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Claps   Listen
verb
Claps  v. t.  Variant of Clasp (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Claps" Quotes from Famous Books



... legs apart, and looks up at Father. "An' I shall be a player, too, when I'm a man," says Willy Shakespeare. "I shall be a player and wear a dagger like Herod, an' walk about an' draw it—so——" and struts him up and down while his father laughs and claps hand to knee and roars again, until Mistress Shakespeare tells him he it is who ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin

... pictures, Mamma? I mean, what does the man do, when he goes behind that queer machine thing and sticks his head under the cloth, and then after a while claps in something that looks like my tracing-slate and then pops it out again? ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann

... further than a freendes house of his, from whence he might descrye who went into his house; straight hee saw Lionello enter in, and after goes hee, insomuche that hee was scarcelye sitten downe, before the mayde cryed out againe, my maister comes. The goodwife, that before had provided for after- claps,[FN495] had found out a privie place between two seelings of a plauncher,[FN496] and there she thrust Lionello, and her husband came sweting. What news, quoth shee, drives you home againe so soone, husband? Marry, sweete wife, quoth ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... confident manner) that Frazier is so great with my Lady Castlemayne, and Stewart, and all the ladies at Court, in helping to slip their calfes when there is occasion, and with the great men in curing of their claps that he can do what he please with the King, in spite of any man, and upon the same score with the Prince; they all having more or less occasion to make use of him. Sir G. Carteret tells me this afternoon that the Dutch are not yet ready to set out; and by that ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... resound ye hollow places, L et tears and paleness cover all men's faces. L et groans, like claps of thunder, pierce the air, W hile I the cause of my just grief declare, O that mine eyes could, like the streams of Nile O 'erflow their watery banks; and thou meanwhile D rink in my trickling tears, oh thirsty ground, S o might'st ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood

... swell the Eastern Main, What awful scenes the curious mind delight! What wonders burst upon the dazzled sight! There giant palms lift high their tufted heads, The plantain wide his graceful foliage spreads; Wild in the woods the active monkey springs, The chattering parrot claps her painted wings; 'Mid tall bamboos lies hid the deadly snake, The tiger crouches in the tangled brake; The spotted axis bounds in fear away; The leopard darts on his defenceless prey, 'Mid reedy pools and ancient forests rude, Cool ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... tho' my Name stood rubric on the walls Or plaister'd posts, with claps, in capitals? Or smoking forth, a hundred hawkers' load, 215 On wings of winds came flying all abroad? I sought no homage from the Race that write; I kept, like Asian Monarchs, from their sight: Poems I heeded (now be-rhym'd so long) No ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... idly under the window, jumps to his feet, shouting, "It is Monsieur the Bishop!" Minima claps her hands, and cries, "The prince, Aunt ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... working, and claps her hands with joy] Well, I never expected this! Mother Matryna, God has sent the right guest at the ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy

... for eternal worlds I steer, And seas are calm and skies are clear, And faith in lively exercise, And distant hills of Canaan rise, My soul for joy then claps her wings, And loud her lovely sonnet ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... glories moulders in its turn. Hard granite rots like an uprooted weed, And ever on the palimpsest of earth Impatient Time rubs out the word he writ. But one thing makes the years its pedestal, Springs from the ashes of its pyre, and claps A skyward wing above its epitaph— The will of ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton

