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Steel   /stil/   Listen
Steel

verb
(past & past part. steeled; pres. part. steeling)
1.
Get ready for something difficult or unpleasant.  Synonym: nerve.
2.
Cover, plate, or edge with steel.



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"Steel" Quotes from Famous Books



... should flow, as in the Apocalyptic vision, to the bridles of the horses; in which a whole age of men should pass away; in which the great bell of time should sound out another hour; in which society itself should be tried by fire and steel, whether it were of Nature and of Nature's ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... naturally stories of the Catacombs presented themselves to me, and I thought how the early Christians had guided themselves through those dim corridors by means of a line or string; the fantastic notion came to me that I was in a like predicament, and the line I was to follow was the steel rail at my feet. For awhile this thought gave me courage, making me realize how straight the way was, and that I had only to go on and on until the goal ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... a sort of purple aurora over the Faculty box that suggested apoplexy. The learned exponents of revised football looked about as comfortable as a collection of expiring beetles mounted on large steel pins—that is, all but Professor Sillcocks. He was beaming with pleasure. I never saw a man so entirely wrapped up in manly sports as he was just then. Evidently the new football suited him right down to the ground. He clapped his hands at every new atrocity; and ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... the Huttonian (igneous) and Wernerian (aqueous) theories, the sublimation of Necker, the electricity of Mr. R. W. Fox, the infiltration and gravitation of fluid metals towards cracks, vughs (cavities), and shrinkages, and the law of replacement. 'If a steel plate be removed atom by atom,' says Mr. R. Brough Smyth (Gold Fields of Victoria, Melbourne, 1869), 'and each atom be replaced by a corresponding atom of silver—a fact established by direct experiment—it will be readily seen ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... dit le Bayard, came to Aire on July 19 in that year, and at once sent a trumpeter to proclaim through all the streets and squares that on the morrow, being July 20, he would hold a tournay under the walls of Aire, for all comers, 'of three charges with the lance, the steel points dulled; and twelve sword strokes to be exchanged, with no lists drawn, and on horseback in harness of battle.' The next day the combat to be renewed 'afoot with the lance until the breaking of the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... took place some time before their entrance on office. But the plot was discovered, and the election was put off. When it did take place, Cicero appeared in the meeting, wearing somewhat ostentatiously a corslet of bright steel, to show that he knew his danger; and Catiline's partisans found the place of meeting already occupied by a strong force of the younger citizens of the middle class, who had armed themselves for the consul's protection. ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins

... and steel from rusting, mix with fat oil varnish, at least half, or at most four fifths of its quantity of highly rectified spirits of turpentine. This varnish must be lightly and evenly applied with a sponge; after which the article is left to dry in some situation not exposed to dust. Articles thus ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... had dropped on the keys with the lightness of a feather. They rose and flashed and twinkled, and ran along the keyboard with swift, steel-like touch. The door at the end of the room opened softly. A tall man entered. He looked inquiringly at the grotesque green-and-white figure seated before the piano, then his glance met his wife's, and he sank into a big chair by the ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee

... that they made tobacco-pouches of the skins of their ears, putting the two together inside to inside. I asked him how he got fire; and he produced a little cylindrical box of friction-matches. He also had flints and steel, and some punk, which was not dry; I think it was from the yellow birch. "But suppose you upset, and all these and your powder get wet." "Then," said he, "we wait till we get to where there is some fire." I produced from my pocket ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... exclaimed a familiar voice, and a hand was slipped beneath the doublet, and there was no further gleam of cold steel. "I am right glad to welcome thee. It is well for friends to muster at such a time. ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... my lord, gird on your sword, Of heavy Baalbec steel; Why leave it hanging on the nail? Let foes its temper feel! Would that the Pasha's son had died, Not ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... the past few weeks, and he glanced at Neil to see what effect this homely air of simplicity would have on the son of a major-general. But the football captain showed by neither word nor sign that he noticed anything crude or unfamiliar. Dad Holbrook whetted the carving knife briskly on a steel sharpener and stood up to attack the two roosters. He heaped a bounteous supply of white and dark meat and "stuffing" on each plate and passed it to "Ma", who put on brown corn fritters and sweet ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst

... said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... north, the mountain of the eagle, Ben Yelleray, with his sides gashed and scarred. But the young man's eyes instinctively sought the opener space between the precipices, whence the face of the loch glimmered like steel on which one has breathed, in the scanty moonbeams. Hugh Kennedy had come as he said to seek the Back o' Beyont, and, by his familiarity and readiness, he sought it ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... copper, nickel, tin, clay, numerous metallic and nonmetallic ores), steel; wood products, cement, chemicals, fertilizer, ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... foster-brothers of Thorgils, Halldor and Ornolf. And a very trustworthy fellow you are. But have you now told the tale of all the men you saw?" He answered, "I have but little to add now. Next there sat a man and looked out of the circle; he was in a plate-corselet and had a steel cap on his head, with a brim a hand's breadth wide; he bore a shining axe on his shoulder, the edge of which must have measured an ell in length. This man was dark of hue, black-eyed, and most viking like." Helgi answered, "I clearly know this man from your tale. There has been Hunbogi ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous

... gold, and azure—inhabit spacious aviaries within the grounds. Lyre birds, argus pheasants, great eagles, and owls from Java, doves, pigeons, lories, and humming birds, the metallic lustre of whose plumage flashes in the light like the sheen of steel. One or two tigers—in a cage, of course—invite our curiosity. I was not, however, prepared to make quite so close an acquaintance with these lovely supple creatures, as one of the marines of our party, ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... pillow, is not very distinct, but it is the best we could do. As it is, it will aid the reader in forming a better idea. The stone in shape is an oblong square, about 32 inches long, 13 broad, and 11 inches deep. At each end is an iron ring, much worn and rusted. It is a bluish steel-like colour, mixed with some veins of red. It has been in its ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild

... as he gave a fillip to his bits of stick, "let us replace this funny little apparatus by steel tubes of suitable strength and dimensions; and if you cover the liquid surface of the reservoir with a strong sliding plate of metal, and if to this metal plate you oppose another, solid enough and strong ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... as yesterday had been, and from the white marble temple the Italian-looking landscape looked more than ever like a steel engraving coloured by hand, or an oleographic imitation of one ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... and all joined the throng of villagers collected round the grave, where the statuary's man was waiting for us. In a breathless silence, the first sharp stroke of the steel sounded on the marble. Not a voice was heard—not a soul moved, till those three words, "Laura, Lady Glyde," had vanished from sight. Then there was a great heave of relief among the crowd, as if ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... very clearly cut in their hardness; the sea was like steel, the cliff like ebony. From the height where the child was the bay of Portland appeared almost like a geographical map, pale, in a semicircle of hills. There was something dreamlike in that nocturnal landscape—a ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... young moon set, when suddenly Pancha was aroused by a strange confusion: pistol-shots—screams—a rush of horses' feet—oaths—the clash of steel—and on the causeway, dimly seen in the faint light, a confused mass of men and horses and laden burros were hurrying away before an orderly mass of horsemen riding in upon them from the east. And, before the full meaning of all this was clear to Pancha's mind, came ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... which army they belonged. They were either English or German; that was all that could be certain. And that could be deduced from their khaki uniforms. There were no colors to emerge, bright and vivid, from their dun mass; no points of steel, on which the rays of the sun might shine and ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston

... he came past the wigwam of Wesakchak. Looking in, he saw that it was empty, and that the Fire Bag, where Wesakchak always kept his steel and flint and his pipe and tobacco-pouch, was hanging on the wall. The wolverine looked around and saw that no one was near, so he sneaked in and grabbed the bag. He ran away through the bush with it until he came to a tall tamarac tree. He climbed the tree ...
— Thirty Indian Legends • Margaret Bemister

... perfect sphere with a smooth surface, and a girdle of steel were placed round the Equator so that ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... and without argument. But Quentin instructed him to be honest, law-abiding and cautious. It would be perfectly safe to guess his age between forty and sixty, but it would not be wise to measure his strength by the size of his body. The little ex-burglar was like a piece of steel. ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... a very severe one in Roumania. The Danube froze solid a week before Christmas and remained tight for five months. It was as if the blue waters were suddenly turned into steel. From across the river, from the Dobrudja, on sleds pulled by long-horned oxen, the Tartars brought barrels of frozen honey, quarters of killed lambs, poultry and game, and returned heavily laden with bags of flour and rolls of sole leather. The whole ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... Voltaire has given. He says that a prisoner was sent in great secrecy to the chateau in the island of St. Marguerite; that he was young, tall, and of remarkably graceful figure. His face was concealed by an iron mask, with coils of steel so arranged that he could eat without its removal. Orders were given to kill him instantly if he should announce who he was. He remained at the chateau ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... how happy are Those blessed pairs, in whom a little jar Hath bred an everlasting love, too strong For time, or steel, or envy to do wrong? How do you feel your hurts? Alas poor heart, How much I was abus'd; give me the smart For it ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... passengers tried a smoke on the platform, but the gust drove them in very quickly. They have all taken up their places under the curtained lamps, and toward half-past ten the respiration of some and the snoring of others are blended with the continued grinding of the train on the steel rails. ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne

... from shock, but had been killed by a thin and extremely sharp instrument with which she had been stabbed in the back. Isidore Bamberger's own doctor had satisfied himself of this, and had signed his statement under oath, and Bamberger had instantly thought of a certain thin steel letter-opener which Van Torp always had ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... parted, and the ship's head was falling off fast from the gale, like the steed that has slipped his bridle, before he commences his furious and headlong career. I looked round for the negroes; but Neb was already at the wheel. That noble fellow, true as steel, had perceived the accident as soon as any of us, and he sprang to the very part of the vessel where he was most needed. He had a seaman's faculties in perfection, though ratiocination was certainly not his forte. A motion of my hand ordered him to put the helm hard up, ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... as the coolie slaves are robbed by their masters—it will be for them to decide whether my story has been, because of the facts which entered into it, so well told that they will not be satisfied with the restitution of the vast sums which the Amalgamated took from them, which United States Steel took from them, and which other financial enterprises took in lesser amounts but by equally flagrant methods; but will demand the overthrow of the "System" itself. It will be for them to decide; and if their ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... warned us for years past that England is our greatest enemy were right. To-day every German recognizes who is our principal opponent in this world war. Against Russia and France we fight, as the poet expresses it, 'with steel and bronze, and conclude a peace some time or other.' But against England we wage war with the greatest bitterness and such an awful rage, as only an entire and great people in their holy wrath can feel. The words of Lissauer's 'Hymn of Hate' were spoken out ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith

... Her muscles hardened like steel. It needed all her strength to support him, for he was heavy, his body inert as that of one fainting. For a moment his head rested against her bosom; and her breath came short, sighing against his neck ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... had soon returned to power, rejected the Convention, gave Frederic a subsidy of L670,000 a year, and maintained a force against the French, under Ferdinand of Brunswick, who did his work well. There was more of English gold in his camp than of English steel. One of our commanders was court-martialled. When the Marquis of Granby did better, at Warburg, the joy was great, and he became a popular hero. His hat and wig were blown off as he led the charge, and his portrait, bareheaded, in a high wind, is at Trinity, and was on the ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... mischief, that sunny beam of audacious devilment, which had been my undoing two months before, which was to undo me as often as he chose until the chapter's end. Yet for once I withstood its glamour; for once I turned aside that luminous glance with front of steel. There was no need for Raffles to voice his plans. I read them all between the strong lines of his smiling, eager face. And I pushed back my chair in the equal eagerness of my ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... a temporary and ornamental quality, but not always judicious as a permanent investment. Overhearing some remark from Miss Mayfield concerning the dangerous character of the two-tined steel fork, which was part of the table equipage of the "Half-way House," he purchased half a dozen of what his aunt was pleased to specify as "split spoons," and thereby lost his late good standing with her. He not only repaired ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte

... to describe a woman on horseback], and, as sometimes happens, had even too much of my happiness. My friend Lady Francis is made of whalebone and india-rubber in equal proportions, very neatly and elegantly fastened together with the finest steel springs, and is incapable of fatigue from exertion, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... terpsichoreanisms of this couple are seemingly inspired by a mad gayety of spirit which only the utmost extravagance of gesture and pirouette will satisfy. The man flings his feet above the woman's head; the woman sinks to the floor, and springs up again as if made of tempered steel; and as a conclusion to the figure she turns a complete somersault in the air. If you are so innocent as to suppose that these performers are exerting themselves in that manner for the mere pleasure of the thing, you are innocent indeed. They are "artists," and receive a salary from the manager ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... Rocky Mountains has only waited for the growth of a demand. This the advancement and prosperity of the State have now well assured. Many kindred industries will spring up around the furnace, the Bessemer steel-works and the rail-mills that are now projected; and a few years will suffice to transform the level mesa, upon which for untold centuries the cactus and the yucca-lily have bloomed undisturbed, into a thriving manufacturing city whose pulse shall be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... the neutral-tinted carpet and brought to notice a few atoms of dust on one of the rosewood chairs that stood to attention on either side of the tall hat-rack. The wall against which they were ranged was done in varnished paper to represent oak panelling, and on it hung one or two steel engravings. ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard

... Loudons, favoring his left leg, moved over to the seat at the controls. Altamont gathered up the two cups, the stainless-steel dishes, and the knives and forks and spoons, going up the steps over the shielded converter and ducking his head to avoid the seat in the forward top machine-gun turret. He washed and dried the dishes, ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire

... beautiful and delicate machine, of little larger size than an ordinary snuff-box, manufactured entirely by himself, and composed exclusively of steel, by the aid of which more pockets could be picked in one hour than by the present slow and tedious process in four-and-twenty. The inventor remarked that it had been put into active operation in Fleet Street, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... the lawyer went to the house about nine o'clock, and as they approached it a noise of fighting came from within—blows, the clink of steel, groans, and curses. Lights appeared, first at one window, then at another. The men rushed forward, burst in the door, and were inside—in darkness and silence. They had brought candles and lighted them, but the light revealed nothing. Dust lay thick on the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... might have been a lady's riding-whip, for its bloodlessness, from the stinging cuts he inflicted. But the whistle of it through the air was not the whistle of leather. It was the high, clear, terrifying note of steel. ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... said Louis, trying them round, in an easy, idle way: 'I never could mend a quill! How is this steel one? Refuses to recognise the purpose of his existence. Aunt Catherine, do you still forbid steel pens in your school? If so, it must be the solitary instance. How geese must cackle blessings on the inventor! He should have a testimonial—a ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... as consisting of two convex steel discs approximately 2 feet in diameter, fused together at the outer edge and fastened together in the center by a hollow cylindrical connection. A vertical galvanized iron fin was screwed to the top of the disc, and a short length ...
— Federal Bureau of Investigation FOIA Documents - Unidentified Flying Objects • United States Federal Bureau of Investigation

... diversion is the "deer's foot" game, played with six deer hoofs on a string, ending in a bone or steel awl. The object is to throw it in such a way as to catch one or more hoofs on the point of the awl, a feat which requires no little dexterity. Another is played with marked plum-stones in a bowl, which are thrown like dice and count according ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... white it shines Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines. Hats off! The colours before us fly; But more than the flag ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... by hundreds of miles, were to be found. Detroit, Michillimacinac, Vincennes, Kaskaskia and a few minor trading points, told the whole tale. Kentucky could boast of a few thousands, maintaining themselves by dauntless courage and nerves of steel against British and Indians, but all north of the Ohio was practically an unbroken wilderness, inhabited by the fiercest bands of savages then in existence, with the possible exception of ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... the tone of a man who is careful of his words he threatened the direst punishment for any further expression of the gentleman's opinions. Whereupon the gentleman seized the bars and shook them violently, and then, as though satisfied that they were steel of the best quality, dropped his arms to his sides with a gesture of ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson

... I was troubled. For though this sudden prostration of Mrs. Pollard, on the hearing of her young pastor's sorrowful death, seemed to betoken a nature of more than ordinary sensibility, I had always heard that she was a hard woman, with an eye of steel and a heart that could only be reached through selfish interests. But then she was the magnate of the place, the beginning and end of the aristocracy of S——; and when is not such a one open to calumny? I was ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... same hour, in Duben Forest, the rustic Christopher was rising from his bed. As with steel and flint he scattered sparks upon the tinder, in kindling himself a light, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various

