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Zig

noun
1.
An angular shape characterized by sharp turns in alternating directions.  Synonyms: zag, zigzag.



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"Zig" Quotes from Famous Books



... he remembered a mistress who had ceased to love him, and he had persecuted her for a long while with supplication. "She is at one with herself always," he said, and he tried to understand her. "She is one of those whose course through life is straight, and not zig-zag, as mine is." He liked to see her turn and look at the baby, and he said, "That love is the permanent and original element of things, it is the universal substance;" and he could trace Ellen's love of her child in her love of him; these loves were not two loves, but one love. And when walking ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... window looking out on the ant-hill street Rachel covered her face with her hands. When she removed them she caught a glimpse of the figure of Hazlitt walking as if it were a blind man in zig-zags down the pavement. ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... stars twinkled among their shattered and darkened walls. The moon burned icily above the eastern hills. The nightingales (or John was no true prophet) sang better than they had ever sung before, while bats, hither, thither, flew in startling zig-zags, as if waltzing to the music. And all the air was sweet with the breath ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland

... and crumpled creeps! Springing toward him, with a scowl on his face and a long knife with a zig-zag blade in his uplifted hand, was that very Chinaman from whose body he had ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum

... of narrow, meandering lanes, and zig-zagging backwards and forwards through all kinds of gardens and rookeries, Halil Patrona arrived at ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai

... rolled over the zig-zag road out of Ithaca, we had a source of consolation in the fact that we had evaded the send-off which the Cornell men had planned in the expectation that we were to leave ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... numbered about four hundred men. The line of march was about ninety miles in length, as estimated by the zig-zag course ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... that!" said Quillan. "If you have the time and the money, it's also a good idea, of course, to zig a few times before you zag towards where you're really heading. Actually, I suppose, the credit for picking you up so fast should go ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... from this group stands a tall man, leaning moodily upon the muzzle of his musket, while he watches the zig-zag paths up ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng

... "there was a man walking the streets of Ballarat who was known by no other name than Jimmy. He would never beg and never lie down twice in the same spot to sleep if others got to know of it. People gave him food at the door, or, if not, he went to the Asylum for it. I used to see him taking a zig-zag path about the same time each day. When spoken to he would never reply. He had been in this condition since thirty years ago. Then he was a prosperous digger, but some others drugged him, and took ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton

... de montagne qui me persuada la premiere que toutes les montagnes n'avoient pas une meme origine. Le lieu ou j'abjurai mon erreur, etoit un de ces grands chantiers petrifies, qui, par la variete du tortillement, et des zig-zags des fibres du moellon qui le composoit, attira singulierement mon attention. C'etoit un sort grand talus qui venoit d'une face escarpee; j'y montai pour m'approcher du rocher, et je remarquai, avec etonnement, des multitudes de paquets enchevetres les uns dans les ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton

... the intense yellow sunlight which fringed them where the leafage ceased. An attempt had been made to create formal garden paths and garden beds by sticking rushes into little holes drilled in the ground, but the paths were zig-zag as a drunkard's walk, and the round and oblong beds contained no trace of plants. On either hand rose steep walls of earth, higher than a man, and crowned with prickly thorn bushes. Over them looked palm trees. At the end of the garden ran a slow stream of muddy water in a channel with crumbling ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... make it lose its natural lightness, suppleness and fluent rapidity. What, after all, is the use? She is expected to play the sixths and octaves with the greatest velocity (which no man will accomplish, not even Clementi), and if she tries she will produce a frightful zig-zag, and nothing more. Clementi is a Ciarlatano like all Italians. He writes upon a sonata Presto, or even Prestissimo and alla breve, and plays it Allegro in 4-4 time. I know it because I have heard him! What he does well is his passages in thirds; but he perspired over these day and night in ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel

... stretched the rich green of the water-meads, glowing yellow in the sunlight. The little river hardly seemed to move in its zig-zag path, though the evening breeze was strong enough to show the silver side of the willows that drooped over it. Jan wondered if he could match all these tints in the wood, and whether Master Swift would be willing to have leaf- pictures ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... the tin roofs of the houses and churches glittered in the sun and gave a brilliant effect. We returned to the boat and rowed again across the river below the bridge, and here, owing to the strength of the current our boat had to pursue a most zig-zag path, pulling up under the eddy of each buttress, but our boatmen knew well what they were about, as they are in the habit of taking Mr. Hodges daily to the bridge and it was very pretty to hear the warning of doucement! doucement! from the ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter

... void be supplied by maukish sentiment, horse-collar grins, wood-demons, and other show-cattle of the Smithfield muses! May you be visited by a locust tribe of scribblers, who shall conspire to torment that groaning martyr, the Press, with ducal lampoons, drowsy epics, and zig-zag heroics! With Hope the upholsterer, and Bryon the idler, with Joe Miller in quarto, Genius in thin duodecimo, Leadenhall romances, and Puritan biography: and should your worship ever find yourself deviating from the path of virtue, may Hannah Glasse preserve your temperance, Hannah More your ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... soon found one convenient for the experiment, and availed himself of it, as before. This hope was also disappointed. His foe still hung with staunch perseverance on his trail. He now perceived by their movements, that they were conducted by a dog, that easily ran in zig-zag directions, when at fault, until it had re-scented his course. The expedient of Boone was the only one that seemed adequate to save him. His gun was reloaded. The dog was in advance of the Indians, still scenting his track. ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

... said and let myself drift out the hatch. I had enough sense to twist so that my back jet wouldn't hit the ship. Then I took a zig-zag course through the darkness to my bird, got oriented at the open gate and went back to work. Before I could get started, my ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman

... moment the Baron's carriage appeared on the zig-zag road below the chateau, and Madame de Clericy's face assumed an expression of placid resignation. In due time the vehicle, with its gorgeous yellow wheels, reached the level space upon which the party stood. The Baron Giraud emerged from the satin-lined recesses of the ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... toward the zig-zags," I suggested. "There is a seat within a hundred yards, if you don't think it too cold to sit, but in any case I needn't keep you many minutes. Bob Evers," I continued, as my suggestion was tacitly accepted, "paid me the compliment of confiding ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung

... northern hemisphere. Its advent was announced by a flash of light which illuminated the whole city. A long fiery streak marked its course, and remained visible for more than a minute. At first this streak was perfectly straight, but, after it had begun to fade, it broke into a zig-zag." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various

