Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Sweeping   /swˈipɪŋ/   Listen
Sweeping

noun
1.
The act of cleaning with a broom.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Sweeping" Quotes from Famous Books



... squeezed out of the State, was the one question which filled all minds; and the general desire was that such regiments should be sent to the Western army, to swell the triumph which was still expected for General Fremont, and to assist in sweeping slavery out into the Gulf of Mexico. The patriotism of the West has been quite as keen as that of the North, and has produced results as memorable; but it has sprung from a different source, and been conducted and animated by a different sentiment. National greatness ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... imagined the scene as she ran swiftly forward through the pines to the edge of the butte bluff whence she might look down upon the coulee that nestled against it. Nor had she greatly erred, for her first sweeping glance showed her the thing she ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... competitive classified service upward of 84,000 places, more than half of these having been included from time to time since March 4, 1893. A most radical and sweeping extension was made by Executive order dated the 6th day of May, 1896,[39] and if fourth-class postmasterships are not included in the statement it may be said that practically all positions contemplated by the civil-service law are now classified. Abundant reasons exist for including these postmasterships, ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland

... There was no excitement. Nobody seemed astonished. Marcia settled herself more comfortably on the couch and Galen began whispering to Sextus. The two other women looked amused. Reaction sweeping over him, his senses reeled and Livius stepped backward, staggering to the fountain, where ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... hanging about. If they had been he would have squared the auditor up to any sum—a hundred francs, almost; it was worth while. Pickings, he called hem. The place, the system suited him down to the ground. He had lived all his life on pickings. He was a retail welsher; he lacked the nerve for sweeping enterprises. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... commanding positions, and masked with breastworks of stone and earth hastily thrown up. Their fire was reserved till the Spaniards got close to them; then from each battery the iron shower went forth, sweeping through the ranks of the Spanish troops. I could see them waver and attempt to turn back; but urged on by their officers, they again advanced. A portion attempted to storm the heights on which the cannon were posted; but thousands of Indians were behind the batteries, and they were driven ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... people she knew, especially of Jeff Saxton. But she could not clearly remember his lean earnest face. Between her and Jeff were sweeping sunny leagues. But she was not lonely. Certainly she was not lonely for a young man with a raincoat, a cat, ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... in the dark, wild tide of war, Which rose so high, and rolled so far, Sweeping from sea to ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... is really not to be taken seriously. I know perfectly well what Mr. Bernard Shaw will be saying thirty years hence; he will be saying what he has always said. If thirty years hence I meet Mr. Shaw, a reverent being with a silver beard sweeping the earth, and say to him, "One can never, of course, make a verbal attack upon a lady," the patriarch will lift his aged hand and fell me to the earth. We know, I say, what Mr. Shaw will be, saying thirty years hence. But is there ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... knees with astonishing alacrity, bowed his head thrice, and his white beard sweeping the ground, crawled down the apartment as he had crawled up it, till he finally vanished through the curtains, leaving me, not a little to my alarm, alone with this terrible but ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... rigged lateen sloop, to the modern mail-packet. Turning from the sea the eye might rest upon the surrounding shores, and find there material of even deeper interest. On the right, close by, was the projecting castle, and sweeping beyond this the long curving beach, above which, far away, rose the green trees of the gardens of the Villa Reale. Farther away rose the hills on whose slope stands what is claimed to be the grave of Virgil, whose picturesque monument, whether it be really his or not, suggests his ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... become so accustomed to it, that we could not fail to miss it; nor could we children fail to feel as if the house were deserted. Moreover, it was not decreed that we should again attain perfect family unity. New lodgers were already bespoken; and after some sweeping and scouring, planing, and rubbing with beeswax, painting and varnishing, the house was completely restored again. The chancery-director Moritz, with his family, very worthy friends of my parents, moved in. He was not a native of Frankfort, but ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... tell me that when the lives of the gallant fellows in our trenches, and the fate of the British Empire, depend on our keeping up the supply of shells, you are wasting money on sweeping the streets? ...
— Augustus Does His Bit • George Bernard Shaw