... was planted To guard life's heavenly tree, Has ever blade been granted, Like that bestowed on thee! To pierce me with the steel I gave To guard mine honor's shrine, Not since Iscariot lived and died, Was treason like ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... snows" fell in October, and then the men of the Back Country set out on the chase. Their object was meat—buffalo, deer, elk, bear-for the winter larder, and skins to send out in the spring by pack-horses to the coast in trade for iron, steel, and salt. The rainfall in North Carolina was much heavier than in Virginia and, from autumn into early winter, the Yadkin forests were sheeted with rain; but wet weather, so far from deterring the hunter, aided him to the kill. In blowing rain, he knew ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... so, observing some rocks, I hurried towards them, and with my pocket-knife cut off as many mussels and other shell-fish as I could carry. He had had a flint and steel and a powder-flask in his pocket, and had thus without difficulty kindled a fire. While he dressed and ate the shell-fish he sent me off to look for water. I went with the fear every instant of falling into ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... when you recall our conversation," observed Steel; and he opened the door for her. But Rachel turned ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... he had at the Depository of the American Anti-Slavery Society, No 143 Nassau Street, New York, in a neat volume, 108 pp. 12mo., embellished with an elegant and accurate steel engraved likeness of James Williams, price 25 cts. single ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... dervish patrols whilst scouting. The opposing troopers looked at each other from relatively open ground, and standing separated by only a few hundred yards. One Baggara horseman came within 150 yards of our men. The Lancers, keen to engage with steel, did not attempt to fire upon their intrusive foemen, but innocently tried instead to bag them. Several times our troopers advanced to the charge, but the enemy, when the Lancers sought to put hands upon them, were gone. That day the Baggara horsemen were ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... almost fabulous reputation, such as among a superstitious people easily attaches itself to any striking and successful personality. It was reported that he bore a charmed life, that he was invulnerable alike to lead bullets and to steel blades, and even the silver slugs which his enemies had fashioned for him had hitherto failed to find their billet in his body. From the first this man had thrown in his lot with his kinsman To' Raja, and, unlike him, he ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... Sedan had been the seat of great woollen manufactures, originally founded by Flemish Protestant families, and for the manufacture of arms, implements of husbandry, and all kinds of steel and iron articles.[29] At the Revocation, the Protestants packed up their tools and property, suddenly escaped across the frontier, near which they were, and went and established themselves in the Low Countries, where they might pursue their industries in safety. Sedan ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... parlor; there is no time to lose in mere waiting for anything at a railway dining-place; and she had her bag—a veritable, old-fashioned, home-made carpet thing—open on a chair before her, and in her hand a long, knit purse with steel beads and rings. Out of this she took a twisted bit of paper, and from the paper a minute something which she popped between her lips as she replaced the other things. Then she just ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... weary face, and he busied himself in making the fire burn bright, and in setting out her dinner table with all the womanly delicacies he knew she liked. If Elizabeth could only have fully trusted him, Jasper would have been true as steel to her, a very sure and certain friend; but he resented trouble from which he was shut out, and he was shrewd enough to feel that it was present, though hidden ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... after the lapse of more than fifty years, its magnificence has not yet faded. I see as in a dream our long bending wave of blue rolling slowly at first but with increasing speed, foam-tipped with flags here and there and steel-crested with Birge's bayonets yonder; glimpses of cavalry in the distance moving as if on wings with the lightness of innumerable twinkling feet; numberless jets of smoke across the fields marking the first line of Confederate infantry, their musketry rattling precisely like exploding ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague

... much as I spoke thus to see no flush of shameful consciousness overspread the maid's face, but none did, and she continued speaking with that sharpness of hers, both as to pale look and voice, which wounded like cold steel, which leaves an additional sting because of the frost in it. "Know you not, sir," said she, "that we cannot suffer a man in your position, a—a—to purchase my sister's wardrobe?" Then, before I knew what she was about to do, in went her hand to ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... for the first time in the public street the Punch-show, which I think must take its origin from Pontius Pilate) their Majesties rode out—hand in hand, I heard later—through the Park Gate into the Horse-Guards, and so to Whitehall, with guards in buff and steel following. There was a great company of gentlemen and ladies who rode behind, of whom we caught a sight; but they were too far away for us to recognize any of them. (I saw, too, the cress-carts ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... was passing into night, the air was cold and still, so still that not a single twig of the naked beech-trees stirred; on the grass of the meadows lay a thin white rime, half frost, half snow; the firs stood out blackly against a steel-hued sky, and over the tallest of them hung a single star. Past these bordering firs there ran a road, on which, in this evening of the opening of our story, a young man stood irresolute, glancing now to the right ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... mingled poison and wine in a goblet, and gave it to one of his servants with a drawn sword, saying:—"Get thee with this gear to Violante, and tell her from me to make instant choice of one of these two deaths, either the poison or the steel; else, I will have her burned, as she deserves, in view of all the citizens; which done, thou wilt take the boy that she bore a few days ago, and beat his brains out against the wall, and cast his body for ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... going back to the dear old Room under the Eaves, with a patch-work Quilt on the Four-Poster and a Steel Engraving of U. S. Grant ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade

... crowded together like the whole of London. Their trade was extremely valuable to them; they imported Rhenish wines, grain of all kinds, cordage and cables, pitch, tar, flax, deal timber, linen fabrics, wax, steel, and many other things. They obtained concession after concession until practically they enjoyed a monopoly. For this they had to pay certain tolls or duties. They were made, for instance, to maintain one of the City gates. They were compelled to live ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... she gave, in that proud hour, The boon of intellectual power. Then, what, oh woman, what, for thee, Was left in Nature's treasury? She gave thee beauty—mightier far Than all the pomp and power of war. Nor steel, nor fire itself hath power Like woman, in her conquering hour. Be thou but fair, mankind adore thee, Smile, and a ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... form of military baptism. Sikhs were henceforth to be Singhs (lions). They were forbidden to smoke, and enjoined to wear the five k's, kes, kangha, kripan, kachh, and kara (uncut hair, comb, sword, short drawers, and steel bracelet). He established himself at Anandpur beyond the Hoshyarpur Siwaliks. Much of his life was spent in struggles with his neighbours, the Rajput Hill Rajas, backed from time to time by detachments of imperial troops from Sirhind. In 1705 ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... trying to make a windmill, he breaks the small blade. The accident, in such a case, is not to be attributed to any censurable carelessness, but to want of instruction in respect to the strength of such a material as steel, and the nature and effects of the degree of tempering given to knife-blades. The boy had seen his father bore holes with a gimlet, and the knife-blade was larger—in one direction at least, that is, in breadth—than the gimlet, ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... was that she was either a clumsy or a wicked girl, or both. She indeed felt dimly that she was a little of both. But she did not mind. Sitting there in the small, familiar room, close to the sewing-machine, the steel fender, the tarnished chandelier, and all the other daily objects which she at once detested and loved, sitting close to her silly mother who angered her, and yet in whom she recognized a quality that was mysteriously precious ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... lame enough to be an insult itself. A fierce temptation assailed him to push up the detested shade and discover whether he had hurt this girl, who had done so infinitely much for him. But he grasped the side of his chair, keeping his arm rigid as steel; and awaited her answer, which seemed an ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... where with an activity till then unexampled. Savans or men of science were charged to describe and simplify the necessary proceedings. The melting of the church-bells yielded all the necessary metal.[2] Steel was wanting; none could be obtained from abroad, the art of making it was unknown. The Savans were asked to create it; they succeeded, and this part of the public defence thus became ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... through a little maelstrom of fine dust which a wind circle had picked up, and the sheriff led Bull into the jail. They crossed the tawdry little outer room with its warped floor creaking under the tread of Bull Hunter. Next they came face to face with a cage of steel bars, and behind it was a little gray man on a bunk. He sat up and peered at them from beneath bushy brows, a thin-faced man, extremely agile. Even in sitting up, one caught many possibilities of catlike speed ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand

... Visigoths and Sueves are crushed together into the mountain fastnesses of Asturias and Gallicia, thence to reissue, after long centuries, as the noble Spanish nation, wrought in the forges of adversity into the likeness of tempered steel; and destined to reconquer, foot by foot, their native ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... sabres. Hacked bodies were sucked beneath the swarm as saplings under an avalanche. Driscoll sprang up and gazed. Through eddying swirls he still could see red sleeved arms reach out, and lightning rays of steel, and half-naked fleeting creatures go down, and never a jot of the curse's ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... reasonable man? For it knoweth the hand that feedeth it, but thou knowest not that God by whom thou wast created out of nothing, by whom thou livest, and art preserved; and thou callest God that which thou sawest, but now, smitten by steel, and burnt and moulded in the fire, and beaten with hammers, which thou hast covered around with silver and gold, and raised from the ground, and set on high. Then, falling upon the earth, thou liest baser than the base stone, worshipping not God but thine own dead and ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... against a willow-tree, and drawing from a gilded box a little dark thing like a stick, placed it between his lips, and then striking a flint on steel made fire and caught it upon touchwood. With this he kindled the tip of the stick, until it glowed with a ring of red, and then he breathed forth curls of smoke, blue and smelling on the air like spice. I had never seen this done before, though acquainted with tobacco-pipes; and it made ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... strengths. A thousand guineas were bid by Earl Spencer—to which the Marquess added ten. You might have heard a pin drop. All eyes were turned—all breathing wellnigh stopped—every sword was put home within its scabbard—and not a piece of steel was seen to move or to glitter except that which each of these champions brandished in his ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... steel, the sharp report of pistols, intermingled with the roar of the great guns—those on the quarter and main-decks still continuing to pour a destructive fire into the enemy's starboard bow as they could be brought to bear the Frenchmen, from the position in which their ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... authentic deeds. In the fancy of an old monk in the monastery of St. Gall,[40] writing of Charlemagne not long after his death, the king of the Franks swept over Europe surrounded by countless legions of soldiers who formed a very sea of bristling steel. Knights of superhuman valor formed his court and became the models for the chivalrous spirit of the following centuries. Distorted but imposing, the Charlemagne of poetry meets us all through ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... on exhibition a "Universal Electrometer" (Fig. 2), in which the fine wire that served as an electrometric needle was of magnetized steel suspended by a cotton thread. In this instrument, a silver wire, t, terminating in a ball, is fixed to a support, C, hanging from a brass disk, P, placed upon the glass case of the apparatus. It will be seen that if we bring an electrified body near the disk, P, a deviation of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various