... the same size; amphorae pointed at the lower extremity; and other varieties. They are coloured, generally, either in longitudinal or in horizontal stripes and bands; but the bands often deviate from the straight line into zig-zags, which are always more or less irregular, like the zig-zags of the Norman builders, while sometimes they are deflected into crescents, or other curves, as particularly one resembling a willow-leaf. ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... changes of her expressive face did not bear out Jerry's optimistic conjecture that the "inside" was all right. Judging from Peggy's crestfallen air, it was all wrong. The note was not written in Lucy's usual regular hand. The letters straggled, the lines zig-zagged across the page, and the name signed was almost an unintelligible scrawl. But Peggy thought less of these superficial matters than ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

... was situated at a few paces from the pathway. There was nothing about it to arrest the attention of a passer-by, except, perhaps, all appearance of extreme but picturesque humility. The walls were riveted together with iron-bands in crossbars and zig-zags; the brickwork was decayed and crumbling away in blotches; the roof was low and thatched. Yet, in spite of these evidences of poverty, the scholar regarded the structure with a reverential aspect, with such an aspect as he might have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... I didn't mean to laugh," Adela was saying to herself as she fell back in the zig-zag path down the rocks. "I wish I hadn't—I'll —I'll—" What she meant to do wasn't very clear in her mind; what she did do, was to run up to her grandmother's and her room, and toss her sketch-book on the table, and herself on the bed, for a ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney

... once affording through them a view of this chapel. In the east end, on the north side, are three lancet-shaped windows, forming one great window, divided by slender pillars, and having mouldings, with zig-zag ornaments. The tracery windows on the south side are masoned up, but much of the original tracery remains. At the north-east corner are remains of sharp-pointed arches; here also is an enclosure with table, desk, and elevated seat. This part is, properly speaking, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various

... from the lower forms of matter, until finally the Absolute Idea is again realized in the Hegelian philosophy. According to Hegel, the dialectic development apparent in nature and history, that is a causative, connected progression from the lower to the higher, in spite of all zig-zag movements and momentary setbacks, is only the stereotype of the self-progression of the Idea from eternity, whither one does not know, but independent at all events of the thought of any human brain. ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels

... cheering of the crowd. When standing for so many miles tired him, he sat high up on the folded hood, with one of his suite to hold him, and he did not stop waving his hat. In this way he accomplished the thirty-six miles ride, only slipping down into his seat as the car mounted the stiff zig-zag that led up Mount Royal ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... forward of the rule containing the types. This was a crank to be turned by the hand. The marking or writing apparatus at the receiving instrument was a pendulum arranged to be swung across the slip of paper, as it was unwound from the drum, making a zig-zag mark the points of which were to be counted, a certain number of points meaning a certain numeral, which numeral meant a word. A separate type was used to represent each numeral, having a corresponding number of projections or teeth. A telegraphic dictionary ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele

... Combeferre were among those who had taken to the Rue Bassompierre, shouting: "To the barricades!" In the Rue Lesdiguieres they had met an old man walking along. What had attracted their attention was that the goodman was walking in a zig-zag, as though he were intoxicated. Moreover, he had his hat in his hand, although it had been raining all the morning, and was raining pretty briskly at the very time. Courfeyrac had recognized Father Mabeuf. He knew him through having many times accompanied Marius as far as his ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... place, small, square, of flints, but little higher than the roof. In it is only one bell, inscribed 1759. The entrance into the church on the N. side is through a circular Saxon arch, not much ornamented. On the side is another of the same description, but more ornamented, with zig-zag moulding, &c." Then follow the inscriptions, &c. in the chancel, of Mrs. Elizabeth Brown, John Brown, Thomas Brown; in the nave, of Henry Keable, with extracts from the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various

... more interesting than the Italian front was in the autumn of 1917. The south face of the Alps often is green and beautiful, but generally the northern faces of those mountains are bleak and rugged and steep. The battle line ran a zig-zag course through the mountains, now meeting in gulches, now scurrying away up to mesas, again climbing to the top of the barren heights. We stood one sunny day on a quiet sector of the Pasubio. We were with the Liguria brigade, the 157-158th infantry. Through a peep-hole ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White

... done in the old Scott Phonautograph of 1857, thus forming a groove of uniform depth, but of wavy character, in which the sides of the groove act upon the tracing point instead of the bottom, as is the case in the vertical type. This form we named the zig-zag form, and referred to it in that way in our notes. Its important advantage in guiding the reproducing needle I first called attention to in the note on p. 9-Vol 1-Home Notes on March 29-1881, and endeavored to use it in my early work, but encountered so much difficulty in getting a form ...
— Development of the Phonograph at Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Laboratory • Leslie J. Newville

... I began to sing one of our ancient songs, which was the signal that I had agreed upon with Tupac, and presently, one after another, silent, stealthy forms crept out from the angles of the great zig-zag wall and came towards me. One of them, taller than the rest, threw an iron bar that he was carrying across his shoulders, and came and stood before me with bowed-down head, waiting for me to speak. I knew that it was Tupac, ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith

... man undaunted creeps And hangs his small wood-hut upon the steeps, Where'er, below, amid the savage scene Peeps out a little speck of smiling green. A garden-plot the mountain air perfumes, Mid the dark pines a little orchard blooms; A zig-zag path from the domestic skiff, Threading the painful ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... A zig-zag old rack with its ivies and moss, Just fifty-odd panels or so; A wheat-field, a scythe and a boy his own boss; He ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... the silence, insect voices came from under the grass. I got on my elephant's back and sat there quietly, for as the evening Silence goes by, each man must make his prayer. As the Silence walked on, I could see the grass waving in zig-zag curves across the river. It was always making half the figure eight in the undergrowth ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji

... "only be careful in going down the Zig-zag; I don't want to find you a little heap of broken bones at the bottom of ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous

... They zig-zagged their tedious way out across the marshy grassland, their thin shoes squelching in the bogs, their trousers unmercifully spattered with the thick, treacley mud. They spoke little, their eyes ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... Bay, or China Seas, or in any other waters haunted by his race. So that Monsoons, Pampas, Nor'-Westers, Harmattans, Trades; any wind but the Levanter and Simoon, might blow Moby Dick into the devious zig-zag world-circle of the Pequod's ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... could dart away, wrenched the gun from him, and brained him with the butt. A cry of the utmost horror rang out upon the air, and, uttering it, another native bounded out from a hiding-place close to where the first had been killed, and flew zig-zagging across the open where Cedric was. Evidently he had no intention of molesting the little fellow, for he fled straight on past him, still shrieking after the accident occurred; but to Ferralt it seemed as if his intention were to murder the boy, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... or more rightly passes between two lines of rocky hills, and for a time, as it is pitch dark, we stumble along to keep our places in the column. But soon, the eastern crest is silhouetted by the rising moon, and as the silver light pours down the slope we see the road before us, zig-zagging its way 'into the depths,' and there, a mile in front, the head of the Brigade worming its way, like a ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown

... in Warwick was a three-storied brick building of dignified Colonial style, built during Washington's first administration. The foundations had settled somewhat, as more than one crack, zig-zagging upward from window to window, bore witness; and many an iron clamp had stained the walls, suggesting to the sentimental mind that the old building was weeping rusty tears over the degeneracy of the times. However, the Hall was ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... the Commander-in-Chief, with a large force, marched into the city from Zag-a-zig. He was met with acclamation by the entire populace, and received from the officer in command of the party to which our hero belonged the surrender of Arabi and Toulba Pashas; thus the war of rebellion, which had ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld

... figure 1 which shows the charger at one end of the line and the wire supported by the line posts and a short single post opposite each tree. The one year old seedlings were planted 4 feet from the fence at alternate posts and the wire zig-zagged along the line to create the guards around the trees. Within a few days after planting and completion of the electric guards the trees were mulched to control weeds and conserve ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various

... springing after her up the rugged stair. Narrow loopholes, almost concealed without by trees and brushwood, dimly lighted the staircase, as also a low, narrow passage, which branched off in zig-zag windings at the top, and terminated, as their woody path had done, in a solid wall. But again an invisible door flew open, closing behind them; and after walking about a hundred yards through prickly shrubs and entangled brushwood that obscured his sight, Marie paused, and Arthur gazed round ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... girl caught sight of this last boat she began rapidly to descend the 300 feet of cliff which separated her from the cove below. The path began in easy zig-zags, which, however, got gradually steeper, and the last thirty feet of the descent consisted of a sheer face of rock, in which were fixed two or three iron stanchions with a rope running from one to the other to serve as a handrail; and the climber must depend for other assistance on ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall

... with different, though often only slightly different, inclinations. As most of the nearly parallel ridges which together form the Cordillera run approximately north and south, the east and west valleys cross them in zig-zag lines, bursting through the points where the strata have been least inclined. No doubt the greater part of the denudation was affected at the periods when tidal- creeks occupied the valleys, and when the outer flanks of the mountains were exposed to the full force ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin

... he had rarely ventured, so treacherous its ways. What cared he now! He made great leaps and his muscles and sinews responded to the thought of him. To cross that morass safely required a touch on tussocks and an upbounding aside, a zig-zag exhibition of great strength and knowingness and recklessness. But it was unreasoning; it was the instinct begotten of long training and, now, of the absence of all nervousness. Each taut toe touched ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... wheel, or a spatter of hard snow-flicks where feet had trodden. Sometimes none of these were distinct, but one got an impression of lines which guided. The trouble was that on the outward track one had to shape course constantly to avoid the heaviest mounds, and consequently there were many zig-zags. We lost a good deal over a mile by these halts, in which we unharnessed and went on the search for signs. However, by hook or crook, we managed to stick on the old track. Came on the cairn quite suddenly, marched past it, and camped for lunch at 7 miles. In the afternoon the sastrugi gradually ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... the messenger to Macbeth; and when the shock was over, he was so sick, that he ran out of the house without making any remarks. The scarlet hucamaya, with a loud shriek, flew from its perch, and performed a zig-zag flight through the air, down to the troubled ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... a mere patch—scarcely two acres in extent— and the rude rail-fence, that zig-zags around it, attests that the owner is satisfied with the dimensions of his agricultural domain. There are no recent marks of the axe—not even the "girdling" of a tree—nothing to show that another rood is required. The squatter is essentially a hunter; and hates the sight of an ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... as suicidal to ignore the operation of the one as that of the other. Mournful complaint is as impotent as an infant crying against the fury of the wild wind. History has taught you that the path of moral progress has never taken a straight line, but has ever been a zig-zag course amid the conflicting forces of right and wrong, truth and error, justice and injustice, cruelty and mercy. Do not be discouraged, then, that all the wrongs of the universe are not righted at your bidding. The great humanitarian movement ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 3, September, 1898 • Various

... down, in a very zig-zag course, now looking forward towards the Cheese-Wring from the top of a rock, now losing sight of it altogether in the depths of a hollow. By the time we had advanced about half way over the distance it was necessary for us to walk, we observed, towards the left hand, a wide circle of ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... room, which had escaped the general wreck. After partaking of some refreshments, we seated ourselves; and, with fresh lamentations, he began to tell me that the gray, withered old man whom he had met with my shadow had insensibly led him such a zig-zag race, that he had lost all traces of me, and at last sank down exhausted with fatigue; that, unable to find me, he had returned home, when, shortly after, the mob, at Rascal's instigation, assembled violently before the house, broke the windows, and by all sorts of excesses ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various

... can't acknowledge him. There's an end of the matter. You Surrey crow, take a dozen of our mates, and drive that Ishmael away." The wounded bird knows his doom. He fumbles his way through the branches, and flies off zig-zag and low; but the flight soon mob him. They laugh at him, and one can positively tell that they are chattering in derision. Presently one of them buffets him; and that is the signal for a general assault. ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... was mighty pretty, but it didn't tell me where to find a meal; so I baled out the boat and paddled along the eastern edge of the lake searching the cliffs for a path, and after an hour or so I hit on what looked to me like a foot-track, zig-zagging up through the creepers and across the face of the rock. I determined to try it, made the boat fast to a clump of fern, slung O'Hara's cornet on to my side-belt and began ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Kitts is about one hundred and twenty miles, measured on the most accurate charts, and while it could have easily been made in a day's sail by the Tartar, it was decided not to try for any time limit, but to cruise back and forth in a rather zig-zag fashion. ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose

... direction I saw two deer standing in a little opening watching the smoke intently. They showed no fear, merely curiosity. But as I approached closer to its smouldering edge, I met birds in excited, zig-zagging flight. Along a brook I found fresh bear tracks. Bruin had galloped hastily from the ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... her aunt's house; and charming as the inside was, the outside, I must say, was still "charminger." There seemed no end to the little up-and-down paths and alleys, leading to rustic seats and quaint arbours; no limits to the little pine-wood, down into which led the dearest little zig-zaggy path you ever saw, all bordered with snow-drops and primroses and violets, and later on with periwinkles, and wood anemones, and those bright, starry, white flowers, whose name ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth

... communication from one to the other. Communicating trenches also extend to the rear of the cover trenches and provide safe passage to fresh troops or supplies. These trenches are usually laid out in zig zag or curved lines (Fig. 39), to prevent enfilade fire from sweeping them. As a general rule excavated earth is placed on both sides of the trench to afford protection, the depth is usually from 6 to 7 feet. (Fig. 15) ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... had, it must be added, a verandah and zig-zag balustrades running all round. It was erected over the water, in the centre of a pond, and had on the four sides window-frames of carved wood work, stuck with paper. So when Pao-ch'ai caught, from without the pavilion, the sound of voices, she at once stood ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... and big stones; but this avenue has a smooth and level floor, as if the sand had been spread out by gently flowing waters. Through this, descending more and more, you come to a deep arch, by which you enter the Winding Way; a strangely irregular and zig-zag path, so narrow that a very stout man could not squeeze through. In some places, the rocks at the sides are on a line with your shoulders, then piled high over your head; and then again you rise above, and overlook them all, and see them heaped behind you, like ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... columns which, as shown by fragments still existing and by marks on either side the door, tapered downward as in the sculptured column over the Lion Gate. Shafts, bases, and capitals were covered with zig-zag bands or chevrons of fine spirals. This well-studied decoration, the banded jambs, and the curiously inverted columns (of which several other examples exist in or near Mycen), all point to a fairly developed ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin

... her to join them in an expedition to the Tyrol, which lasted till the end of September. On her return, she was dropped at Bexley, where her sisters were greatly edified by her sketch-book, a perfect journal in clever scenes and groups, like the 'Voyage en zig-zag.' Two of the gentlemen seemed always in waiting on the graceful outline that did duty for Alda; and indeed, she gave Wilmet to understand that only the skill that played them off one against the other had averted an offer from each, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... be so good!' she answered, feeling a diffidence which was new to her. At that moment the crowd carrying the senseless man began to appear over the cliff, coming up the zig-zag. The Doctor hurried towards him; she followed at a little distance, fearing lest she should hamper him. Under his orders they laid the patient on the weather side of the bonfire so that the smoke would not reach him. The Doctor knelt by ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... huge tents encamped along the rolling prairie. Up to this great camp, of which a length of 200 miles is sometimes visible, the rivers wind in trenches, looking like the covered ways by which siege works zig-zag up to a besieged city. On a nearer view the camp line changes to ruined marble palaces, and through their tremendous walls and giant woods you will soon be dashing on the train for a winter basking on the warm Pacific coast. You have ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

... forth, zig-zagging from bank to bank, covering every foot of space, and still the needle hung steadfastly to ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... and, indeed, the prospect was anything but inviting. On both sides of the creek the soil showed evidences of the severity of the past drought. Great gaping fissures—usun cracks we called them—traversed and zig-zagged the hot, parching ground, on which not a blade of grass was to be seen. Here and there, amid the grey-barked ghostly gums, were oases of green—thickets of stunted sandalwood whose evergreen leaves defied alike the torrid summer heat and the black frosts of ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke

... ZIG, a giant cock in the Talmud (q. v.), which stands with its foot on the earth, touches heaven with its head, and when it spreads its wings causes a ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... They can't go off it without snowshoes. With half a company that I could depend on, I'd defend it against a regiment. If I wanted breastworks all I've got to do is to dig paths in the snow. I could hold Lee till the snow melts or till they took it by zig-zags and parallels through the drifts. But there's no use talking about any such thing, for there's no fight left in the men, not a bit. If they had ever so little grit left, we might hold out long enough at least to get ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... over in many places with tiny red lines which made zig-zags and curves over the blankness of the region south of the ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... Zig-zagging about, always keeping his eyes open for bush-raiders, wild beasts, and, above all, for the strange island, he had spent four days in the wilderness, when he felt that it was time for him to ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood

... in two general forms. The first form is a trough whose bottom or sides or both are provided with pegs, deflectors or other devices for giving the material a zig-zag motion as it flows down the trough. The second form consists of a series of hoppers set one above the other so that the batch is spilled from one into the next and ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... crawling over the earth, leaving trails of slime. Wails from people burying their dead. Through the window he can see the rocking steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead of the roof, and the sky tears apart on a spike of flame. Up the spire, behind the lacings of stone, zig-zagging in and out of the carved tracings, squirms the fire. It spouts like yellow wheat from the gargoyles, coils round the head of Saint John, and aureoles him in light. It leaps into the night and hisses ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington

... pewter plate, On the grey disk of the unrippling sea, Beneath an airless, sullen sky of slate Dazzled destroyers zig-zag restlessly, While underneath the sleek and livid tide, Blind monsters nosing through the soundless deep, Lean submarines among blind fishes glide And ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... fleet and taken. It was then supposed to be impregnable. It lies at the head of a loch some fifteen miles long, and in some parts but a few hundred yards wide, in a trough between mountains. From Cattaro, at the head of the loch, a zig-zag road leads up the mountain side over ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell

... attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant. I called down to him, "All right!" and made for that point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough zig-zag descending path ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... was both uneven and slippery. Moreover Dieppe had not allowed enough for the courage of the natives in the matter of gradients. The road, in fact, belied its cautious appearance. After three or four plausible zig-zags, it turned to rash courses and ran headlong down to the ford—true, it had excuse in the necessity of striking this spot—on a slope hardly less steep than that down which the Captain himself was painfully leaping with heels stuck ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... the captain. "Evidently we are chasing a ship which is zig-zagging, as we did, for the direction ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward

... his eyes with his hands, for the sun was glaring. About a mile off he saw two men coming slowly up by a zig-zag path toward the very point where he stood. Presently the men stopped and examined the prospect, each in his own way. The taller one took a wide survey of the low ground, and calling his companion to him appeared to point out to him some beauty or ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... "things happened more or less at one and the same time. Cellette giggled and squirmed. Then the boy got angry and cried, 'Will you keep still? and grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her! Shook Cellette till her little head went zig-zag-zigzag. It took her the sixteenth part of a second to get to her feet, and when she slapped him I myself saw stars. At the same time I saw her face, and I yelled, 'Run, boy! Run!' For a second ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain

... ascending the mountain. Their inmates of course live upon the travel, in one way or another, for Sterility is here the inexorable law. Yet our ascent was not so steep as might be expected, being modified, when necessary, by zig-zags from one direction or one side of the chasm we followed to the other. The horses were stopped to breathe but once only; elsewhere for three hours or more they pursued their firm, deliberate, decided, though ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... the little crippled girl already ensconced in the tonneau a single flash of light went zig-zagging crookedly from brow to chin,—and was gone again. "Hello, Fat Father!" piped the shrill little voice. "Hello,—Fat Father!" Yet so subtly was the phrase mouthed, to save your soul you could not have proved just where the greeting ended ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... vale of Toeplitz, steep, well nigh to perpendicular. Huge forests clothe its rugged face; out of which bold rocks protrude; indeed, such is the nature of the country, that the road is carried backwards and forwards almost in a zig-zag, in order to render it accessible. This mountain, in a military point of view, all but impassable, Vandamme placed behind him; leaving, however, a strong division to guard it, and nothing doubting of his own success. But he had miscalculated ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... companions, badly frightened, all in pajamas, gazing at the sagging walls, broken windows and chimneys. My roommate, who had got out ahead of me, rushed up to me, and cried out: "By Jove, I am glad you're out safe; I didn't think of you until I saw you zig-zagging out of the building." I thanked him and joined the crowd, watching one of the teachers, who was climbing the flagpole, so as to be on top of the building if it further collapsed. We were all silent for a few minutes, but when the ...
— San Francisco During the Eventful Days of April, 1906 • James B. Stetson

... look down on this graceful plant, no blossoms are visible; but if we bend the zig-zagged stem backward, we shall discover the little rosy bells swaying from the base of the leaves on curved footstalks (streptos twisted, pous a foot or stalk) very much as the plant's relatives the Solomon's seals ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... part of our journey was the pull up the long mountain road, ascending zig-zag, as sailors make way against a head-wind, by tacking. I forget the name of the pretty little group of houses—it did not amount to a village—buried in trees, where we got our four horses and two postilions, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... met den eersten als minister van Noord-America worde erkend, nog Hun Hoog Mog' resolutie nopens de aan hoogstdezelve den 20 deezer gepraesenteerde drie requesten door commercieerende, fabriceerende en met verscheiden handel zig geneerende ingezeetenen deezer landen, waar bij op het sterkste aandringen op een vryen handel tusschen de ingezeetenen deezer republicq en die van Noord-America, en eindelijk de den 25 deezer aan Hun Ed. (p. 066) Mog' gepraesenteerde requesten door het collegie van de kooplieden ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... summer residence, in which the governor of Bohemia, or the members of the imperial family in Prague, pass some days at intervals during the summer months. The principal descent to the park is by a broad drive, which zig-zags till it gains the proper level. There are also several pleasant paths which descend in labyrinths under a profusion of lilacs and other flowering shrubs, overhung by birches and all kinds ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various

... recently reported in the waters through which we were sailing, but we saw none of them and apparently they saw none of us. They had sunk many ships, but all of the sinkings had been in the day time. Consequently, there was a feeling of greater safety at night. The Laconia sailed on a constantly zig-zagging course. All of our life-boats were swinging out over the side of the ship, so that if we were hit they could be lowered in a hurry. Every other day the passengers and the crew would be called up on the decks ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... draped with Nature's curtains, formed of the long strands of small-leaved ivy; and there, if you liked, you could look down, to the left, upon a lovely garden, the mossy roofs of mill and house, all to the left; while to the right you looked up the zig-zag gorge with its closed-in, often perpendicular walls, to see the glancing waters of the stream, and far up, the great plunging fall, flashing with light when the sun was overhead, deep in shadow as it ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn

... after him. There came another shot from up ahead, and then a shout. As I tumbled to my feet in the dark road, Worth had started away on the jump. And I saw then, what I'd missed before, that the man who had burst from the hedge, was running zig-zag down the open roadway toward us. He was making his legs spin, and dodging from side to side as if to duck bullets. Worth headed straight for him, as though it wasn't plain that some one out of sight somewhere was making a target of ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... very particular account. The meeting was to be held on the 15th, and by the morning of the 13th I had reached a place called Wargrave, on the Thames. There I hired a light canoe, and thence proceeded down the river in a somewhat zig-zag manner, narrowly examining the banks on either side, and keeping a sharp out-look for some board, or sign, or house, that would seem to betoken any sort of connection with the word "Aesopi." In this way ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel

... stranger tripped and fell. Chotanka rubbed himself with the gum, and ran on until he reached the goal. There was a great shout that echoed over the earth, but in the heavens there was muttering and grumbling. The referee declared that the winner would live to a good old age, and Zig-Zag Fire promised to come at his call. He was indeed great ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... honest man. Some of the traps were civil enough; aye, they felt the shame of their duty; but there were among them devils at heart, who enjoyed the fun, because their cupidity could not bear the sight of the zig-zag uninterrupted muster of piles of rich-looking washing stuff, and the envy which blinded their eyes prevented them from taking into account the overwhelming number of shicers close by, round about, all along. ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... whole body, so as to gain the bottom of your opposite coat pocket.—In the year one thousand seven hundred and eighteen, when this happened, it was extremely difficult; so that when my uncle Toby discovered the transverse zig-zaggery of my father's approaches towards it, it instantly brought into his mind those he had done duty in, before the gate of St. Nicolas;—the idea of which drew off his attention so intirely from the subject in ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... agonised appeal in her eyes. He was smiling hideously, a nervous grin zig-zagging across ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... been rambling over by Dumbarton and Inverary, and running a drunken race on the side of Loch Lomond with a wild Highlandman; his horse, which had never known the ornaments of iron or leather, zig-zagged across before my old spavin'd hunter, whose name is Jenny Geddes, and down came the Highlandman, horse and all, and down came Jenny and my bardship; so I have got such a skinful of bruises and wounds, that I shall ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... Manitou race, after stretching its length for many a zig-zag mile, had brought them to the hour of sunset, and to the top of the lofty hill, where stood the small stockade fort, under the shelter of whose wooden walls his grandfather and the other pioneers had ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... darkness began to make itself felt; not the blue darkness of twilight, but the black darkness of thunder clouds through which zig-zags of lightning began to stab. A baby, waiting in the station with its mother for the train, began to wail with fright and Hinpoha forgot her hunger in an effort to amuse him. Then the storm broke. The train roared in just as it began and mingled its noise with the thunder. Hardly had it ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey

... minutes signaling with the lantern, and reading answering flashes that zig-zagged in the velvet blackness of the British lines. Then, as a voice boomed up through the granary, "All's well, sir! I'm just about to shut the door!" he fixed his eyes on the ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... and we walked out across the plain, followed by the faithful Pup. When we had ranged for an hour, in half-mile zig-zags, day began to break; and nothing had turned-up, except four of Stevenson's horses. But we heard, through the stillness of the dawn, a faint, far-away trampling of hoofs. We headed for the sound, and presently found ourselves ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... represented as surrounded by starving, wailing creatures, and surmounted by a hideous death's head. Underneath is a rope coiled around the portraits of twelve felons who have suffered; while, running down, to form a border, are fetters arranged in zig-zag fashion. Across the note run these words, "Ad lib., ad lib., I promise to perform during the issue of Bank notes easily imitated, and until the resumption of cash payments, or the abolition of the punishment ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman

... with assured footsteps a certain zig-zag way— it could hardly be called a path—which wound in and out among the bowlders, skipping some, leaping others, trenching on the edges of little pools left in some rocky hollow by the high tide, and finally led her, after a last ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... o' heel young camel, Zig-zagging her tracks, Heifer gone to school to the desert— In the heat of her passion, Snapping the breeze in her lust, Who ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... last of three drawings of Mr. Waddington: Mr. Waddington standing up before the long looking-glass in his new pyjamas; Mr. Waddington appearing in the doorway of Fanny's bedroom as Jupiter, with forked lightning zig-zagging out of him into every corner; Mr. Waddington stooping to climb into his bed, a broad back view with ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair

... about a quarter of a mile, when the float suddenly dipt. My brother and Hall threw the loose coil of ropes they carried on the water, along with the inflated skins. These made it soon evident by their motion that the Mugger had seized the kid. He was dashing across, in a zig-zag direction, down the stream. I ran after him as fast as I could; and paying out the cord from the reel, when I found it impossible to keep up with him. On reaching a place where the banks were steeper than usual, he came to a stand still. I got on the top of the bank, and commenced hauling ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... bent more eagerly to their work. * * * Suddenly the six men below the jam scattered. * * * holding their peaveys across their bodies, they jumped lightly from one floating log to another in the zig-zag to ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... connect the trenches together, and sometimes these trenches are a mile long reaching from the front line to some part behind the line where it is comparatively safe to walk around. They are very deep and zig-zag in shape so that ...
— Over the top with the 25th - Chronicle of events at Vimy Ridge and Courcellette • R. Lewis

... monstrous granite rocks; down through the deep Gorge of the Saltine, and deafened by the torrent plunging madly down, among the riven blocks of rock, into the level country, far below. Gradually down, by zig-zag roads, lying between an upward and a downward precipice, into warmer weather, calmer air, and softer scenery, until there lay before us, glittering like gold or silver in the thaw and sunshine, the metal-covered, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... and countering and refrains and responses of them. But, before I woke, the parts were merged in full chorus. With that unison music in my ears I rose and knelt and rose again hastily. Then I ran round to the eastern wall under the zig-zag patterns. I came only just in time to see the sunrise ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps

... no fear. I would sit by the fire holding out the red rag, when in a few moments a slight rustle would be heard from the branches. After a little the bird would step boldly into the open firelight stretching his neck and cocking his head knowingly as he approached in a zig-zag way the object of his curiosity ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... and the raw-ribbed mare, And scorn to move for tumbril or for dray, And feel themselves as good as farmers there. From the young corn the prick-eared leverets stare At strangers come to spy the land—small sirs, We bring less danger than the very breeze Who in great zig-zag blows the bee, and whirs In bluebell shadow down the bright green leas; From whom in frolic fit the chopt straw ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... her in her garden where she sat beneath a tree. Around, the cicadas whirred in the speaking trees. Zig-zig-zig-zig. But they were no longer strident. They seemed but a vibration of the high atmosphere in ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... worked in the heat and dirt below, the steamer steadily plowed its way up stream, meeting with no vessel bound down, or even a drifting barge; nor did I perceive the slightest sign of any settlement along the banks. Our course ran zig-zag from shore to shore in an endeavor to follow the main channel, and progress was slow, the wheelsman evidently not being well acquainted with the stream. The cry of a leadsman forward was almost constant. Once ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... rent above tumultuously and in some ten seconds had entirely escaped, causing the balloon to descend rapidly, until the lower part of the muslin, doubling in upwards, formed a species of parachute after the manner intended. The balloon now came down with zig-zag descent, and finally the car, striking the earth obliquely, tossed its occupant out into a field unharmed. Shortly after this Wise experimented with further ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon

... decennial period to one of slightly over eleven (11.11) years; and he further showed that this fell in with the ebb and flow of magnetic change even better than Lamont's 10-1/3 year cycle. The analogy was also pointed out between the "light-curve," or zig-zagged line representing on paper the varying intensity in the lustre of certain stars, and the similar delineation of spot-frequency; the ascent from minimum to maximum being, in both cases, usually steeper than the descent from maximum ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... châteaux and armored knights, until the bright Provençal sunlight and the call for a hurried departure dispelled such illusions. By noon we were far away from Carcassonne, mounting the rocky slopes of the Cevennes amid a wild and noble landscape; the towering cliffs of the “Causses,” zebraed by zig-zag paths, lay below us, disclosing glimpses of fertile valley ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... it frightened me pretty nearly out of my senses. So I started to run, without an idea of where I was going, and by the time I got my wits back, I couldn't tell just where I was, in the rain and the dark. I seemed to be right on top of the ridge, but I had zig-zagged several times, I remembered, and when I tried to figure which side of the hill I should go down, I couldn't for the life of me decide. Finally I said to myself, 'Here, don't be a fool! Which way was the wind blowing when ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... Trained Nurses Staff of the Bontoc Hospital A Victim of Yaws before and after Treatment with Salvarsan The Culion Leper Colony Building the Benguet Road Freight Autos on the Benguet Road The Famous Zig-zag on the Benguet Road A Typical Baguio Road One of the First Benguet Government Cottages Typical Cottages at Baguio A Baguio Home The Baguio Hospital Government Centre at Baguio A Scene in the Baguio Teachers' Camp The Baguio Country Club The Bureau of Science Building, Manila The ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... string course into two storeys, the lower of which is plain with small round-headed windows; the larger upper storey has on each side three narrow round-headed windows, which form a kind of arcade round the upper part of the tower, surmounted by a zig-zag string course. At the angles are engaged shafts. The massive manner in which the tower was rebuilt in the eleventh century can be better appreciated from within, when we come to the piers which support it. The building has been said to prove that the Normans ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant

... the road that zig-tagged through the forts, batteries and rifle-pits covering the eastern ascent to the Flap-past the wonderful Murrell Spring—so-called because the robber chief had killed, as he stooped to drink of its crystal waters, a rich drover, whom he was pretending to pilot through ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... singularly picturesque villages which capped all the hills, and were reached by curiously ancient paved mule paths zig-sagging up among the chesnut woods, seemed to have been created solely for artistic and picnic purposes. The Saturnian nature of the life lived in them may be conceived from the information once given me by the inhabitants of one of these mountain settlements in reply ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... distance as from Hyde Park Corner to the Oxford Street end of Tottenham Court Road. From Hospenthal to the hospice on the top of the pass is about equal to the space between Tottenham Court Road and Bow; and from Bow you must go down three thousand feet of zig- zags into Stratford, for Airolo. I have made the deviation from the straight line about the same in one case as in the other; in each, the direct distance is nine and a half miles. The whole distance from Fluelen, ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... bridge and taken our station for the night, I saw another snow storm was coming. The zig-zag lightnings began to flare and flash, and sheet after sheet of wild flames seemed to burst right over our heads and were hissing around us. The very elements seemed to be one aurora borealis with continued lightning. Streak after streak of lightning seemed to be ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... nearest neighbor to borrow a loaf, but her cupboard was bare, too. Remembering the instructions, "Keep going until you get what you go for," I started at double quick to the next neighbor, and to the next, and the next, for three-quarters of an hour. I must have zig-zagged several miles, only to return with the sad news that there was not a loaf of bread in the town. Meanwhile my mother had taken in the situation, and when I got home exhausted and disgusted, the travelers were eating their dinner, a skillet ...
— The Heroic Women of Early Indiana Methodism: An Address Delivered Before the Indiana Methodist Historical Society • Thomas Aiken Goodwin

... been going downhill for some three hours, the way zig-zaging among rocks and precipices, when suddenly we were startled by a loud cracking, followed by a noise that resembled a clap of thunder repeated by many echoes. At the same moment a sort of whirlwind swept by us, and the air was darkened ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... on my fingers as I take up the book; and the cover nearly breaks off as I open it, though with tender, book-loving usage. The leather, though strong and honest, has rotted or disintegrated until it has almost fallen into dust. Across the yellow, ill-printed pages there runs, zig-zagging sideways and backwards crab-fashion on his crooked brown legs, one of those pigmy book-spiders,—those ugly little bibliophiles that seem flatter even than the close-pressed pages ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... moment it looked like being real Nicholls-and-Jackson stuff, but, fortunately, a quick zig on my part, coinciding with an adroit zag on the part of the pig, enabled me to win through, and I continued my ride safe, but with the heart fluttering ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... rain came down in torrents, the thunder echoed clap on clap, each detonation preceded by an awful zig-zag of fire. The tempest grew in fury, and, scarce able to ride on the shifting wind, the plaintive voices of the bells rang out ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... three caravans, Hamed's, Hassan's, and my own, left Tura by a road which zig-zagged towards all points through the tall matama fields. In an hour's time we had passed Tura Perro, or Western Tura, and had entered the forest again, whence the Wakimbu of Tura obtain their honey, and where they excavate deep ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... perfectly at Gibraltar; where there is marching and counter- marching, challenging and relieving guard all the night through. And not here in Commercial Square alone, but all over the huge Rock in the darkness—all through the mysterious zig-zags, and round the dark cannon-ball pyramids, and along the vast rock-galleries, and up to the topmost flagstaff, where the sentry can look out over two seas, poor fellows are marching and clapping muskets, and crying "All's Well," ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... these railroads compels us to abandon the plan of describing, as we pass, the more celebrated towns, mansions, or castles, because it would be impossible to follow out such a zig-zag of topography. It is better to take it for granted that the traveller will stop at certain places, and from them make excursions to everything ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... indoors—they were on the forward deck upon which the captain's cabin, or "library," opened, and Hope had been watching her zig-zag progress across it, laughing merrily, when, with the suddenness of a lightning-stroke, everything grew black and began to spin around her. She looked helplessly at Dwight, whose grinning face was like that of a whirling dervish, ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... there alone, another wandering thought zig-zagged through John's brain. They were making a fool of him, some way! Well, he'd let them ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung

... sows the new-ploughed intervales with light: Thus also sun's heat downward tends to earth. Athwart the rain thou seest the lightning fly; Now here, now there, bursting from out the clouds, The fires dash zig-zag—and that flaming power Falls likewise down ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... strange when Grandfather Mole came tumbling up amongst the turnips one day and began running blindly around the garden, zig-zagging in every direction. Nobody that saw him paid much attention to him. But at last Rusty Wren, who had come to the garden to look for worms, noticed that Grandfather Mole was quite upset over something. He didn't seem to have any notion of ...
— The Tale of Grandfather Mole • Arthur Scott Bailey