... Sometimes, of an evening, he would keep her with him long after school hours, and one winter he took it into his head that she must learn to dance. He tied an inky tablecloth to her shoulders to serve as a sweeping garment. It was infinitely droll to see the two, mincing, bowing, and pirouetting in front of the mirror. 'You must see yourself curtsey,' he said, 'if you would learn the real movement.' He taught her the gavotte, ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... dangerous for any stranger to walk in the streets,) but I went with the men, and we did put it out in a little time; so that that was well again. It was pretty to see how hard the women did work in the cannells, sweeping of water; but then they would scold for drink, and be as drunk as devils. I saw good butts of sugar broke open in the street, and people give and take handsfull out, and put into beer, and drink it. and now all being pretty well, I took boat, and over ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... and the drip of Kona showers, and to see as in a mirage the perpetual Green of windward Hawaii. I was driven back to the cabin in the late afternoon, and in the evening listened for two hours to abuse of my own country, and to sweeping condemnations of all religionists outside of the brotherhood of "Psalm-singers." It is jarring and painful, yet I would say of Chalmers, as Dr. Holland ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... the voters had been stampeded to fight that fire that was sweeping down on their ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... to see me this morning. We discussed war a good deal. In general, of course, I am opposed to war, but when I think of this ghastly plague of heresy which is sweeping away so many souls at the present moment, I feel sometimes that the only war into which I could enter with spirit would be a civil war.... In a great deal of my talk with D. I posed abominably. I ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... a gallop. Judith, his foster sister, stood up in her stirrups, lashed Swift vigorously over the flanks with the knotted reins and when Buster slid on his haunches to the very doorstep, Swift brought her gnarled fore legs down on his sweeping tail and slid with him. She brought up when he did with her nose under his saddle blanket. The boy and girl avoided a mix-up by leaping from their saddles and ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... my heart, and I am much obliged to you," exclaimed Captain O'Brien. "If you will order the boat to be lowered, I will get them up on deck. The sooner we are off the better; the tide is sweeping out of the harbour, and we shall have a hard pull of ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... hove to, and awaited our fleet, firing several pieces at long range. The flagship of our fleet being unable to answer the enemy with its artillery because the gun-ports were shut, and the vessel was tacking to starboard, determined to close with him. It grappled his flagship on the port side, sweeping and clearing the decks of the men on them. Then the colors with thirty soldiers and a few sailors were thrown aboard. They took possession of the forecastle and after-cabin and captured their colors at masthead and quarter, and the white, blue, and orange standard ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... avail to support the Government against the attacks of that strong-willed, clean-handed patriot. Shame at the disgrace thus brought on his people doubled his powers; and, with the aid of all that was best in the public life of Bulgaria, he succeeded in sweeping Clement and his Comus rout back to their mummeries and their underground plots. So speedy was the reverse of fortune that the new Provisional Government succeeded in thwarting the despatch of a Russian special Commissioner, General Dolgorukoff, through whom ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... the chalets rises the grat or ridge where we have to seek our edelweiss. As we mount higher the gray masses of the Spielgarten seem very near: a fresh vivifying wind, the breath of the Alps, makes one forget how warm it was toiling up the gorge. The clouds are drawing around in white veils and sweeping down into the valley, quite concealing our destination at times, hiding even the members of the party from each other if they separate themselves a little. Our fine day takes on a decidedly doubtful aspect: nevertheless, after the first cry, "Here's some!" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... that night, at which the following motion was put and carried unanimously: "On and after this date, any drunken man is liable to be shot at sight, unless his friends can prove that he has dug over three carats of diamonds during the day." And then, like other reformers, they went on to more sweeping measures: "Only knife-fighting to take place in the camp. All disputes with pistols, unless of a very pressing nature, to be settled out of earshot of Dan's house." There were even some hints of appointing a closing-time for the saloon—"it would make ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various

... did an answer to the miracle of it come to him. It was because of him. It was because of his faith in her. Even death and horror could not keep it from her eyes. He wanted to cry out the joy of his discovery, to give wild voice to it in the teeth of the wind and the rain. He felt sweeping through him a force mightier than that of the night. Her hands were on his arm, as if she was afraid of losing him in that pit of blackness; the soft cling of them was like a contact through which came a warm thrill of electrical life. He put out his arm and drew her to him, so that for a moment ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood

... a magnificent spectacle that rose before the Sirdar's army as the dervish columns came sweeping into view, filling the landscape between Surgham and Um Mutragan. In that great multitude were gathered the fiercest, most sanguinary body of savage warriors the world has ever held or known. Arabs and blacks, chosen by Abdullah himself, picked out because of their tried courage, ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... beast within us shake itself, and feel its power, sweeping away all the "Thou shalt not's" which the law wrote up before us in letters of fire, with the "I will" of hardy, godless, self-assertion? And all the while—which alone made the storm really dreadful to ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... creaked above us, and a deep, sonorous moan was sweeping through the woods, as if the fingers of the wind had touched a mighty harp string in the timber. We could hear the crash and ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... essence. This is seldom a necessity with Byron. His words tell us all that he means to say, and do not merely hint nor suggest. The matter with which he deals is gigantic, and he paints with violent colours and sweeping pencil. ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley

... also is my hope, they may again return; Manannan, on his ocean-sweeping boat, a living creature, diamond-winged, or Lu, bright as the dawn, on his fiery steed, manned with tumultuous flame, or some hitherto unknown divinity may stand suddenly by me on the hill, and hold out the Silver Branch with white blossoms from the Land of Youth, and stay me ere I depart ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell

... little pink dress was disappearing into the depths of the big, empty coal-box, and its sloping lid was lowering upon a flaxen head and cowering little figure crouched within. Uncle Michael having put the room to rights, sweeping and dusting, with many a rheumatic groan in accompaniment, closed the windows, and going out, drew the door after him and, as was ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin

... Kirkwood watching the other and wondering what next would happen. Calendar paced restlessly to and fro upon the narrow landing, now stopping to incline an ear to catch some anticipated sound, now searching with sweeping glances the ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... warning the sky was overcast. A squall struck the boat and tore away the sail. In the distance a huge billow—a great white wall of water—came sweeping toward their frail craft, threatening it with instant destruction. She clasped her child to her bosom, and a moment later found herself struggling in the sea, holding the child's head above the water. As she floated there, as though sustained ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... people, children of the day, who take no thought for the morrow, satisfied that the waves had not yet reached them, were full of merriment and laughter, and seemed to mock the flood, that still rose and rose, bending the largest trees, sweeping away the brushwood, and roaring angrily around the margin of the islands. Perhaps they knew that their lives, at least, were safe; whilst I reflected that, if even we could swim to shore, leaving our property ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... plausible. To increase our belief in it, while Laocooen was sacrificing a bull to Neptune, we saw coming over the sea from Tenedos two huge serpents, their crimson crests towering high, their breasts erect among the waves, their long folds sweeping over the foaming sea. As we fled affrighted, they seized the two sons of Laocooen, twining their coils around the wretched boys; and when their father hastened to their aid, caught him in their huge coils, staining his fillets ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... beyond the cerebral cavity. The third, lastly (Figure 25, B.) exhibits the edge and the interior of the posterior, or occipital, part of the skull, and shows very clearly the two depressions for the lateral sinuses, sweeping inwards towards the middle line of the roof of the skull, to form the longitudinal sinus. It was clear, therefore, that I had not erred in my interpretation, and that the posterior lobe of the brain of the Neanderthal man must have been as much flattened as ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... to. Voices of wild geese carry with astonishing force and accuracy. A hundred yards ahead was the long-necked gander, with the lines of a destroyer, his wings sweeping more slowly because of their strength and gear, yet he was making the pace. Then came his second in command, also alone, and as far back again, the point of the V. In this case, the formation was uneven, the left oblique being ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort

... carefully, and trying to imitate Mother Manikin in the way she arranged her pillows and waited upon her. And when evening came, the large square was quite deserted, except by the scavengers, who were going from one end to another sweeping up the rubbish which had been left behind by ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton

... side the viands should be brought in from, where to report matters, and in the observance of every kind of etiquette; and for outside the mansion, there were, on the other hand, officers from the Board of Works, and a superintendent of the Police, of the "Five Cities," in charge of the sweeping of the streets and roads, and the clearing away of loungers. While Chia She and the others superintended the workmen in such things as the manufacture of flowered lanterns ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... sweeping generalisation than this is required, it may be said that the whole, or nearly the whole, of the essential points of a sound Imperial policy admit of being embodied in this one statement, that, whilst steadily avoiding any movement in the direction of official proselytism, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... difficulty of breathing, and as the sun advances towards the tropic, I find myself still more subject to rheums. As the heat increases, the humours of the body are rarefied, and, of consequence, the pores of the skin are opened; while the east wind sweeping over the Alps and Apennines, covered with snow, continues surprisingly sharp and penetrating. Even the people of the country, who enjoy good health, are afraid of exposing themselves to the air at this season, the intemperature of which may last till the middle of May, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... there was a strange stillness and idleness. No master taking his early walk over the grounds. No Lily gathering her flowers before breakfast. No John to open the stable door, and let me in to bark good morning to the horses. No horses; a boy sweeping the deserted stable, and rack and manger empty. No carriage; the coach-house filled with lumber, and the shutters closed in the loft. No servants about. I rather congratulated myself upon the disappearance of Lily's maid, ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland

... like a thunderbolt upon the territories in the neighborhood of Alcala la Real. Before the alarm could be spread and the frontier roused he had made a wide career of destruction through the country, sacking and burning villages, sweeping off flocks and herds, and carrying away captives. The warriors of the frontier assembled, but El Zagal was already far on his return through the mountains, and he re-entered the gates of Guadix in triumph, his army laden with Christian spoil and conducting ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... was breaking up, first one dropped out of the circle, then another, until the whole fleet had formed in one long, unbroken line. Paddles flashed in the water and the long line came sweeping gracefully ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... Congo," that poem which so sympathetically catches the spirit of the uplift of the Negro race through Christianity, that weird, musical, chanting, swinging, singing, sweeping, weeping, rhythmic, flowing, swaying, clanging, banging, leaping, laughing, groaning, moaning book of the elementals, was inspired suddenly, one Sabbath evening, as the poet sat in church listening to a returned missionary speaking on "The Congo." ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger

... Communion; they were a set of lazy vagabonds. He would soon pay them out for their devilish craft, and sweep them off the face of the earth. And to this end he summoned the Diet, and, by the consent of all three Estates, issued the famous Edict of St. James {July 25th, 1508.}.22 The decree was sweeping and thorough. The meetings of the Brethren, public and private, were forbidden. The books and writings of the Brethren must be burnt. All in Bohemia who refused to join the Utraquist or Roman Catholic Church were to be expelled from the country; ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... girls romp, and let them range hill and dale in search of flowers, berries, or any other object of amusement or attraction; let them bathe often, skip the rope, and take a smart ride on horseback; often interspersing these amusements with a turn of sweeping or washing, in order thereby to develop their vital organs, and thus lay a substantial physical foundation for becoming good wives and mothers. The wildest romps usually make the best wives, while quiet, still, demure, sedate and sedentary girls are ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... for that which he had lost; as never in his own history—and there was none else with which it could be compared—had the Corsair King made so fruitful a raid. He ravaged the coasts of the Adriatic and the islands of the Archipelago, sweeping in slaves by the thousand, and by the end of the year he had collected eighteen thousand in the arsenal at Stamboul. Great was the jubilation in Constantinople when the Admiralissimo himself returned from his last expedition against the infidel; stilled were the voices which hinted disaffection—who ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... Sweeping them before her, Mother Blossom soon had them marshaled into the house. Aunt Polly closed the door and Norah flew to her neglected kitchen. It was dark outside by this time, and the steadily falling snow had spread a thick ...
— Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun • Mabel C. Hawley

... Terek[21] bellows, wildly sweeping Past the cliffs, so swift and strong; Like a tempest is his weeping, Flies his spray like tears along. O'er the steppe now slowly veering— Calm but faithless looketh he— With a voice of love endearing Murmurs ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... cease your winking; Little orbs, forget to beam; Little soul, to slumber sinking, Let the fairies rule your dream. Breezes, through the lattice sweeping, Sing their lullabies the while— And a star-ray, softly creeping To thy bedside, woos thy smile. But no song nor ray entrancing Can allure thee from the spell Of the tiny fairies dancing O'er the eyes they love so ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field

... leaders have advised active resistance. The old Finnish party has adopted the policy of passive resistance and protest. But the inroads upon the constitution of Finland, in the form of imperial decrees, rules, and regulations by the Governor-General and his subordinates, have been so many and so sweeping in their character that even the most conservative are beginning to lose patience. As long as the unconstitutional acts affected only the political life of the people, many were able to bear it, but when the new rules attacked the time-honored social institutions and customs, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... what notable sport for the hounds and the hawks must be afforded by the variegated ground over which they travelled—and now he compared the steady and dull trot at which they were then prosecuting their journey, with the delight of sweeping over hill and dale in pursuit of his favourite sports. As, under the influence of these joyous recollections, he gave his horse the spur, and made him execute a gambade, he instantly incurred the censure ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... leave you in good hands"; and then, waving his cap in the air, with a cheer of more than half-jocular defiance, he turned and fled towards Arbroath as if one of the nor'-east gales, in its wildest fury, were sweeping ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne

... faded, dark clouds had come up on the mystic line where sand and sky united, and dusk was creeping on apace when the enemy, sweeping forward, shouting and gesticulating, came within gunshot. From their van a single flash showed for an instant, followed by the sharp crack of a musket, and a bullet whizzed past Omar, striking one of the natives a few yards away, passing through his ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... face, to touch his hand, to hear his voice, to give to him that which should save him from the fate which she herself had dealt out to him by the hands of her own agent. It was thus that her love at last triumphed over her vengeance, and, sweeping onward, drove away all other thoughts ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... however, was very unsatisfactory. The truth was, the German Legions were sweeping all ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... drunkards, profligates, prostitutes, and thieves; but somehow our social evils do not disappear. Even the drink bill runs up, despite all the Gospel pledges. Nix is the practical result of the efforts of gentlemen like Mr. Nix. They are on the wrong tack. They are sweeping back the tide with mops. The real reformatory agency is the spread of ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... those,—a dreary sigh; As if the boughs were wintry bare, And wild winds sweeping by— Whereas the smallest fleecy cloud Was steadfast in ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... it without danger of being struck dead on the spot as if by an electric shock. One king took advantage of this superstition by dressing up an English sailor in his royal robes and sending him about to throw his sweeping train over any article of food, whether dead or alive, which he might chance to come near. The things so touched were at once conveyed to the king without a word of explanation being required or a single remonstrance uttered. Some of ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... unwarned and tumultuous conduct on the part of the man she had been totally unprepared and it was as though the wave of amazement which swept over her had left her gasping; bereft of both nerve-force and breath. But other waves were sweeping her too, so that she of the ready and invincible spirit for the moment rested inert in Halloway's arms as her brain reeled. In one way she was dazed into semiconsciousness. In another way, she was so staringly wide awake as ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... drops of perspiration which, spite of the wind sweeping through the hall, covered her brow: "You must use your handkerchief. Merely listening to my tale will dampen your skin. Stone statues are made of harder material, but a soul dwells within them too. Their natures may be harsher or more gentle; they bring us woe or heal heavy sorrows, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... out ob sight ob dis obstinit chile," cried Clorinda, almost sweeping poor little Vic down with ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... a dead body and found it the corpse of the invalid in the room above. He seemed to himself to be lifting it carefully, when a lady, fair and stately, in rich, sweeping garments, took the burden from his arms, and, sinking with it on the floor, kissed it tenderly and then bent over it with ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... was driving some fat sheep through Liverpool; but they ran down a street where he did not wish them to go. The boy saw a man before him sweeping the street, and ...
— Minnie's Pet Lamb • Madeline Leslie

... fleet swung out upon the water, while the sun was yet hanging like a great torch among the tops of the trees, on the eastern hills. It was a beautiful morning, so fresh, so genial, so balmy. A pleasant breeze came sweeping lazily over the lake, and went sighing and moaning among the old forest trees. All around us were glad voices. The partridge drummed upon his log; the squirrels chattered as they chased each other ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... stand upon the wave that marks the round Of Life's dark-heaving and revolving years; Still sweeping onward from Youth's sunny ground, Still changed and chequered with my joys and fears, And colored from the past, where Thought careers, Shadowing the ashes in pale Memory's urn; Where perished buds were laid, with frequent tears, That on the cheek of Disappointment burn, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... over the long moor of Kareby, and although the weather had been calm all day, a chill breeze came sweeping across the moor, to the ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof

... it struggled to free itself, so much the more the string twisted about it, and thus the bird was quickly entangled, and became an easy prey. In this manner numbers of wild fowl of the largest species were taken at night at the moment of sweeping over the ground at very slow flight, just before alighting; and it would appear that this method of fowling was particularly successful in taking plovers, which generally alight on ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... unbelievingly, then his face changed; his teeth flashed in a smile, and, sweeping his hat from his head, ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... spirit to find pleasure wherever he goes, thinking only of what he sees, enjoys to its fullest extent the luxurious seat of the hired, white-damask-lined carriage, drawn by stalwart, heavy-limbed, coal-black horses, with sweeping tails, the white foam flying from the champed silver bits, the whole turn-out driven by a handsome, white-gloved, black-coated Roman. In solemn state and swiftly, he winds up the zig-zag road leading from the piazza Popolo, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... kept, and there are two or three steps at the door leading from the shed up to the ground outside. This gradual rise continues far back to the mountains, so by the time the hail and water reached us from above they had become one broad, sweeping torrent, ever increasing in volume. In one of the boards of our shed close to the steps, and just above the ground, there happened to be a large "knot" which the pressure of the water soon forced out, and the water and hailstones shot through and straight ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... wall of Papeite beach the schooner Fetia Taiao (Morning Star) lay ready to put to sea. Beneath the skyward-sweeping green heights of Tahiti the narrow shore was a mass of colored gowns, dark faces, slender waving arms. All Papeite, flower-crowned and weeping, was ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... Trooper P. Ryan. One of the Berkshires had been cut off from his regiment while lingering behind to bid a dying chum good-by, when he was surrounded by a patrol of Uhlans. A troop of the Irish Dragoons asked leave of their officer to rescue the man, and sweeping down on the Germans, quickly scattered them. But they were too late. The plucky Berkshire man had "gone under," taking three Germans with him. "We buried him with his chum by the wayside," adds Trooper Ryan. "Partings of this kind are sad, but they are everyday occurrences in ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick

... single insect (as in the case of a queen-wasp) making hexagonal cells, if she work alternately on the inside and outside of two or three cells commenced at the same time, always standing at the proper relative distance from the parts of the cells just begun, sweeping spheres or cylinders, and building up intermediate planes. It is even conceivable that an insect might, by fixing on a point at which to commence a cell, and then moving outside, first to one point, and then to five other ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin

... up early next morning, for a chill wind sweeping over Swarta Stack was as effectual ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby

... attention to the state-rooms, or to the accommodations below. His whole care was bestowed on the ship. Apprehension of falling in with some British cruiser, kept his eyes wide open, and his gaze constantly sweeping the horizon, so far as the obscurity would allow. I was incessantly on the alert myself, stealing up from the cabin, as far as the companion-way, at least a dozen times in the course of the night, in the hope of finding him asleep; but, on each occasion, I saw him moving up and down the ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... our institutions, and ought to be corrected. It is so contrary to our time-honored Constitution that either it or the Constitution must be sacrificed. In order to save the policy it was found necessary during the past year to amend the Constitution by a clause so sweeping, that if the circumstances of a Missionary Classis require it, "all the ordinary requirements of the Constitution" may be dispensed with by the General Synod. Can it be that a policy which requires such constitutional changes can be the old and proper policy of our Church? But ...
— History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterial Order at Amoy, China • J. V. N. Talmage

... think they could have taken the boat, Thad?" Smithy now asked, as he stared out on the waves that were sweeping past so merrily, and could see no sign of ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... the plain, many a mile away, the sharp, needle-like point of a steeple rises white above the trees, which there shade and mingle into a dark mass—so brilliantly white as to seem hardly real. Sweeping the view round, there is a strange and total absence of houses or signs of habitation, other than the steeple, and now that, too, is gone. It has utterly vanished—where, but a few moments before it glowed with whiteness, ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... fastened; fifty silver breeches there Heaped together shone, encrusted all with gold the brooches were: There were fifty knightly vestments, bordered fair with golden thread: Fifty horses, white, and glowing on their ears with deepest red, Nigh them stood; of reddish purple were the sweeping tails and manes; Silver were the bits; their pasterns chained in front with brazen chains: And, of fair findruine[FN47] fashioned, was for every horse a whip, Furnished with a golden handle, wherewithal ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy

... reef and ocean-floor ecosystems. drift-net fishing - done with a net, miles in extent, that is generally anchored to a boat and left to float with the tide; often results in an over harvesting and waste of large populations of non-commercial marine species (by-catch) by its effect of "sweeping the ocean clean". ecosystems - ecological units comprised of complex communities of organisms and their specific environments. effluents - waste materials, such as smoke, sewage, or industrial waste which are ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... October, that is to say, thirteen days after he had taken up his abode at Paris, the King went, on foot and almost alone, to review some detachments of the National Guard. After the review Louis XVI. met with a child sweeping the street, who asked him for money. The child called the King "M. le Chevalier." His Majesty gave him six francs. The little sweeper, surprised at receiving so large a sum, cried out, "Oh! I have no change; you will give me money another time." A person who accompanied ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... the narrow roadway, he noticed the tide had gained rapidly and was now sweeping over it with considerable force ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various

... was declining. The brats had just gone home, and the schoolmaster, in half-sleeves, was sweeping the yard. His wife, with a neckerchief tied round her head, was suckling a baby. A little girl was hiding herself behind her petticoat; a hideous-looking child was playing on the ground at her feet. The water from the washing she had ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... was more here than heedless carelessness. Drawers were pulled out and empty. The closet was open and empty. There was a finality about the scene that could not be misunderstood. Larry was gone in a definite and sweeping manner. ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... force with which the lady spoke of sweeping them—as if they had been so much foulness—from Roccaleone, unless they did her bidding. They were still hesitating, when the ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... and haughtiest glance. Mrs. Montgomery appeared more gorgeous than ever. The splendour of her sweeping train almost required a page to support it; she held a bouquet which might have served for the centre-piece of a dinner-table. A slender youth, rather distinguished in appearance, simply dressed, with a rose-bud just twisted into his black coat, but whose person ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... one, had not come provided with any successful Regents with whom to counter this generalization; and when I came to think of it, it was quite true. I have noticed the same thing about many other sweeping remarks coming from the ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... from the light with a moan. Memory winged with horror was sweeping back upon her, and she ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... he told them. The electronic beams could not be destroyed; a disintegration of the rock atoms had been set up. With each rotation of the Earth it was sweeping the sky. From a great control station, Wandl was flinging attraction gravity upon that beam, using it as a monstrous lever upon the rotation of Earth. With every daily passage now the force was being exerted. The rotation was slowing. ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings

... times glad, beautiful images, airy forms, move by you, graceful, harmonious;—at times the glaring, wild-looking fancies, chained together by hyphens, brackets, and dashes, brave and base, high and low, all in their motley dresses, go sweeping down the dusty page, like the galley-slaves, that sweep the streets of Rome, where you may chance to see the nobleman and the ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... whispered together and eyed us furtively. I did not like the stuff I saw in them. Rough, lawless, held obedient only by fear, the scum of the beach—I did not like to imagine them sweeping along the decks with restraint cast aside, and passions unleashed. The squareheads were a different kind. Good men and sailors, here, but men whose habit of life was submission. Yet, I saw they were gravely disturbed ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer

... contradictory statements of the common law existed, it was highly advisable to have an authoritative judgment in a superior Court; that grave questions as to the relations of the statute and the common law might also arise; that it was manifestly unfair, while a sweeping Indictment for blasphemy was removed to a higher Court, that I should be compelled to plead in a lower Court on a similar charge; and that it was unjust to try our case at the Old Bailey when the City Corporation ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... touch meant death. As that terrible sun climbed upward in the sky, its heat was almost overpowering. The sweat poured off every inch of my body, and I gasped for breath. And still we fought on, two glittering metal monsters under the big blue star sweeping up to ...
— Out Around Rigel • Robert H. Wilson

... admit that Lady Beach-Mandarin was almost as much to meet as one can meet in a single human being, a broad abundant billowing personality with a taste for brims, streamers, pennants, panniers, loose sleeves, sweeping gestures, top notes and the like that made her altogether less like a woman than an occasion of public rejoicing. Even her large blue eyes projected, her chin and brows and nose all seemed racing up to the front of her as if excited by the clarion notes of her abundant voice, ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... of October 28 that the shores of this noble island first met the eyes of the eager mariners. As the small fleet swept along its coast the admiral was struck with its size and grandeur; its high and airy mountains, like those of Sicily; its long and sweeping plains, and the fertile valleys of its broad rivers; its far-reaching forests and many green headlands, which led them on and on into the remote distance. They anchored at length in a beautiful river, whose waters were transparent and deeply shaded with overhanging ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... incessant, soon found himself in the vicinity of the place from which they proceeded. It was a thick grove of beeches of the colossal growth of the west, their stems as tall and straight as the pines of the Alleghanies, and their boughs, arched and pendulous like those of the elm, almost sweeping the earth below, over which they cast shadows so dark that scarce anything was visible beneath them, save their hoary and ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... of years ago, really,' said Robert but his voice trembled. They hid their eyes for a moment. They could not bear to look down, for the wave had broken on the face of the town, sweeping over the quays and docks, overwhelming the great storehouses and factories, tearing gigantic stones from forts and bridges, and using them as battering rams against the temples. Great ships were swept over the roofs of the houses and dashed down halfway up the hill among ruined ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit

... group standing in front of the house—Buck Daniels, Kate, the lantern-jawed cowboy, and Wung Lu waving his kitchen apron. In another moment he was beside the rider of the stallion, and the man was whistling one of those melodies which defied repetition. It simply ran on and on, smoothly, sweeping through transition after transition, soaring and falling in the most effortless manner. Now it paused, now it began again. It was never loud, but it carried like the music of a bird on wing, blown by the wind. There was about ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand

... the corn grow green all about my neighbourhood, there rushes on me for no reason in particular a memory of the winter. I say "rushes," for that is the very word for the old sweeping lines of the ploughed fields. From some accidental turn of a train-journey or a walking tour, I saw suddenly the fierce rush of the furrows. The furrows are like arrows; they fly along an arc of sky. They are like leaping animals; ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... Drawing Room and she often wondered if they would feel shy when the page spread out their lovely peacock tails for them and left them to their own devices. It was mere Nature that she should have pondered and pondered and sometimes unconsciously longed to feel herself part of the flood of being sweeping past her as she stood apart on the ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... with worn clothes and heavy hearts plodding slowly and stiffly up the long rough slope, our story runs on before and gains the rocky platform they are making for and looks both ways—back toward the sad ones and forward over a grand, long, sweeping valley. This pasture is rich in proportion as it recedes from this huge backbone of rock that comes from the stony mountains and pierces and divides the meadows as a cape the sea. In the foreground the grass suffers from its stern neighbor, is cut up here and there by the channels ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... Webster and Burke were, since intellectual arrogance and superiority are offensive to fortunate or ambitious nobodies,—Jefferson's prudence and modesty kept him from meddling with the funded debt and from entangling alliances with the nation he admired. Jefferson was not sweeping in his removals from office, although he unfortunately inaugurated that fatal policy consummated by Jackson, which has since been the policy of the Government,—that spoils belong to victors. This policy has done ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... experiment that the tide kept sweeping us westward until I had laid her head due east, or just about right angles to the way ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... amelioration in this process and may flatter ourselves that the Christian centuries exhibit a more philosophical understanding of what Sin is, and a more humane conception of what Sacrifice SHOULD be, than the centuries preceding. But I fear that any very decided statement or sweeping generalization to that effect would be—to say the least—rash. Perhaps there IS a very slow amelioration; but the briefest glance at the history of the Christian churches—the horrible rancours and revenges of the clergy and the sects against each other in the fourth and fifth centuries ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... used instead of brooms in Ireland for sweeping or dusting tables, stairs, etc. The Editor doubted the fact till he saw a labourer of the old school sweep down a flight of stairs with his wig; he afterwards put it on his head again with the utmost composure, ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth

... this state of feeling. He left his obscure fastnesses in the depths of the Andes, and established himself with a strong body of followers in the mountain country lying between Cuzco and the coast. From this retreat, he made descents on the neighbouring plantations, destroying the houses, sweeping off the cattle, and massacring the people. He fell on travellers, as they were journeying singly or in caravans from the coast, and put them to death - it is told by his enemies - with cruel tortures. Single detachments were sent against him, from time to time, but without effect. Some ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... mirror on their bosoms the varied forms of the surrounding heights. On the south-west part of the coast a wide bay is to be found. At the extreme southern end, up a deep loch, a castle, the seat of an ancient family, reared its towers high above the waters. The bay came sweeping round at some places with a hard sandy beach; then, again, the ground rose, leaving but a narrow ledge between the foot of the cliffs and the waters. Thus the shore extended on for some distance, forming a lofty headland, when it again sank to its former level. A reef of rocks ran out a considerable ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston

... finished sweeping up when four bells went, and we cleared below for tea. Some of the men got chatting while they ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson

... a beautiful day in our early New Zealand autumn. For a week past, a furious north-westerly gale had been blowing down the gorges of the Rakaia and the Selwyn, as if it had come out of a funnel, and sweeping across the great shelterless plains with irresistible force. We had been close prisoners to the house all those days, dreading to open a door to go out for wood or water, lest a terrific blast should rush in and ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... nearly demolished the negro driver and had damaged a cooper-shop. They calculated that nearly three thousand Sundays had passed since then, and now here they were once more, two old men with the hills still fresh and green, the river still sweeping by and rippling in the sun. Standing there together and looking across to the low-lying Illinois shore, and to the green islands where they had played, and to Lover's Leap on the south, the man who had ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... and was unseen; her hair Fell in long tresses like the weeping willow, Sweeping the marble underneath her chair, Or rather sofa (for it was all pillow, A low soft ottoman), and black despair Stirr'd up and down her bosom like a billow, Which rushes to some shore whose shingles check Its farther course, but must receive ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... Testament scriptures, the murder of Zechariah appears as the last recorded martyrdom; and the Lord's reference to the righteous men who had been slain, from Abel to Zechariah or Zacharias, may have been a sweeping inclusion of all the martyrs down to that time, from first to last. However, we have a record of Zechariah son of Berechiah (Zech. 1:1, 7), and this Berechiah was the son of Iddo. Then again, Zechariah son of Iddo is mentioned (Ezra 5:1); but, as is elsewhere found in the older scriptures, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... past eight at night before his toil was rewarded and he issued at last out of the forest on the firm white high-road. It lay downhill before him with a sweeping eastward trend, faintly bright between the thickets; and Otto paused and gazed upon it. So it ran, league after league, still joining others, to the farthest ends of Europe, there skirting the sea-surge, here gleaming in the lights of cities; and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... I replied, "I have seen the ship all the time, that black ship with its sail of red flame. I have seen it tossing upon the sea, sweeping up till the flame of its sail almost touched the clouds, and then plunging down into the black water, but always, always rushing on with the storm around it and with never any rest. And I have seen the angry clouds tearing across the ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost

... were in hopes the supply the river was receiving came from Laidley's Ponds. On the following morning the waters of the Darling were half-bank high, and from an insignificant stream it was at once converted into a broad and noble river, sweeping everything away on its turbid waters at the rate of these or four miles an hour. The river still continues to rise, and is fast filling the creeks and lagoons on either side of it. The cattle enjoy the most luxuriant feed on the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... were safely at the creek, and the gold hunters halted until after dinner. The little stream across which Rod had easily leaped without wetting his feet a few weeks before had swollen into a fair-sized river, and in places its searching waters had formed tiny lakes. Unlike the Ombabika, sweeping down from its mountain heights, there was but little current here, a fact that immensely pleased Mukoki ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood



Words linked to "Sweeping" :   cleanup, broad, wide, cleaning, cleansing, indiscriminate, sweep



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com