... satisfied with you. You have adorned your eagles with immortal glory. An army of a hundred thousand men, commanded by the emperors of Russia and Austria, in less than four days has been cut to pieces or dispersed; those who escaped your steel have been drowned in the lakes. Forty flags, the standards of the Russian imperial guard, a hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, twenty generals, more than thirty thousand prisoners, are the result of this ever memorable day. This infantry, so vaunted and so superior in numbers, could ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... the electric charge takes place and is carried up into the air for a great height, while to the second sphere another wire is connected and which leads into the earth. Another method is to support a regular network of wires from strong steel towers built to a height of two hundred ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... traitor! cut him down—hew him to pieces!" such were the cries, not loud but terrible, that, as thunder on flash, followed that exclamation from Zarah. Cold steel gleamed in the moonlight; Lycidas, who had scarcely before thought of his own personal danger, found himself in a moment surrounded by a furious band with weapons upraised to take his life. With the instinct of self-preservation ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... and bolted about the street, Orme sat him in perfect confidence. He kept his hands low, his knees a little more up and forward than we use in our style of riding, and his weight a trifle further back; but I saw from the lines of his limbs that he had the horse in a steel grip. He gazed down contemplatively, with a half serious look, master of himself and of the horse as well. Then presently he turned him up the road and went off at a gallop, with the brute under perfect control. I do not know what art ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... work that he has set his brother to do, and now the brother wants to keep what he has made. But he drops it on the ground and the dwarf king, for a king he really is now, picks it up and claps it on his head. It is a helmet, made of delicate rings of steel linked together. It is a magic helmet, and anybody who wears it can disappear from sight whenever he likes, or can take any shape he chooses. In a minute the dwarf is no more to be seen, and in his place there is only a cloud of ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost

... There came a wild rattling or jingling sound, as if of a bunch of large keys, and upon the instant a dusky-visaged and half-naked man rushed past me with a shriek. He came so close to my person that I felt his hot breath upon my face. He bore in one hand an instrument composed of an assemblage of steel rings, and shook them vigorously as he ran. Scarcely had he disappeared in the mist before, panting after him, with open mouth and glaring eyes, there darted a huge beast. I could not be mistaken in its ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... the plough, and preach faith without repentance, but only to find that the birds of the air get most of the seed! If there is to be an abiding work there must be conviction of sin, and knowledge of guilt, and for this end there is nothing better than a plough, made of Sinai steel and wood grown ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... four-ounce was perfectly irresistible if held straight with the heavy charge of twelve drachms of powder. Since that time I have frequently used sixteen drachms (one ounce) of powder to the charge, but the recoil is then very severe, although the effect upon an animal with a four-ounce steel-tipped conical ball ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... few minutes, there was a fire blazing near the tree. The rope must have come straight over from the house, without dipping once into the water; for not only were the flint and steel safe, but the tinder within, and the cloth that the box was done up in, were ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau

... his hand he held two spears, with shafts of silver and 10 heads of tempered steel, and of an edge so sharp as to wound the wind and cause the blood to flow. Two white-breasted greyhounds bounded before his steed. Broad collars set with rubies were on their necks; and to and fro they 15 sprang, like two sea swallows sporting ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... that appeared to be superior in fashion and material, also had part of his face and head draped by a white silk handkerchief worn under his hat, ostensibly to keep the sun and dust from his head and neck,—and had the advantage of him. He only caught the flash of a pair of steel-gray eyes, as the newcomer, apparently having satisfied himself, gave rein to his spirited steed and easily repassed the coach, disappearing in a cloud of dust before it. But Key had by this time reached the "cut-off," which the stranger, ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte

... lantern for the tinder-box, which lay within, handy for emergencies; found it, and kneeling on the grass-plot beside the mast, struck flint upon steel. As he blew upon the tinder and the faint glow lit up his face and nightcap, a timorous exclamation quavered down from ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... agree upon our plans, for our success depends upon a perfect understanding between us. I have a sweetheart in Paris—and no one knows our relations. She is as sharp as steel. Her name is Milner, and she keeps the Hotel de Mariembourg, on the Saint-Quentin. You can say that you arrived here from Leipsic on Sunday; that you went to this hotel; that you left your trunk ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... rotate at each end of the line. They are kept in synchronous motion by two vibrating steel reeds of exactly the same fundamental note, and the axle of each wheel carries an arm whose end trails over the contacts or distributor segments already spoken of. The reeds are adjusted to vibrate at such speed that the trailer is in ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... strikes the blow to brutes and pride. Our faith is ours and comes not on a tide: And whether Earth's great offspring, by decree, Must rot if they abjure rapacity, Not argument but effort shall decide. They number many heads in that hard flock: Trim swordsmen they push forth: yet try thy steel. Thou, fighting for poor humankind, wilt feel The strength of Roland in thy wrist to hew A chasm sheer into the barrier rock, And bring the army ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... every Wednesday, and judging and condemning without a sound issuing from within its walls. But on the other hand if it still continued to strike at the crime of heresy, if it smote men as well as their works, it no longer possessed either weapons or dungeons, steel or fire to do its bidding, but was reduced to a mere role of protest, unable to inflict aught but disciplinary penalties even upon the ecclesiastics of its ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... had screamed; in this light its great body was weirdly magnified, so that the entire length of seven or eight feet appeared to Gloria's frightened eyes twice that. Long-bodied and lithe, small-headed and merciless, steel-muscled and chisel-clawed, the big cat in silhouette twitched its restless tail back and forth nervously, and from snarling jaws sent forth its almost human call to cut ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... old flint and steel, but the sparks were not bright enough to light the tinder of emotion. She knew it, for he was cool and buoyant and really unconcerned, and she ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... will to face sharp steel in the hands of horsemen thundering down upon you, and Ned was quite willing to own afterward that every nerve in him was jumping, but he stood. All stood, and at the command of Bowie their rifles flashed together in ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler

... vast increase of territory, and placed her at the head of the northern powers. The emperor also enriched his country by opening new branches of trade, constructing canals, rewarding industry, suppressing gambling and mendicity, introducing iron and steel manufacture, building cities, and establishing a ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... displayed, particularly in that important branch of a housewife’s business, sewing, which even with their own clumsy needles of bone they perform with extraordinary neatness. They had, however, several steel needles of a three-cornered shape, which they kept in a very convenient case, consisting of a strip of leather passed through a hollow bone and having its ends remaining out, so that the needles which are stuck into it may be drawn in ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry

... crushed and bruised, the flower no guilt shall stain. I fear the combat that I may not fly, Hard-won the fight, and dear the victory. Here, love, my curse! Here, dearest friend, my foe! Yet will I arm me! Father, I would go To steel my ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille

... stayed Allenby's and Marshall's Oriental hosts in Asia and anticipated the arrival on the Western front of further aid from Africa. A blow at the heart may be the normal strategy, but it is not the only nor always the best means of dealing with an antagonist clad in a breastplate of steel. ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... Death its rich fulfilment, where one can stab the eavesdropper behind the arras, and wrestle in a new-made grave, and make a guilty king drink his own hurt, and see one's father's spirit, beneath the glimpses of the moon, stalking in complete steel from misty wall to wall. Action being limited would have left Shakespeare unsatisfied and unexpressed; and, just as it is because he did nothing that he has been able to achieve everything, so it is because he never speaks to us of himself ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde

... with his sharp steel plow, began to turn over clean, deep, even furrows; for we had selected the plot in view of the fact that it was not stony, as was the case with other portions ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe

... got the makin's of what the newspapers call a Leading Citizen, even if you did fall down once. If I'd ever had time to get married, which I never will have, a first-class hotel bein' more worry and expense than a Pittsburg steel magnate's whole harem, I'd have wanted somebody to do the same for my kid. That ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... rhetoric. He used sometimes to leave his seat and make known his disgust in the cloak room, or in the rear of the desks, to visitors who happened to be in the Senate Chamber. But he was strong as a rock, true as steel, fearless and brave, honest and incorruptible. He had a vigorous good sense. He saw through all the foolish sophistries with which the defenders of fiat money, or debased currency, sought to defend their schemes. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... fire-escape is a chain-ladder eighty feet long, a single chain or rope of the same length as the ladder, a canvas bag, a strong steel cross-bow, and a fine cord of the very best workmanship and materials, 130 feet long, with a lead bullet of three-ounce weight attached to one end, and carefully wound upon a wooden cone seven inches high and seven inches broad at the base, turned with a spiral groove, to prevent the cord ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood

... reproving Reeder, his eyes, instead of looking at the officer, were fixed upon my sword. It was sufficiently magnificent to attract the attention of anyone, certainly of any soldier. The scabbard was of steel, wonderfully engraved, the hilt was of ivory, and the hilt-guard and belt fastenings were all of heavy gold. The General's face ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis



Words linked to "Steel" :   arm, falchion, cutlass, weapon system, fencing sword, tuck, cutlas, sharpener, backsword, sabre, helve, broadsword, brace, poise, hilt, cover, cavalry sword, point, atomic number 26, Fe, tip, forte, weapon, Excalibur, alloy, metal, rapier, peak, iron, saber, haft, foible, pearlite



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