... face and came in his zig-zag course to the red stream trickling from his nostrils, and stopped short. She brushed the carrion thing away, but it crawled back drunkenly. She touched it with her finger, and the fly would not move. On a sudden, every nerve in her body began to shake and jerk ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... in frantic spasmodic gusts, as though it had lost its reckoning, and simultaneously assaulted all the points of the compass; while the lightning glared almost continuously, and the roar of the thunder was uninterrupted. Now and then a vivid zig-zag flash gored the intense darkness with its baleful blue death-light, followed by a crash, appalling as if the battlements of heaven had been shattered. Once the whole air seemed ablaze, and the simultaneous shock of the detonation was so violent, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... overhung by elms more than a hundred years old, and in the twilight, which now prevailed, was growing very dark. As side-by-side we walked along this road, hemmed in by two loose stone-like walls, something running toward us in a zig-zag line passed us at a wild pace, with a sound like a frightened laugh or a shudder, and I saw, as it passed, that it was a human figure. I may confess, now, that I was a little startled. The dress of this figure was, in part, white: I know I mistook it at first for a white ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... solitary guardian eyed us through a door a-jar, but did not come out, while we went round the church, and admired some good pictures remaining on its walls. The stillness of death prevailed in the town—a sort of unburied Pompeii through its narrow lanes, up and down zig-zag stairs cut in the rock, we sauntered alone, and the noise of our iron-shod heels on the pavement, was the only sound we heard. The rich abbey, it was evident, had formerly fed the town clustering ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various

... ramparts, and batteries,—there was an accessible point, a rough passage, gullied downward where Prescott Gate (in 1871) opened on the Lower Town. Mount to the highest summit, Cape Diamond, [7] now zig-zagged with warlike masonry. Then the fierce sun fell on the bald, baking rocks, with its crisped mosses and parched lichens. Two centuries and-a-half have quickened the solitude with swarming life, covered the deep bosom of the river with barge and ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... a well beaten trail. The Indians had used it for countless generations in their search for pottery clay. It lifted zig-zag over the Coyote Range, giving at the crest this morning a superb view of distant peaks and of gold melting into blue infinities. It dropped zig-zag into canyons that were parched and cracked with late summer ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... of neck and part of belly sooty black, "terminating forward near the ears horn-wise or crescent-wise; on the crown of the head several series of black dots are disposed more or less linearly and length-wise. On the cheeks, from eyes to articulation of jaws, are two sub-parallel zig-zag lines of jet black; five to seven straighter lines, less deep in hue, cross the lower back and blend gradually with the caudal rings, which, including the black tip, are about nine in number. These rings of the tail are narrow, with large intervals, diminishing towards ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... the present, my water journeying. I had zig-zagged from New York a distance, by my line of travel, not less than fifteen thousand miles. The only actual land route on my way had been forty-seven miles between Aspinwall and Panama. I had traveled on two ocean passenger-steamers, one private steamer of miniature size, a Russian ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... mounted Indians popped suddenly into view, two others speedily following, their well-nigh exhausted ponies feebly shaking their shaggy, protesting heads, as their riders plied the stinging quirt or jabbed with cruel lance; only in painful jog trot could they zig zag through the trees. Then came two warriors, leading the pony of a crippled comrade. "Don't fire—Don't harm them! Fall back from the trail there and let them in. They'll halt the moment they see our ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... taken by Chopin to avoid the zig-zags of life, to eliminate from it all that was useless, to prevent its crumbling into masses without form, has deprived his own course of incident. The vague lines and indications surrounding his figure like misty clouds, disappear under the touch which would strive to follow or trace their outlines. ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... heard behind him the galloping of horses, and turning round he counted seven cavaliers, of whom four had muskets on their shoulders. They gained rapidly on Chicot, who, seeing flight was hopeless, contented himself with making his horse move in zig-zags, so as to escape the balls which he expected every moment. He was right, for when they came about fifty feet from him, they fired, but thanks to his maneuver, all the balls missed him. He immediately abandoned the reins and let himself slip ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... belaying-pins and capstan-bars seized; inarticulate, half-uttered imprecations punctuated by pistol reports drowned the storm of abuse with which the mates justified the shot, and two distinct bands of men swayed and zig-zagged about the deck, the center of each an officer fighting according to his lights—shooting as he could between blows of fists and clubs. Then the smoke of battle thinned, and two men with sore heads and bleeding faces retreated painfully and hurriedly to the cabin, ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... is a stage," Vittoria thought, in a suddenly revived thirst for the stage and a field for work. She determined to run down to Meran and see Angelo. Laura walked a little way with her, till Wilfrid, alert for these occasions, joined them. On the commencement of the zig-zag below, there were soldiers, the sight of whom was not confusing. Military messengers frequently came up to the castle where Count Lenkenstein, assisted by Count Serabiglione, examined their depositions, the Italian in the manner of a winding lawyer, the German of a gruff judge. Half-way down ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... he arrived at a little village and was informed that it was Nagy, about forty miles above Buda Pesth. Here he got some refreshments and started on his last run. A few miles below he saw a very high mountain, surmounted by a cross, up which ran a zig-zag road. At each bend of this road was erected a grotto containing some scene from the Passion of Our Lord. This Way of the Cross is a celebrated place of devotion to the pious people of Buda Pesth. As he passed the mountain ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... into the water, and at once it became evident that to all intents and purposes there were two tanks, the division between them lying about eighteen inches under water. But the division was neither straight nor exactly level. It zig-zagged this and that way like the key-track in a maze, and was more beset with slippery pitfalls than a mussel-shoal at ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy

... of Nagano is slope. Hence its dependence on sericulture. The low stone-strewn roofs of the houses, the railway snow shelters and the zig-zag track which the train takes, hint at the climatic conditions in winter time. Despite the snow—ski-ing has been practised for some years—the summer climate of Nagano has been compared with that of Champagne and there is ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... blazing yellow beam lanced here and there in pursuit of the traitor disk, but it darted like a dragonfly, up, down, and zig-zag. The pursuing beam came nowhere near it. Somehow I knew the prince, and perhaps Wananda too, were in that ship, and my heart was in my throat as I thought of the queen in that ship, being shot at by ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell

... other creatures besides horses," thought I; but the thought had barely passed through my brain when Lizzie went off like an arrow. Kenneth sprang forward like a thunderbolt, and Gildart followed—if I may so speak—like a zig-zag cracker. Now, it chanced that Lizzie's horse was in a bad humour that morning, so it ran away, just as the party came to a grassy slope of half a mile in extent. At the end of this slope the road made a sharp turn, and descended abruptly to the beach. ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... along valleys and through pass after pass; and now and then a long zig-zag brings us out of a valley, up to a higher level. The air grows cooler, we are rapidly changing our climate, and afternoon finds us in the region of the sugar-cane and the coffee-plant. We pass immense green ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor



Words linked to "Zig" :   angular shape, angularity



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