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Wear and tear   /wɛr ənd tɛr/   Listen
Wear and tear

noun
1.
Decrease in value of an asset due to obsolescence or use.  Synonym: depreciation.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Wear and tear" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the town. This meant getting up at half past three in the morning, after a sleep of five hours and a half, but if this should begin to wear on him, he would simply go earlier to bed; there was no sign of wear and tear, however, for the boy was as tough as a bolt-proof black gum-tree back in the hills, his capacity for work was prodigious, and the early rising hour but lengthened the range of each day's activities. Indeed Jason missed nothing and nothing ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... truce; he was sure Providence had made his way smooth on purpose to effect our union. His arguments were perhaps not very logical, but they almost convinced me of what I wished to believe. I was willing to bear the anger of my family, but could not think of again undergoing the wear and tear of separation. I promised to let him know my decision early the next morning; I think I should have gone with him, but that evening we were telegraphed to return to Washington—my father had been stricken ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Saturday Magazine of the New York Evening Post. In 1912-13 he was writing signed reviews for the New York Times Review of Books. 1913-14 he was assistant literary editor of the New York Tribune. His meditations on the reviewing job are embalmed in "That Reviewer Cuss." In 1914 the wear and tear of continual hard work on Grub Street rather got the better of him: he packed a bag and spent the summer in England. Four charming essays record his adventures there, where we may leave him for the moment while we warm up to another aspect of the problem. Let us just set down ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... all this wear and tear of sails Ronne was occupied the whole time, both at sea and in Buenos Aires, in making and patching sails, as there was not much more than the leeches left of those that had been used, and on the approaching trip (to the Ice Barrier) we should have to have absolutely first-class ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... CABLES. Is a length of 15 fathoms of stouter chain, in consequence of greater wear and tear near the anchor, and exposure to weather. Fore-ganger is also the short piece of rope immediately connecting the line with the shank of the harpoon, ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... my mind distracted and ill at ease, and made my narrative seem broken and disjointed, in places. Under these circumstances it seems to me best to leave it in, as above, since this will afford at least a temporary respite from the wear and tear of trying to "lead up" to this really apt ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... month since your very welcome letter reached me. I had every inclination and every intention to answer it at once, but the wear and tear of incessant occupation (for your letter arrived in the midst of my busiest time) has, I will not say deprived me of the leisure, but of that tone of mind which one wants for writing a long letter. I fully understand—no one should be better ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... giving directions to his workmen, and insisting upon going to sea in a yacht without preparations for landing anywhere in particular. Pope seems to have been specially attracted by such men, with intellects as restless as his own, but with infinitely more vitality to stand the consequent wear and tear. ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... waistcoat, the leather breeches, and plated spurs, remained to raise the fortunes of our house to a higher station. The waistcoat has been long since numbered with the waistcoats before the flood; the buckskins, made of 'sterner stuff,' stood the wear and tear of the world for a length of time, but at last were put out of commission; while the boots, more fortunate or tougher than their leathern companions, endured more than forty years of actual service through all the ramifications of our extensive family. In this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... through this Abyssinian affair, I shall have to wend my weary way to Senheit; however, God knows what is best for me. I would sooner have come home straight, but I had it not in my heart to forsake Tewfik till this affair is finished. I have begun to be very tired of the continual wear and tear of my last six years. However, I cannot think of leaving Egypt ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... found even more fault with my husband, we condoled with each other and decided that our friend was rather hypercritical and that we were as nearly perfect as mortals need be for the wear and tear of ordinary life. Being both endowed with a good degree of self-esteem, neither the praise nor the blame of mankind was overpowering to either of us. As the voyage lasted eighteen days—for we were on a sailing vessel—we had time ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... patent for it and forestalled Watt, who had to invent another means—the sun and planet. But when the term of the patent expired, Watt resumed the crank method instead of the sun and planet, which was noisy, the wear and tear very great, and ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor

... all-identifying, and selfish men. It is a universe in which a human being is duly born, given place with such a self as he happens to have, and he is expected to grow up to it. Barring a certain amount of wear and tear and a few minor rearrangements on the outside, it is the same universe that it was in the beginning, and is now and always will be quite the same universe, whether a man grows up to it or not. The larger universe is not one that comes with the ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... in the bow of the said canoe. C. returns it to B. in this condition. B. returns it to A. in this condition. A. sues B. before native chief, saying he lent his canoe to B. on the understanding, always implied in African loans, that it was to be returned in the same state as when lent, fair wear and tear alone excepted. B. tries first to get C. to pay for the canoe, and for the rent of the canoe on top, as a compensation for the delay in bringing down his, B's., trade. C. calls B. the illegitimate offspring of a greenhouse-lizard, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... any other thought than the combination of various plans to this end. The faculty of self-concentration seen in rough, uneducated persons, explained on a previous page, the reserve power accumulated in those whose mental energies are unworn by the daily wear and tear of social life, and brought into action so soon as that terrible weapon the "fixed idea" is brought into play,—all this was pre-eminently manifested in La Cibot. Even as the "fixed idea" works ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... conclusive proof that a still more prolonged succession of similar changes occurred before the chalk was deposited. Nor have we any reason to think that the first term in the series of these changes is known. The oldest sea-beds preserved to us are sands, and mud, and pebbles, the wear and tear of rocks which were ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... poverty, but who there maintain their ground with no surrender. His old blouse, patched with pieces of different shades, indicated the perseverance of an industrious mother struggling against the wear and tear of time; his trousers were become too short, and showed his stockings darned over and over again; and it was evident that his shoes ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre

... subject, that 'the clock was not made to go for ever;' by which he meant that human bodies, like the materials of machines, wore out by lapse of time. In his day this was true, since it was impossible fully to repair the waste and physical wear and tear of the human frame. This is no longer so. The clock does not wear out, but it goes more and more slowly and irregularly, and stops at last for some reason that the most skilful inspection cannot discover. The body of ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... both of them, and each was too conscious of what the other was thinking and fearing. They did not meet each other's eyes with those mute demands in them any more; but they stole stealthy glances sometimes each to see how the other face looked; what tokens of wear and tear it was showing; taking in at a rapid view the lines of weariness, the marks of anxiety, the faded colour, the languor of spirit which had gradually taken the place of the earlier energy. In word and action they showed none of all this. All the more, no ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... his resemblance to my confessor)—he was a true son of Rome; when he did lift his eyes, he looked at me out of their corners, with more and sharper subtlety than, one would have thought, could survive the wear and tear of seventy years. Yet, I believe, he was a good ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... had not known how to read or write; in 1802 he had made no progress in either art; but by allowing a handsome margin for "wear and tear" in his estimates, he managed to pay a foreman's wages. The once easy-going journeyman was a terror to his "bears" and "monkeys." Where poverty ceases, avarice begins. From the day when Sechard first caught a glimpse of the ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... or two other miners had also added to the treasures that caught the eye of the inquisitive Digger. It was a museum of sartorial curiosities—seedy and ripped broadcloth coats, vests, and pants, flannel mining-shirts of gay colors and of different degrees of wear and tear, linen shirts that looked like battle-flags that had been through the war, and old shoes and boots of all sorts, from the high rubber water-proofs used by miners to the ragged slippers that had adorned the feet of the lonely single parsons ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... ice-sheet a mile thick instantaneously adapt itself to the change? For all these markings took place in the interval between the time when the external force, whatever it was, struck the rocks, and the time when a sufficient body of "till" had been laid down to shield the rocks and prevent further wear and tear. Neither is it possible to suppose an ice-sheet, a mile in thickness, moving in two diametrically opposite directions ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... one of us stands ready to do, without any thought of compensation. But, generally speaking, men will not take business risks, will not venture, will not be enterprising and constructive, will not take upon themselves the responsibilities, the chance of loss, the strain, the wear and tear and worry and care of intense business activity if they do not have the prospect of adequate monetary reward, even though a large part of that reward is taken away again in the shape ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn

... evening, two men were on their way from the market-town of Ballynafail, towards a fertile portion of the country, named Aughamuran, which lay in a southern direction from it. One of them was a farmer, of middling, or rather of struggling, circumstances, as was evident from the traces of wear and tear that were visible upon a dress that had once been comfortable and decent, although now it bore the marks of careful, though rather extensive repair. He was a thin placid looking man, with something, however, of a careworn expression in his features, unless when he smiled, and then his face beamed ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... and a half an acre; all told, two hundred and seventy thousand dollars. A hundred and fifty-four able-bodied hands produce you a yearly profit of eleven thousand dollars, which, saying nothing about the cost of keeping your live stock, the wear and tear of your mules and machinery, and the yearly loss of your slaves by death, is only four per cent. on your capital. Now, with only the price of your land, say seventy thousand dollars, invested in safe stocks at the North, you could realize eight per cent.—five ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore

... cheapness of manufactures and their variety; change of scene is easy from the conveniences of locomotion. But a barbarian has none of these facilities: his interests are few; his dress, such as it is, is intended to stand the wear and tear of years, and all weathers; it is relatively very costly, and is an investment, one may say, of his capital rather than of his income; the invention of his people is sluggish, and their arts are few, consequently he is perforce ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... word of comment, and sewing them up with Chuzzlewit. Talfourd is strongly disinclined to compromise with the printers on any terms. In which case it would be referred to the master to ascertain what profits had been made by the piracy, and to order the same to be paid to me. But wear and tear of law is my consideration." The undertaking to which he had at last to submit was, that upon ample public apology, and payment of all costs, the offenders should be let go; but the real result was that, after infinite vexation and trouble, he had himself to pay all the costs ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... honesty goes, I could run a seine through Ostable County any day in the week and load a schooner with honest folks; and there wouldn't nary one of 'em have cash enough to pay for the wear and tear on the net. Honesty's good policy, maybe, but it takes hard money ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... a vessel of considerable weight if it is to withstand reasonable wear and tear, and this weight will give a certain hydrostatic pressure to the contained gas. If the weight of the bell is known, the pressure which it will give can be calculated according to the general law of hydrostatics, that the weight of the water displaced must be ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... it costs the Government," I suggested. "The cost of the projectiles and the wear and tear to guns and ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... in come a motley procession of chaises, sulkies, and two-wheeled carts—two-wheeled carts, not four. There are sleds and sleighs for winter, but the four-wheeled wagon was little used in New England until the turn of the century. And then they were emphatically objected to because of the wear and tear on the roads! In 1669 Boston enacted that all carts "within y^e necke of Boston shall be and goe without shod wheels." This provision is entirely comprehensible, when we remember that there was no idea of systematic road repair. No tax was imposed ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery

... Hubert too persistently; yet, on the other hand, she was convinced that Adela had been so deeply shocked by the revelations of Hubert's wickedness that her moral nature would be in arms against her lingering inclination. After much mental wear and tear, she decided to adopt the strong course of asking Alfred's assistance. Alfred was sure to view the proposed match with hearty approval, and, though he might not have much influence directly, he could in all probability secure a potent ally in the person of Letty Tew. This was ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... Mackenzie, but that then was frozen over and frozen down to its rocky bottom—a dead stream of solid white from source to mouth. The she-wolf was trotting wearily along, her mate well in advance, when she came upon the overhanging, high clay-bank. She turned aside and trotted over to it. The wear and tear of spring storms and melting snows had underwashed the bank and in one place had made a small cave out of ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... age of hard drinking; the day had been an exciting one, and Lynch's wine or punch or apple toddy but the last of many potations. The assemblage was assuredly not drunken, but neither was it, at this hour and after the emotional wear and tear of the past hours, quite sane or less than hectic. Its mood was edged. Now, in the quarter of an hour before the general start for home and supper, foreign and federal affairs gave way to first-hand matters and a review of the day that was ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... comes up, like an Olympian, to the great games where the first-born of the world are the competitors. He proposes himself for contests where Time, Want, Danger, are in the lists, and he alone is victor who has truth enough in his constitution to preserve the delicacy of his beauty from the wear and tear of all these. The gifts of fortune may be present or absent, but all the speed in that contest depends on intrinsic nobleness and the contempt of trifles. There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship, each so sovereign that I can detect ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... said Mr. Peters, suavely, "should the Finance Committee require it, I am prepared to submit the vouchers which show how much wear and tear on a house is required to raise ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... its stumps of columns and vague foundations and broken altars. Among the later discoveries certain of the public baths are in the best repair, both structurally and decoratively, and in these one could replace the antique life with the least wear and tear ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... animal must contribute in kind to the picnic of the universe, one does not see what better arrangement could be made than the providing each race with a hereditary fallacy, which shall in the end get it into a scrape, but which shall generally stand the wear and tear of life for some time. "Do ut des" is the writing on all flesh to him that eats it; and no creature is dearer to itself than it is to some other ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler

... discomfort, and here we have a clue to the advice of the physician who advises isolation as a step toward the cure of the member of the family who first breaks down, not simply under the stress of occupation, but of occupation plus the wear and tear of minor but ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.

... at Westminster, under specially expensive conditions, is high—about 12s. per 1,000 cub. ft. When we consider, however, that the cost should only embrace attendance, fuel, wear and tear, and a little lime and soda for the purifiers, that the consumption of fuel is small, the wear and tear light, and that the raw material—air—is obtained for nothing, it ought to be possible to produce the gas for a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various

... frequently delivered precepts,—yea, preached whole Sermons,—on what would now-a-days be called mere "Morality." He was republishing the Moral Law. He was graving afresh those letters which had been wellnigh worn out through tract of Time, and the wear and tear of Man's ungoverned lusts.—Hence, to this hour, when question is raised of Right and Wrong,—the appeal is made, by the common consent of Christian men, not to the inner consciousness of the creature, but to ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... excellent sentiment I gave my heartiest assent, and proceeded to illustrate it by the fastidious care with which I selected and folded the clothes I wished to take. As I examined my socks for signs of wear and tear, and then folded them by the ingenious process of grasping the heels and turning them inside out, in imitation of Nurse Bundle, an idea struck me, based upon my late reading and approaching ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... becomes rather a substitute for than an incentive to them. The perfection of form, the deep repose and circle-like completeness of the work of art, tend to prevent one from seeking a corresponding real experience, which would have none of these qualities, but perhaps only misery and wear and tear instead. Thus the work of art may propagate itself in a search for new aesthetic experiences rather than in ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... be the diminished use of silver as a circulating medium, and the increased employment of gold, the more so as the supply of the latter metal has of late years been greatly augmented—a great deal now coming from Asiatic Russia—while its wear and tear are very small. This change would not arise from a scarcity of quicksilver, the quantity and quality of which, at Almaden at least, improve as the miners get deeper into the vein; and, moreover, the portion extracted is limited to 20,000 quintals, or weights of 105 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... things to anyone—but, as it was the pleasant truth, I tell it you. If you had led my life, indeed, changing climates and connections—thinning yourself with fasting and purgatives—besides the wear and tear of the vulture passions, and a very bad temper besides, you might talk in this way—but you! I know no man who looks so well for his years, or who deserves to look better and to be better, in all respects. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... blueberry swamp. The mouth of this slough was wide, while the slough itself was practically without a current. In the dead water, just inside its mouth, lay a tangled mass of tree trunks. Some of these, what of the wear and tear of freshets and of being stranded long summers on sand-bars, were seasoned and dry and without branches. They floated high in the water, and bobbed up and down or rolled over when we put ...
— Before Adam • Jack London

... Maybe Coronado owns it. Quien sabe? We only borrowed the place. We thought that probably Charles IV, or Philip II, or whoever it was, wouldn't mind very much, seeing that he's dead anyhow, in case we returned the valley in good condition, reasonable wear and tear excepted, after we were dead ourselves. Of course, this railroad coming in complicates matters a good deal. Do I make all this clear to you, gentlemen? I never did see a ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... longer had we any desire to dig up the whole place immediately. I suppose we moved nearly as much earth, but the fibres of our minds were relaxed, and we did it more easily and with less nervous wear and tear. ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... till it was perfect to his mind. And then consider more closely the quatrefoils, small in themselves, which are yet far larger than the details which surround them. The best known is one that has suffered terribly in the wear and tear of nearly six centuries. It is the famous bas-relief of the hooded pig playing on a violin, a motive which recurs at Winchester and in York Minster. Its fingers are placed so accurately upon the bow that the method of playing has formed a type ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... unaccustomed toil of walking, and by exposure to the rain and the miry roads, that he felt it necessary to remain until the next morning. The aspect he presented was shabby and dilapidated in the extreme; for he was in his working dress, which by the wear and tear of travel had become greatly soiled and tattered. He was not a little mortified to find that the inhabitants of the cabin, while they treated him kindly, evidently regarded him with ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... worked like a horse all last year, and you know it. Now I'm resting, or loafing, if you prefer to call it that, and"—he bit off the words and fairly threw them at his friend—"it will save you and Epstein and Haxon a lot of mental wear and tear if you will mind your own ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan

... early became a vital question. Turnpikes, controlled by corporations, were the principal avenues over which country produce, lumber, firewood, and building-stone found their way to the little metropolis. The cost of entertainment at the various country inns, the frequent tolls, and the inevitable wear and tear of teaming, enhanced very materially the price of all these articles. The Middlesex canal was the first step towards the solution of the problem of cheap transportation. The plan originated with the Hon. James Sullivan, who was for six years a judge of the Supreme Court ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various

... before his sneer as from a deadly weapon; and like a flash of light some divination of the truth pierced the Westerner's brain. They were fugitives from justice, making for the Mexican line. That the man was wounded a single glance had told him. It was plain to be seen that the wear and tear of keeping the saddle had been too ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... very small sect; and the political advocates of Secession, who, partly with full conviction, partly as a mere matter of unchallenged use and wont, repudiated slavery,—a very large sect. The Southern partisanship of the former sect was perfectly logical; that of the latter unable to stand the wear and tear of discussion, as the progress of events made it more and more manifest that slavery or abolition was the real issue. With this latter sect the political or other liking for the South was a much stronger and more active feeling than the humanitarian ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... concession, or contract, or whatever else it was, on the north-east frontier, leaving his wife to follow and rejoin him in the Himalayas as soon as she had exhausted the sights of India. So, after a few dusty weeks of wear and tear on the Indian railways, we met him once more in the recesses of Nepaul, where he was busy constructing a light local ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... a greater martyrdom made out of a trifle than that. It was one of Flossy's besetting sins, this arraying herself in glory, and making wrinkles in her face in the vain attempt to keep so. Not that she was particularly anxious to save the wear and tear, only she hated to look spotted and wrinkled, and she could never seem to learn the simple lesson of wearing the things best suited ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy

... her hand, but your mother-in-law! I werily believe there was change for a couple o' suv'rins in it, then, Sammy, all in ha'pence; and as the people come out, they rattled the pennies in it, till you'd ha' thought that no mortal plate as ever was baked, could ha' stood the wear and tear. What d'ye think it ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... is as good as could be expected, after six hundred years of wear and tear. Each leaf, here and there defective, is carefully mounted on sheets of stiff paper, and all together very few characters are really illegible, though sometimes the paper has slipped upon the printing-block, and has thus given, in several ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles

... product, down, down, amid heaps of household rubbish in an uncared for nook by the chimney, and only drew it forth to add to its value when there was no witness that could betray him. It was a worthless-looking thing, that old leather portfolio, with the wear and tear of years upon it; but the boy felt a sort of inward consciousness that the gloomy and dismal hiding-place beneath the refuse truck was not its irrevocable destiny; and this feeling buoyed him up ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... And filch the lady's heart away? To Spirit her to matrimony? — That which contracts all matches — money. It was th' inchantment oft her riches That made m' apply t' your croney witches, 1180 That, in return, wou'd pay th' expence, The wear and tear of conscience; Which I cou'd have patch'd up, and turn'd, For the hundredth part of what ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... thus with people in an open boat, They live upon the love of Life, and bear More than can be believed, or even thought, And stand like rocks the tempest's wear and tear; And hardship still has been the sailor's lot, Since Noah's ark went cruising here and there; She had a curious crew as well as cargo, Like the first ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... the boots of the most active members of the family began to show signs of heavy wear and tear; but that really mattered very little, as the weather was for the most part dry, and they had all a spare pair to put on if those in active use became too ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant

... And the great cares crush us earthward till there is scarcely a sweet word left in our lips or a noble thought in our heart. A man cannot save his soul in the day of trouble. He cannot by himself make good the wear and tear of anxieties and griefs. He can hold his head high and hide his secret deep, but he cannot keep his life sweet. Only Christ can teach a man how to find the nameless dignity of the crown of thorns. The kingship of suffering ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth

... her children, whether they are old or young; and during those restful times she builds up what the learned folks call tissue, and strengthens mind and muscle, fitting the said children for the wear and tear that is to go on again the next day, ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn

... stern development of events, exposed, like human society, to all kinds of vicissitudes and alternations, giving occasion to many a scandal, and shaking the faith and loyalty of many a son, showing in ample measure the wear and tear of its existence, battered, injured, sometimes degenerate, sometimes improved, in one way or another, since those dim and long distant days when its course began; but showing in all these ways what a real thing it is, never in the extremity of storms and ruin, never ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... But you must make up your mind for a certain amount of wear and tear. In your case it will probably ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... students who cross their legs, is found to be so peculiarly pernicious to the nap of cloth? What could have made them worse for wear? Would a thoughtless world confound the influence of the all-embracing atmosphere, with the wear and tear proper to cloth habiliments? And then his linen—would a careless public refuse to take notice that not a single button was missing from the shirt, which, in general, had but one solitary button remaining—just one at the neck, probably fastened by his own hand? Above all, was it not noticeable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... before making another such effort. And yet there are batsmen who strive to make hits which necessitate a 120 yards run two or three times in a single game. Do field captains who go in for this sluggish style of batting ever think of the wear and tear of a player's physical strength in ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick

... always a marvel how men could stand the wear and tear of those seven years of incessant warfare in that country. Yet the veteran soldiers of France and England did stand it, and many lived to tell the tale in after years to their children in quiet resting-places. But how many, who survived, came ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown

... will soon move you.' Then she turned and saw me. I was in the most nondescript khaki, a non-com's jacket which I had caught up on leaving the tent, and various odds and ends of my outfit which had survived the wear and tear of the campaign. Also I was dusty with a long gallop. 'Here, serjeant,' she said, 'lend a hand with this poor fellow. I can't have him disturbed just now.' That was Jane's only comment on the passing of a shell within a few yards of her own head. Do you wonder the men adored ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... it is, as another has written, "none of our lives are dated by years; the wear and tear of heart and brain, to say nothing of the body, ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... suffer, is only a small part of what mankind in general endure from thoughtless and unkind discouragement. Those high-souled men belong to the suffering class, and must suffer; but it is in daily life that the wear and tear of discouragement tells so much. Propose a small party of pleasure to an apt discourager, and see what he will make of it. It soon becomes sicklied over with doubt and despondency; and, at last, the only hope of the proposer is, that his proposal, when realized, will not be an ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... brought her visitor into the sitting room. But the light falling upon a form and face that had seen more wear and tear than time, gave her no clue as to the who or what of the person before her. The stranger's hurried look round the room seemed ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... wretched couple with their children are on the pavement too! The only thing to survive the wreck is the sewing-machine. The only thing that I know among the many things supplied to the poor on the hire system that is the least bit likely to stand the wear and tear is the machine. Doubtless the poor pay highly for it; still it is comforting to know that in this one direction the poor are supplied with good articles. And the poor respect their machines, as the poor always respect things ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes

... loss was insignificant in this battle. The most remarkable feature in Caesar's campaigns, and that which indicates most clearly his greatness as a commander, was the smallness of the number of men that he ever lost, either by the sword or by wear and tear. No general was ever so careful of his ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... out of their care—that is to say, all the eight of them. Soeren and Maren were now no longer young. The wear and tear of time and toil began to be felt; and it would have been good to have had something as a stand-by. Soerine, the youngest, was as far as that goes, also out of their care, in that she was grown up and ought long ago to have been ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... gentle and amiable looking woman, about twenty-five years of age. She is an example of the terrible wear and tear to the complexion in crossing the plains, hers having become, through exposure at that time, of a dark and permanent yellow, anything but becoming. I will give you a key to her character, which will exhibit it better than weeks of description. She took a nursing ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... turnpike the Federal General White and his staff met the conqueror. The first, general and staff, were handsomely mounted, finely equipped, sparklingly clean and whole. The last was all leaf brown—dust and rain and wear and tear, scarfed and stained huge boots, and shabby forage cap. The surrender was unconditional. Formalities over, there followed some talk, a hint on the side of the grey of generous terms, some expression on the side of the blue of admiration for great fighters, some ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... who thought her more diverting than really ill-natured; but Helen thought her more ill-natured than diverting, never liked her, and had her own private reasons for thinking that she was no good friend to Cecilia: but now, in consequence either of the wear and tear of London life, or of a disappointment in love or matrimony, she had lost the fresh plumpness of youth; and gone too was that spirit of mirth, if not of good humour, which used to enliven her countenance. Thin and sallow, the sharp features remained, and the sarcastic without the arch expression; ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... amount of research in various special branches of science. A very noteworthy fact is that both the physical work and the mental work of this human engine are always accompanied by both physical and chemical changes in the structure of its machinery—corresponding to the wear and tear of non-living engines. It also presents certain sexual and spiritual phenomena that have a striking likeness to certain phenomena, especially wireless phenomena, to electricity and to radium. This human engine-battery is of unusual strength, durability and perfection; and yet it is very ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski

... strong; and a mind absolutely at peace with God and the world has a great rest! Friction is said to be one of the notable hindering powers in the world of matter—it is equally true, perhaps, of the world of spirit. Without it, in either sphere, how softly and with how little wear and tear, everything moves! And Faith's life ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... appear incredible, if I said it—that hardening of the parts which constitutes old age. A year may age him no more than an hour ages another. His intense will, scientifically trained into system, operates, in short, over the wear and tear of his own frame. He lives on. That he may not seem a portent and a miracle, he dies from time to time, seemingly, to certain persons. Having schemed the transfer of a wealth that suffices to his wants, he ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... resumed his old walks and habits; he soon found many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the wear and tear of time; and preferred making friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... in the carpets, and the pallor of the drawing-room, where no chair or cover had been renewed for some years, were due not only to the miserable pension, but to the wear and tear of twelve children, eight of whom were sons. As often happens in these large families, a distinct dividing-line could be traced, about half-way in the succession, where the money for educational purposes had run ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... with Andrews to transfer successes to the old Victoria Theater, blew up in one of his bankruptcies. The Jinx was again monarch of all he surveyed—and Monte-Cristo-like held up four fingers! That old "prompt book" mentioned shows the wear and tear of much use and is filled with odd notes in Allison's characteristic handwriting. No less interesting were the "Librettist's Notes on Characters in the Opera and the Business," dated October 21, 1897, and taken from an old letter-press ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock

... that's the easiest way out of it for everybody. Next trip to Matinicus I'll order a hind quarter from Rockland. It'll mean a little more wear and tear on the company's pocketbook, but a good deal less on ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... start in a moment, you shall have that pleasure. Of course, I could run it for you now, while the machine is standing still, but they say it's poor practice to race your engine. If you do so, the wear and tear ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond

... your praise both of myself and my poem, because it comes from a good quarter. You saw me where and how a man is best seen—at home, and in his every-day wear and tear, mind and manners: I have no holiday suit, and never seek to shine: such as it is, my light is always burning. Somewhat of my character you may find in Chaucer's Clerk of Oxenford; and the concluding line of that description ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... remarked that Mr. Garrick was beginning to look old, he said, "Why, Sir, you are not to wonder at that; no man's face has had more wear and tear."' ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... his example if I could, but it was impossible. My stubborn constitution seemed to defy the destructive wear and tear of prolonged hunger and thirst; but my sufferings were beyond the power of language to portray; my craving hunger was so intense that I believe I could have eaten and enjoyed any food, however revolting, could I but have obtained it; while my thirst was so overpowering that ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... been. I reach forward gladly, too, for life holds much that is sweet to old age, which youth can in no wise comprehend. Possibly this is one reason why youth is so anxious to concentrate enjoyment. But I am tired of concentration. There is a wear and tear about it which precludes the possibility of pleasure. I want to take the rest of my life gently, and by redoubled tenderness repay it for rude handling in my youth—that youth which lies very far away from me to-night and is wrapped ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... months she had raised the thousand; but she wrote Miss Grant, "I do not recollect being so fatigued, even to prostration, as I have been for a few weeks past." She often quoted a remark of Dr. Lyman Beecher's, "The wear and tear of what I cannot do is a great deal more than the wear and tear of what I do." When she became quite worn, her habit was to sleep nearly all the time, for two or three days, till ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... of natives are busily engaged in building them into one of those huge rafts so constantly met with on the river. These rafts have a long journey before them, and constantly grounding as they do, no ropes would hold them together through all the wear and tear of their weeks upon the water, so instead of ropes rattan is used. This is a peculiarly long, tough, and flexible cane, which grows all over the forests, and is often a hundred yards or more in length. The logs are mostly of teak (about which I will tell you ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly

... won't speak of it. The next best thing is an ordinary easel which doesn't cost a great deal, but which is firm and solid and practical. Don't get one of the various three-legged folding easels which cost about seventy-five cents or a dollar. They tumble down too often and too easily. The wear and tear on the temper they cause is more than they are worth. It is true that they fold up out of the way. But they fold up when you don't expect them to; and you ought to be able to afford room enough for an easel anyway, if ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... of this B. B. & B. B. Company that I am constantly answering questions as to your ages, looks, and other personal matters. I think it will be a splendid plan to have all of you meet them soon and spare me so many extra words and time, to say nothing of wear and tear ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... mothers worked or wore, is an object for affectionate sentiment, and the best specimens alone are preserved. That which belonged to our grandfathers and grandmothers has receded into the rococo; and a few more generations take us back to the antique, of which so little survives, from wear and tear, carelessness and theft, that we put away and preserve it as being curious and precious. We may hope that the general law of the survival of the fittest has ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... Sir Stamford Raffles ordered its excavation, the work being accomplished in less than two months. Since then the Dutch have taken further steps to restore and preserve it, though unfortunately the stone of which it is built was too soft to withstand the wear and tear of centuries, many of the bas-reliefs now being almost effaced. It remains, however, one of the greatest religious monuments ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... room appear still lower. (A breakfast room done in lacquer is very effective, however, if not too low.) A single large rug, harmonizing with the wall color scheme is admirable in any room. In the dining room, however, a figured carpet is often preferred for practical reasons: it stands wear and tear around the table better. Well-chosen paper (See Chapter II) often improves a badly proportioned room by optical illusion. The ideal lightings for dining rooms are side lights. Dining-room drop lights or domes are very trying to the eyes of those who dine, and are unbecoming. Side lights (adding ...
— Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration • Lillian B. Lansdown

... prophets of Palestine, the magicians of Persia, and the sages of Greece and Rome. They have actually been able to hold their own from the days of HOMER, through those of HORACE, down even to those of HAGGARD. I have seen the wear and tear of the Pyramids of Egypt (which is nothing to that of a lionised hero in Societas); I can certify that the Sphynx presents a very battered appearance indeed (though not so battered as mine, after the "little people" had done with me), ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various

... agreeable siesta, but, what the event showed of more consequence, the pleasing satisfaction of not being disconcerted by novelty on his awakening. It is possible that the waiter who brought him the water to shave, for Rip's beard, we are told, had grown uncommonly long—might exhibit a little of that wear and tear to which humanity is liable from time; but had he questioned him as to the ruling topics—the proper amusements of the day —he would have heard, as he might have done twenty years before, that there was a meeting to convert Jews at the Rotunda; ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever

... his response. Oh, there is no doubt about her accepting him; but the question is, not how does she feel now, but how will she feel a year or two years from now? As I grow older, I grow more conservative on these things. There is such an amount of wear and tear in the ordinary strain of married life that I hate to see cruel and unusual ones added. If Winifred Anstice should ever or could ever— There, I will not allow myself even to think about it, for it would be so much harder to give it up afterward ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... in 1613. She was baptized the day before. Whoever thought of that was a bright and thoughtful thinker. She stood the wear and tear of civilization for three years, and then died, leaving an infant son, who has ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... strengthen my contention that Dr. Hort took wrongly Conflation for the reverse process? That in the earliest ages, when the Church did not include in her ranks so much learning as it has possessed ever since, the wear and tear of time, aided by unfaith and carelessness, made itself felt in many an instance of destructiveness which involved a temporary chipping of the Sacred Text all through the Holy Gospels? And, in fact, that Conflation at least as an extensive ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon

... unconfessable truth. It is not enough to speak; you must know words. When you have said, "I am in pain," or when you have said, "I am right," you have said nothing in reality, you have only spoken to yourself. The real presence of truth is not in every word of truth, because of the wear and tear of words, and the fleeting multiplicity of arguments. One must have the gift of persuasion, of leaving to truth its speaking simplicity, its solemn unfoldings. It is not I who will be able to speak from the depths of myself. The attention of men dazzles ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... Froissart. Peter was rather eclectic in his tastes, but they were thoroughly sound. On the table were the contents of Peter's pockets, turned out nightly by the express orders of his father, for this is war-time, and the wear and tear of schoolboys' jackets is a prodigious item of expenditure. I made a rapid mental inventory ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... suppose that a friendship founded and sustained in this fashion would be tolerably secure against the wear and tear of life, especially if no personal difficulties intervened. And so it might in any other land; but literary Frenchmen are too much sentimentalists and doctrinaires to allow friendship or anything else to stand in the way of the expression of their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... flimsy and perishable fabric, not of that less gaudy but more substantial and durable texture, which, imparting permanent warmth and comfort, will long preserve its more sober honours, and stand the wear and tear of life, and the vicissitudes of seasons. It has been shewn, that these qualities often fail us when most we want their aid; that their possessors can solace themselves with their imaginary exertions in behalf of ideal misery, and yet shrink from the labours ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... The fierce wear and tear of such an existence has wasted out the giant oaken strength of Mirabeau. A fret and fever that keeps heart and brain on fire: excess of effort, of excitement; excess of all kinds: labour incessant, almost beyond credibility! 'If I had not lived with him,' says Dumont, 'I should never ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... have it, the state of the road was, on the whole, rather worse than any we had used since we left Boulogne. Presumably untouched for over six years, the wear and tear to which, as one of the arteries springing from a great port, it had been subjected, had turned a sleek highway into a shadow of itself. There was no flesh; the skin was broken; ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... The thought of his friend killed by wear and tear was inexpressibly painful to him. He remembered—he would never forget—the day in the woods, Helen's 'I'm sick to death of it.' That Helen had a secret sorrow, and that it was preying upon her, he felt sure, and there was pride for him in the thought that he ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... strong enough to endure the wear and tear of gambling excitement. No wonder if, after having failed in the game, men have begun to sweep off imaginary gold from the side of the table. The man was sharp enough when he started at the game, but a maniac at the close. At every gaming-table ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... vibration caused by this propeller is so slight as to be hardly noticeable, thereby effecting a saving in the wear and tear of the engine and machinery. This may also be a consideration in promoting the comfort ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... are of galvanized steel and provided with open twin buckles. The main parts of the apparatus are of steel, and all pieces subject to wear and tear are fitted with bushes so formed that they can be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various

... gentle fall towards the sea, to have carried them for miles down its channel unless ice co-operated as a transporting power. Their angularity also favours the supposition of their having been floated by ice, or rendered so buoyant by it as to have escaped much of the wear and tear which blocks propelled along the bottom of a river channel would otherwise suffer. We must remember that the present mildness of the winters in Picardy and the northwest of Europe generally is exceptional ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... has always considered an "under-cylindered" locomotive as a defective machine. All weight is a distinct debit, in the shape of wear and tear of track and running gear, resistance due to gravity on grades, interest on cost, etc. When this weight fails to earn a credit in the way of tractive efficiency, ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Beverly S. Randolph

... ask—stand hat in hand—and humbly ask the secretary of the Spinner' Union to be so kind as to furnish us with labour at their own price. That's what they want—they, who haven't the sense to see that, if we don't get a fair share of the profits to compensate us for our wear and tear here in England, we can move off to some other country; and that, what with home and foreign competition, we are none of us likely to make above a fair share, and may be thankful enough if we can get that, in an average number ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... somethin' that gives me a pain. That wizened-up landshark of a Jerry Clifford is in sight, bound to the post-office, I cal'late. Goin' to put a one-cent stamp on a letter and let the feller that gets it pay the other cent, I suppose. He always asks the postmaster to lick the stamp, so's to save the wear and tear on his own tongue. That's a fact. . . . No," he added, a moment later, "he ain't goin' to the office; he's turnin' down the lane here. . . . Eh! Jumpin' fire of brimstone, I do believe—WHAT in ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... her school, and the inner one where she slept. Dame Datchett's scholars were very young, and it is to be hoped that the chief objects of their parents in paying for their schooling were to insure their being kept safely out of the way for a certain portion of each day, and the saving of wear and tear to clothes and shoes. It is to be hoped so, because this much of discipline was to some extent accomplished. As to learning, Dame Datchett had little enough herself, and was quite unable to impart even that, except to a ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... say so!' cried his father. 'I am delighted to hear it. It saves us the worry, and terrible wear and tear of a long explanation, and is a great relief for both. At the very house! Why didn't you come up? I should have been charmed to ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... and probably sooner than later, that he has got a very hard master; and the excessive weakness which shrinks from responsibility has its own punishment too, for where great interests are excluded little matters become great, and the same wear and tear of mind that might have been at least usefully and healthfully expended on the real business of life is often wasted in petty and imaginary vexations, such as breed and multiply in the ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... ingenium, not without some tincture of those elements of the Scottish character known as the "canny" and the "dour," our worker early developed that robust vigour of mind and body which has so long stood the wear and tear of severely trying work. ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe

... tenants, coverin' up the suite, but you've no call to do it. You wouldn't be likely to soil it much, and I always say when you let a house furnished, you can't expect it to continue without wear and tear; so don't, please, bother to cover it with those old things. Lor' bless me, it takes me back to see it! It was my first suite after I married Mr. Gurrage, and we had a pretty place on Balham Hill. We put ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn

... sure to come when the crops would no longer be adequate for all. Furthermore, a positive danger threatened the people in their dwellings. The rock, being extremely friable, crumbled constantly; and now and then inhabited caves were falling a prey to the wear and tear of the material in which they had been excavated. As this slow decay was sure to continue, it was logical to expect that room must be found for the houseless outside. Already the Corn clan had been compelled to build a house in the bottom ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... depreciation on buildings, tools, fixtures, or anything else suffering from age or wear and tear. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... organism requires a certain amount of nourishment according to the work performed and to replenish wear and tear; when food is supplied in excess, the system cannot utilize it, but it is compelled to rid itself of the excess in some way. The work involved in this eliminating process is exceedingly detrimental to the various organs and to the individual. To overeat is to overwork, and to ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... told for its intrinsic merits, but because it illustrates the difference of method between English and German women. The German with much wear and tear of body and spirit washes her own lace curtains. She saves a little money, and spends a great deal of time over them. The Englishwoman, when she possibly can, likes to spend her time in a different way. In both countries there are admirable housekeepers, and middling housekeepers, ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... girl is, to some extent, accomplished, pious, virtuous, and intelligent. I believe sometimes that my apparent indifference towards Agnes arises from the fact that I respect her—if anything—too much. She seems too remote—that is the word—for the ordinary wear and tear of domesticity. Other men—who might be called impassioned lovers—would be less scrupulous. I maintain that devotion of that violent kind is worth absolutely nothing. And I claim to know a ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... days getting to the straits, a distance of forty miles only. These are considerations worthy of the attention of merchants, the length of the voyage not being the sole source of annoyance, since vessels taking cargoes at Aden save the great wear and tear occasioned in their return ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... Which were carried on the shoulders of slaves. This prohibition had for its object either to save the wear and tear in the narrow streets, or to pay respect to the liberties ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... business, please, and be done with that impertinent demoiselle. What! she must have letter for letter! Of course it's a blessing she ceased to correspond with you. But all the same, just see what these creatures are. No sympathy with the wear and tear of your life. All petty egotisms and vanities! What do they care about your world-reaching purposes? Yes, they'll sit at your feet, but their own enjoyment or mental development is all they're thinking of. These Russian girls are the most dreadful. I know ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... the carriage and its apparatus is estimated at 1-1/2 tons, and its wear and tear of the road, as compared with a carriage drawn by four horses, is as one to six. When the carriage is in progress the machinery is not heard, nor is there so much vibration as in an ordinary vehicle, from the superior solidity of the structure. The engine has a twelve-horse power, but may ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various

... personage was kept puffing and tearing round the vicinity, they knew there was no fear of disturbance from the treacherous red-skins, who were so constantly on the alert to avenge themselves for the loss they had suffered in the attack; but it would hardly pay to keep an iron man as sentinel, as the wear and tear in all probability would be too much ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis

... of broken rest led only to another day of moving on. There were no breakfasts to hinder our early starting. The meagre bit of mule meat doled out sparingly when there was enough of this luxury to be given out, eaten now without salt, was our only food. Our clothing tattered with wear and tear, hung on our gaunt frames. Our lips did not close over our teeth; our eyes above hollow cheeks stared out like the eyes of dead men. The bloom of health had turned to a sickly yellow hue; but we were all alike, and ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... countenances; the children were paler and more pinched. Apart from the constant dangers of shells and stray bullets, and the knowledge that, when we were taking leave of any friend for a few hours, it might be the last farewell on earth—apart from these facts, which constituted a constant wear and tear of mind, the impossibility of making any adequate reply to our enemy's bombardment gradually preyed on the garrison. By degrees, also, our extreme isolation seemed to come home to us, and not a few opined that relief would probably never come, and that ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... untold number of pretty and ingenious things one does (not wear out in honourable wear and tear, but) utterly lose, and wilfully destroy, in one's young days—things that would have given pleasure to so many more young eyes, if they had been kept a little longer—things that one would so value ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... absolutely plain. Women, however, are never fair judges of female beauty, we all know that, though I rather wonder at my uncle's want of taste. Beautiful she certainly is not—in the sense in which I might have understood the word a twelvemonth ago; but a little wear and tear in the world makes us look below the surface. I could envy a fellow now who had such a girl for his sister; it makes a man selfish and frivolous if he has only himself to think of. I don't believe I should ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach

... course of life a boy goes to a trade which offers him the highest wages. If he can begin by earning eightpence a week, he will not go elsewhere to earn sixpence if the wear and tear of shoes and clothes is the same in both cases, although the sixpenny occupation may perhaps be better suited to his tastes, ability, and general aptitude. To his mother the extra two pence are a consideration; they may cover some weekly contribution to a necessary ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough

... hours of reflection would not have produced. The most remarkable effect was the permanent elevation of the land round the Bay of Concepcion by several feet. The convulsion was more effectual in lessening the size of the island of Quiriquina off the coast than the ordinary wear and tear of the sea and weather during the course of a whole century; but on the other hand, on the Island of St. Maria putrid mussel-shells, still adhering to the rocks, were found ten feet above high-water mark. Near Juan Fernandez Island a volcano uprose from under the water ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... food is used to build the body if we are young, and to restore the daily wear and tear if we are older. The mineral salts are also necessary for this purpose. Protein will be discussed further in the chapter on meat and meat substitutes, but it should be realized here that the protein we eat comes not only from these foods, but also ...
— Food Guide for War Service at Home • Katharine Blunt, Frances L. Swain, and Florence Powdermaker



Words linked to "Wear and tear" :   write-off, financial loss, write-down, straight-line method, non-cash expense, straight-line method of depreciation



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