if ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... fell into thought, slowly chewing at a splinter. "I'll tell you," he said at length, slowly, "I kain't very well git away right now. You go over an' git Cap Franklin. He's a good man. Pick up somebody else you want to go along with you, an' then you start out ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... dry arsenic. Wire tail same as in mounting. Wrap leg bones with cotton, tow, or excelsior according to size of specimen. Turn the skin back over a core of one of these materials, wrapped upon a splinter or stick, to size of natural body, but somewhat flatter. Sew up abdominal incision neatly. Catch the lips together with two or three stitches. Lay specimen, belly down, upon a soft-wood board. Pin ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray

... into the sea. Now and then, a fruitless shot from his bow-chasers, reminded the fugitive that the foe was still on his scent. At last, the cruiser got the range of his guns so perfectly, that a well-aimed ball ripped away our rail and tore a dangerous splinter from the foremast, three feet from deck. It was now perilous to carry a press of sail on the same tack with the weakened spar, whereupon I put the schooner about, and, to my delight, found we ranged ahead a knot faster on this course than the former. The ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... ancient ribs of granite rock, Else to yon depths profound it you will hurl. A murky vapour thickens night. Hark! Through the woods the tempests roar! The owlets flit in wild affright. Hark! Splinter'd are the columns that upbore The leafy palace, green for aye: The shivered branches whirr and sigh, Yawn the huge trunks with mighty groan. The roots upriven, creak and moan! In fearful and entangled fall, One crashing ruin whelms ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... all worn to strings getting there, or that's what the pumpkin thought, till it wound one of those tendrils round a splinter of the fence, without thinking, and happened to pull, and then it was perfectly surprised to find that it seemed to lift itself off the ground a little. It said to itself, 'Let's try a few more,' and it twisted some more of the tendrils round some more splinters, and this time it fairly lifted itself ...
— Christmas Every Day and Other Stories • W. D. Howells

... That splinter flew far. It glanced from Mr. O'Rourke's leg, went plumb through the Bilkins mansion, and knocked over a small marble slab in the Old South ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... He had been terrifying everybody at Macbie Hill and his owner ordered him to be hanged. As Rab was getting the better of the contest, his owner commanded that he be shot. But Ailie, who happened to be near, noticed that he had a big splinter in his foreleg. "She gave him water," says Dr. Brown, "and by her woman's wit got his lame paw under a door, so that he couldn't suddenly get at her; then with a quick firm hand she plucked out the splinter, and put in an ample meal. She went in some time ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... said West, "just think, not a splinter of firewood for a week and wouldn't tell me because she thought I needed it for my clay figure. Whew! When I heard it I smashed that smirking clay nymph to pieces, and the rest can freeze and be hanged!" After a moment he added timidly: "Won't you ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... jewels in the hilt and then slowly draws the sword out of its scabbard to let her eye run along the polished blade, with its smooth, sharp edge. And then her eye quickly comes to a break in the smooth, sharp edge, and in an instant she thinks of the splinter of a sword edge that she found in her uncle's wound. At that she quickly drops the sword. Then she gets the splinter, which she has kept, and finds that it just fits the broken place in the sword, so she knows that this knight whom she is ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost

... twenty-five, and from this it follows that he had already drunk the surprising beverage of War. His military history included a little splinter of hate in the left shoulder, followed by a depressing period almost entirely spent in the society of medical boards, three months of light duty consisting of weary instruction of fools in an East coast town, and now an interval of leave at the end of which the battalion ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson



Words linked to "Splinter" :   sliver, separate, flake, dissever, carve up, split, chip, scrap, splintering, divide, fragmentize, fleck, bit, break up, fragmentise, split up, fragment, secede, part, break



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