... puckered up, till it was like anything on earth but a mouth, I set the glass down on the table; and for the next five minutes could do nothing but shake my head to and fro like a Chinese mandarin, amidst the loud and prolonged roars of laughter that burst like thunder claps from the huge jaws of Thomas Draw, and the subdued and half respectful cachinnations of ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... after a long drought, when the young rice sprouts, just transplanted were turning yellow at the tips, the clouds began to gather and roll, and soon a smart shower fell, the lightning glittered, and the hills echoed with claps of thunder. But Bimbo, hoe in hand, was so glad to see the rain fall, and the pattering drops felt so cool and refreshing, that he worked on, strengthening the terrace to resist the little flood about ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... to Khorre and says something to him. Khorre nods his head negatively. The abbot, singing "Pope's a rogue," goes around the crowd, throws out brief remarks, and claps some people on the ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... in awe, and holding the mob underfoot, that the cunning may live the more at their ease. Rare institutions, doubtless. They are something like the fences my boors plant so closely to keep out the hares—yes I' faith, not a hare can trespass on the enclosure, but my lord claps spurs to his hunter, and away he ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... claps his wings, No whit for grief, but noble heart and high, With loud glad noise he stirs himself and springs, And takes his meat and toward his lure draws nigh; Such good I wish you! Yea, and heartily I am fired with hope of true love's meed to ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... as you'll be glad enough to eat up every one of them words the day you claps eyes on Master William, for a more splendid gentleman nor he never fetched ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin

... If you succeed, you get a D.S.O. from a grateful government, and a laurel crown from an admiring nation. If you fail, an indignant populace derides your name, and a pained and astonished government claps you into jail. That's not the way to encourage progress, or make fellows prompt to take the initiative. The right or the wrong of an action should not be determined ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay

... the morning of the Fourth of July when the thunderbolt struck Fort Ryan. It was not very loud; it damaged no building; but it struck the very souls of men. A thousand thunder claps, a year's tornadoes in an hour, could not have been more staggering; and yet it was only four words of one poor, wheezing Irish hostler ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... The three claps were given at regular intervals amid the most profound silence; the wind itself seemed to pause and the rustle of the trees was hushed. The principals were calm, but ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... morrow when we raise, I thank'd her for her courtesie; But aye she blush'd and aye she sigh'd, And said, "Alas, ye've ruin'd me." I claps'd her waist, and kiss'd her syne, While the tear stood twinkling in her e'e; I said, my lassie, dinna cry. For ye aye shall make the bed to me. The bonie ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... peculiar-lookin' spot, not to be very easily mistook. I remembers that when we last sighted it I heard the mate say to the skipper that it looked pretty much like a dead whale floatin' high out o' the water; and he was right; it did. Oh yes, I'll reckernize it again fast enough, if I claps my eyes upon it, ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... so sings, yet so does wail? O 'tis the ravished Nightingale. Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu, she cries, And still her woes at Midnight rise. Brave prick song! who is't now we hear? None but the lark so shrill and clear; Now at heaven's gates she claps her wings, The Morn not waking till she sings. Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat Poor Robin-red-breast tunes his note. Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing 'Cuckoo' to welcome in the spring, 'Cuckoo' to welcome ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson

... the handy terms, admiring or disapproving, which criticism claps with random facility on to every imaginable school. This artist or group of artists goes in for the real—the upright, noble, trumpery, filthy real; that other artist or group of artists seeks after the ideal—the ideal which may mean ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee

... day, Although it's a little cloudy,— Or rather, as one might say, Smoky, perhaps,— A little hazy, a little dubious, A little too sulphury to be salubrious. D' ye mind those thunder-claps? Do you feel now and then the least little bit Of an incipient earthquake fit, Accompanied with awful raps? But give 'em gowdy, give 'em gowdy, And it'll soon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... she flatly falleth down For looks kill love, and love by looks reviveth; 464 A smile recures the wounding of a frown; But blessed bankrupt, that by love so thriveth! The silly boy, believing she is dead Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare

... every scale, And shoots her forky tongue, and whisks her threatening tail. Against the victor all defence is weak. Th' imperial bird still plies her with his beak: He tears her bowels, and her breast he gores, Then claps ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... through the tree-tops, and the glens of oak and pine. And the trees bowed their heads when they heard it, and the gray rocks cracked and rang, and the forest beasts crept near to listen, and the birds forsook their nests and hovered round. And old Cheiron claps his hands together, and beat his hoofs upon the ground, for wonder ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley

... the two were sleeping, a full tide Rose with ground-swell, which, on the foremost rocks Touching, upjetted in spirts of wild sea-smoke, And scaled in sheets of wasteful foam, and fell In vast sea-cataracts—ever and anon Dead claps of thunder from within the cliffs Heard thro' the living roar. At this the babe, Their Margaret cradled near them, wail'd and woke The mother, and the father suddenly cried, 'A wreck, a wreck!' ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson

... that children are rarely afraid of thunder, unless, indeed, the thunder-claps are so frightful as actually to wound the organ of hearing. Otherwise, they fear it only when they have been taught that thunder sometimes wounds or kills. When reason begins to affright them, let habit reassure them. By a slow and well conducted process the man or the child ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... fairy Lilian, Flitting, fairy Lilian, When I ask her if she love me, Claps her tiny hands above me, Laughing all she can; She'll not tell me if she love me, Cruel ...
— Beauties of Tennyson • Alfred Tennyson

... of the attack which had carried all the way offshore to the Rover cruisers had died away. And there were no more claps of thunder. Instead, there was now a thick wash ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton

... first rain came. It continued heavy and unremitting, for twenty-four hours, after which there was a glimpse of the blue sky. Two startling thunder-claps burst over the ship, at about 9 o'clock, A.M. Last night, at 10, a heavy plunge carried away both our chain bobstays at once, and all hands were turned up in the rain, to ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... lightning. I couldn't stand this brightness, but Captain Nemo stared straight at it, as if to inhale the spirit of the storm. A dreadful noise filled the air, a complicated noise made up of the roar of crashing breakers, the howl of the wind, claps of thunder. The wind shifted to every point of the horizon, and the cyclone left the east to return there after passing through north, west, and south, moving in the opposite direction of revolving ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... gives him—or does not give him, for one has found so many of these racy anecdotes vanish on inspection into simple wind, that one believes none of them—a box on the ear; which if she did, she did the most wise, just, and practical thing which she could do with such a puppy. He claps his hand—or does not—to his sword, 'He would not have taken it from Henry VIII.,' and is turned out forthwith. In vain Egerton, the Lord Keeper, tries to bring him to reason. He storms insanely. Every one on ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... board, to whom he bears the first news, and adjures him to conceal the reporter, whose choleric answer he returns to his first host enlarged with a second edition; so as it uses to be done in the sight of unwilling mastiffs, he claps each on the side apart, and provokes them to an eager conflict. There can no act pass without his comment, which is ever far-fetched, rash, suspicious, dilatory. His ears are long and his eyes quick, but most of all to imperfections, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... Since daybreak large clouds obscured the horizon. Already a storm was threatened in the air. Probably the day would not end without some thunder-claps. Happily the forest, more or less dense, retained a little freshness of the surface of the soil. Here and there great forest trees inclosed prairies covered with a tall, thick grass. In certain spots enormous trunks, already petrified, lay on the ground, indicating the presence of coal mines, which ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne

... minority, on the contrary, is determined beforehand to win at any price; its views and opinion are correct, and if rules are opposed to that, so much the worse for the rules. At the decisive moment, it claps a pistol to its adversary's head, overturns the table, and collects ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... advanced cautiously along the bed of a dry ditch, bent almost double, then, suddenly forsaking the protecting shelter, burst into the open and ran for it with might and main, wildly, aimlessly, his ears ringing with detonations that sounded to him like thunder-claps. His eyes burned like coals of fire; it seemed to him that he was wrapt in flame. It was an eternity of torture. Then he suddenly caught sight of a little house to his left, and he rushed for the friendly refuge, gained ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... her—and long, perhaps, For the broad seas and the loud wind that claps Boisterous hands on the Ship's course; and wait Her call who calls them with the voice ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman

... Brigdar claps his hand to the table and swears that he cares nothing for black arts if only the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... present day, "waps" is considered a vulgar way of pronouncing the word; but it was correct English at the time of which I am writing. "Wasp" is really the corrupt pronunciation. In the same way, they said "claps" ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt

... long- winded legislators, delivering and carrying out letters, and running with general messages. They do not seem to interrupt the course of business, and yet they are the liveliest little boys I ever saw. When a member claps his hands, indicating a desire for attendance, three or four will jockey for the honor. On the whole, I thought the little boys had a good time ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... be got offered. Through threats and flattery he got that dismal affair effected; but not without a notable mark of divine displeasure: for, in that moment he arose to touch the act with the sceptre, a terrible flash of fire came in at the window, followed with three fearful claps of thunder, upon which the heavens became dark, and hailstones and a terrible tempest ensued; which astonished every beholder, and made the day afterward be called the black Saturday; because it began in the morning with fire from earth, and ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... are turned out of doors, bedews you with cold water: she calls you again. Rescue your neck from this vile yoke; come, say, I am free, I am free. You are not able: for an implacable master oppresses your mind, and claps the sharp spurs to your jaded appetite, and forces you on though reluctant. When you, mad one, quite languish at a picture by Pausias; how are you less to blame than I, when I admire the combats of Fulvius and Rutuba and Placideianus, with ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... heroes, challenged by the Kurus, came to the field, they looked like the twin Ashvinis invoked with proper rites in a sacrifice by the officiating priests. Filled with rage, the impetuosity of those two tigers among men increased like that of two elephants in a large forest, enraged at the claps of hunters. Having penetrated into the midst of that car-force and those bodies of horse, Phalguna careered within those divisions like the Destroyer himself, armed with the fatal noose. Beholding him put forth such prowess within his army, thy ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... the glass and handed it to him, he giving me t'other one to hold; and he claps the night-glass ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson

... and lights up each countenance with a kindlier welcome. Where does the honest face of hospitality expand into a broader and more cordial smile—where is the shy glance of love more sweetly eloquent—than by the winter fireside? and as the hollow blast of wintry wind rushes through the hall, claps the distant door, whistles about the casement, and rumbles down the chimney, what can be more grateful than that feeling of sober and sheltered security, with which we look around upon the comfortable chamber, and the scene of ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various

... enchanting this blue over-arching sky, in which the clouds float like angels. With what a gentle welcome the wind kisses our cheeks, and rustles the leaves of the trees, as if to furnish an accompaniment to the songs of the birds which flit among them, while the dear little brook laughs and dances and claps its hands, and tells us, like itself, to be glad. There is only one thing wanting, father, and that is, that you should be happy. But I wonder why this pile of wood was built up so carefully near the edge ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... there, seeing the horse taken care of; and, knowing the cut of the fellow's jib, what does I do, but whips the body clothes off Naboclish, and claps them upon a garrone, that the priest would ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... waiting for them to change their dress and come in, you speculate as to what they may be doing. From some distant region, the laugh of a child, the song of a canary-bird, reaches you, and then a door claps hastily to. Do they love plants? Do they write letters, sew, embroider, crochet? Do they ever romp and frolic? What books do they read? Do they sketch or paint? Of all these possibilities the mute and muffled ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... windows and gleams of the sun Making the chamber of death to be fair. And under and over the mist unlaps, And ruby and amethyst burn through the gray, And driest bushes grow green with spray, And the dimpled water its glad hands claps. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... CLAPS HIS DISH, a clap, or clack, dish (dish with a movable lid) was carried by beggars and lepers to show that the vessel was empty, and to give sound of ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... swallows were wheeling and circling around. She claps her hands in glee. "Couldn't you open ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... great surges of flame, owing to those luminous particles which cover the surface of the water in these seas, and throughout the whole course of the Gulf Stream. For a day and night the heavens glowed as a furnace with the incessant flashes of lightning; while the loud claps of thunder were often mistaken by the affrighted mariners for signal guns of distress from their foundering companions. During the whole time, says Columbus, it poured down from the skies, not rain, but as it were a second deluge. ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... seemeth, end must be Of striving. Since all the land is cursed, What matter if by famine scorched, or thirst, We die?' he saith. "And thick the warlock swarm Above his head, wide-spreading dark wings warm, Fast flitted by. The waiting fields he stands Among. And laughing, claps exultant hands. 'Good speed ye, Sprites! that bring the welcome cloud And pile the vapors thick,' he shouts aloud. Oh! sweet shall bloom again the bending grain, And clothe afresh the wide, the wasted plain. The clouds sweep black. Ha, ha! Against my cheek The ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier

... but new to the describer. The poet felt the disgraceful preference more deeply than was altogether becoming; but he had levelled his powers, says Johnson, when he levelled his desires to those of Settle, and placed his happiness in the claps of multitudes. The moral may be carried yet further; for had not Dryden stooped to call to the aid of his poetry the auxiliaries of scenery, gilded truncheons, and verse of more noise than meaning, it is impossible his plays could have been drawn ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... was the vessel momentarily presented to his view, as the forked lightning darted in every quarter of the firmament, while the astounding claps of thunder bursting upon his ears before the lightning had ceased to gleam, announced to him that he was kneeling in the very centre of the war of the elements. The vessel neared the cliff in about the same proportion that she forged ahead. Forster was breathless ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... which long in darke, chance to espie A candles glimmering, if it come but nie, Can not endure that weake and feeble shine, But straightway shut their dim and dazled eine. No maruell then, though in great extasie His spirits are, at glittring maiestie. She feares the worst, and to her Louer skips, Claps his plumpe cheeks, and beats his corall lips, And seeing him fall breathlesse to the earth, She seeks with kisses to inspire his breath. At last his eye-lids he vp heaues againe, And feeling her sweet kisses, gins to faine; Shuts his bright eyes, and ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale

... Caledonia, by thy Burn's brave song, And deeds of Wallace and Paul Jones for Right, Thy mother knows thee in the dark of night, And claps thee heart-close. She cries out: "Be strong, Soul of my soul! though not a Boswell quite, Still, be whole man! remember ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle

... wind had eased up. I leaped out into it, swimming. The rocks slid by close under me in a swift sidewise drift. In a moment I would be carried out over the river. It was a chaos of green, windswept darkness. But there was bursting light now overhead and rumbling claps, like thunder. ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings

... was occasionally in the city, to whom he talked somewhat largely of his operations, and who knew that he had no more comprehension of the sweep of Henderson's schemes than a baby has of the stock exchange when he claps his hands with delight at the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... table sits a Knight, And here a grave old man ore right Against his worship, then perhaps That by and by a Drawer claps His bum close by them, there down squats A dealer in old shoes and hats; And here withouten any panick Fear, dread ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... assumption of superiority from his Lordship's rank, and is the sort of quizzing he might use to a person who came to hire himself as a valet to him at Long's—the waiters might laugh, the public will not. In like manner, in the controversy about Pope, he claps Mr. Bowles on the back with a coarse facetious familiarity, as if he were his chaplain whom he had invited to dine with him, or was about to present to a benefice. The reverend divine might submit to the obligation, but ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... comfort thee! With joyous cries the parents flee Thy presence none—confidingly Pour out their very hearts to thee. The mockbird sees thy tenderness Of deed; doth with melodiousness, In many tongues, thy praise express. And all the while, his dappled wings He claps his sides with, as he sings, From perch to perch his body flings: A poet he, to ecstasy Wrought by the sweets his tongue ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... now am old, But I am not yet grown cold; I can play, and I can twine 'Bout a virgin like a vine: In her lap too I can lie Melting, and in fancy die; And return to life if she Claps my cheek, or kisseth me: Thus, and thus it now appears That our love ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... by the mention of any recent theatrical transactions, he said, that he once thought to have introduced his lovers disguised in a mummy and a crocodile. "This," says he, "was received with loud claps, which indicated contempt for the play." Pope, who was behind the scenes, meeting him as he left the stage, attacked him, as he says, with all the virulence of a "wit out of his senses;" to which he replied, "that he ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson

... friend in sight or sign in the skies. In the house, she collected the little girls, and they spent the rest of the afternoon together. The storm had broke suddenly, and the long-threatened rain came at last, lashing up the earth and battering on the window-panes amid deafening claps of thunder and ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... couched on a divan, and making believe to puff at a narghile, in which, however, for the sake of the ladies, only a fragrant pastille was allowed to smoke. The Turkish dignitary yawns and expresses signs of weariness and idleness. He claps his hands and Mesrour the Nubian appears, with bare arms, bangles, yataghans, and every Eastern ornament—gaunt, tall, and hideous. He makes a salaam before ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... appearance was smuggled into the cabin from the wagon, and heightens the hilarity a little, I fear. No churlishness could resist Evans's unutterable jollity or the contagion of his hearty laugh. He claps people on the back, shouts at them, will do anything for them, and makes a perpetual breeze. "My kingdom for a horse!" He has not got one for me, and a shadow crossed his face when I spoke of the subject. Eventually he asked ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... just closed my eyes when I suddenly jumped up again, deafened as if by a hundred claps of thunder joined in one. The darkness was as thick as ever, and the wind was still more boisterous; the echo of the fallen tree had scarcely died away before another colossus groaned and fell. My companions were now ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... of hand-claps drowned the speakers' voices. A swarthy youth with the Ripton pink and green on his vest had pushed past him and was entering the ring. As he entered the dressing-room he heard the referee announcing the names. So that was the famous Peteiro! ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse

... Uncle Titus promptly marks his approval of her action by rising from the sofa, and placing a chair for her to sit down upon.) What! Uncle William! I haven't seen you since you gave up drinking. (Poor Uncle William, shamed, would protest; but Richard claps him heartily on his shoulder, adding) you have given it up, haven't you? (releasing him with a playful push) of course you have: quite right too; you overdid it. (He turns away from Uncle William and makes for the sofa.) And now, where is that upright horsedealer ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw

... the dining-room, and have lovely food, only Grandpa does not like it, but we have him a pie now for breakfast,—his own pie that he can eat from all the time and he feels better. Aunt Gertrude is happy seeing him eat it for breakfast and claps her hands when he does it, only he ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... attached to a big brass bell like an exaggerated sheep-bell, hanging from the ceiling, but which gives forth but a feeble, tinkling sound. To insure the god's attention, this is supplemented with three distinct claps of the hands, which are afterward clasped in prayer for a short interval; two more claps mark the conclusion. Then, resuming their clogs, they clatter down the steep, copper-bound temple steps into the grounds. Here are stalls innumerable of toys, fruit, fish-cakes, birds, tobacco-pipes, ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton

... shortly for Cephalonia, or one of the Ionian Islands, where he has got an appointment. If we were ordered there also, we might find an opportunity; but, you see, the captain won't have the chances of meeting her without being observed, which he has here, and a hundred to one the uncle claps half a dozen lobsters as sentries over her, if he sees the Ione ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... blue hair came again to the window. When she saw the unhappy puppet hanging by his throat, and dancing up and down in the gusts of the north wind, she was moved by compassion. Striking her hands together, she gave three little claps. ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi

... the eyes of the clergy are those which are offensive to Heaven. Rome punishes sins. The tribunal of the Vicariate sends a blasphemer to the galleys, and claps into goal the silly fellow who refuses to take the Communion at Easter. Surely nobody will charge the Head of the Church ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... than I had anticipated, and the few comments made by the members were nearly all indicative of scepticism of my statements and unbelief in my bona fides. A scientific audience is usually rather cold and unenthusiastic; but, in the present case, except for one or two isolated hand-claps, the vote of thanks was allowed to pass sub silentio. Sir Lockesley, of course, could not help this, and I saw that he was ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... night there came on a terrific storm, with driving rain, awful claps of thunder and blinding sheets of lightning. He covered his head with the bedclothes and waited in a horror of suspense for his doom; for he had not the shadow of a doubt that all this hubbub was about him. He believed he had taxed the forbearance of the powers above ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... your safety;—I desire not to defraud Valeria or Servilia of one caress, extorted from gratitude or pity. Be my feelings what they may, I have learnt in a fearful school to endure and to suppress them. I have been taught to abase a proud spirit to the claps and hisses of the vulgar;—to smile on suitors who united the insults of a despicable pride to the endearments of a loathsome fondness;—to affect sprightliness with an aching head, and eyes from which tears were ready to gush;—to feign love with curses on my lips, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... thunder claps upon the Business Men's dinner, occurred event after event of terrifying moment; and I, little I, who had lived so placidly all my days in the quiet university town, found myself and my personal affairs ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... still in the room, but it did not flare up as lightning would have done, and there were no loud claps ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope

... loof'd, The noble ruin of her magick, Antony, Claps on his sea-wing, and, like a doting mallard, Leaving the fight in height, flies after her; I never saw an action of such shame; Experience, manhood, honour, ne'er before Did violate ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various

... cloudless sky, "A mirror's face reflecting gives them back. "Delay ill brooking, hardly she contains "Her swelling joy; frantic for his embrace, "She pants, and hard from rushing forth refrains. "His sides he claps, and agile in the steam "Quick plunges, moving with alternate arms. "Bright through the waves he shines; thus white appears "The sculptur'd ivory, or the lily fair, "Seen through a crystal veil. The Naiaed cries;— "Lo! here I come;—he's mine,—the youth's my own! "And instant far was every ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... beds, sick and well, and gave me an opportunity of viewing such flashes of lightning as I had never contemplated till now, and such as it appeared impossible to escape from with life. The tremendous claps of thunder re-echoing among these Appenines, which double every sound, were truly dreadful. I really and sincerely thought St. Julian's mountain was rent by one violent stroke, accompanied with a rough concussion, and that the rock would fall upon our heads by morning; while ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... the feet of these women and this provokes quarrels. To meet such cases the new rule has been introduced. At the wedding the priest sits on the roof of the house facing the west, and the bride and bridegroom stand below with a curtain between them. As the sun is half set he claps his hands and the bridegroom takes the clasped hands of the bride within his own, the curtain being withdrawn. The bridegroom ties round the bride's neck a yellow thread of seven strands, and when this is done she is married. Next morning ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... who wish'd a kingdom for a stage, } Like giant pent in disproportion'd cage, } Mourn'd his contracted strengths and crippled rage. } He who could tame his vast ambition down To please some scatter'd gleanings of a town, And, if some hundred auditors supplied Their meagre meed of claps, was satisfied, How had he felt, when that dread curse of Lear's Had burst tremendous on a thousand ears, While deep-struck wonder from applauding bands Return'd the tribute of as many hands! Rude were his guests; he never ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... was lifting that lay between us and the coast. It was in a shallow muddy sea, and three or four of us was trying to make out the trees ashore, and wondering whether there would be any chance of our getting some fresh fruit and vegetables before long; when, all at once, one of my mates claps his hand on my shoulder, and he says—'Lookye yonder, mate.' 'Why, it's the sea-sarpent!' says another. 'Well, that is a rum un,' says another. And then we stood looking at what seemed to be a great ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... but soon choked by wrath and pain). Thou! Thou hast ... thou hast ... [He claps his hands ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... is set between the pair, With crystal perch above its emerald bands As green as young bamboo; at sunset there Thy friend, the blue-necked peacock, rises, stands, And dances when she claps her bracelet-tinkling hands. ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... that is to say, his profession is to observe the course of Nature; and if by chance he can discover any slight deviation of the good dame from the path which our ignorance has marked out as her only track, he claps his hands, cries [Greek: euraeka]! and is dubbed 'illustrious' on the spot. Such is the world's reward for a great discovery, which generally, in a twelvemonth's time, is found out to be a blunder of the philosopher, and not an eccentricity of Nature. I am not underrating ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... age he wrote as he had written in the vigour of his manhood:—'To the censure of Collier ... he [Dryden] makes little reply; being at the age of sixty-eight attentive to better things than the claps of a play-house.' Johnson's Works vii. 295. See post, April 29, 1773, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... to blow pretty fresh, and shake the cover rather more than was pleasant. But. nothing gave way, and after, as it seemed, fifty of the loudest claps of thunder we had ever heard, the rain ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth

... prayers, and he simply ejaculated, "It is well, if Allah please!" Scarcely had we returned home, when the clouds, which had been gathering since noon, began to discharge heavy showers, and a few loud thunder-claps to reverberate amongst the hills. We passed that evening surrounded by the Somal, who charged us with letters and many messages to Berberah. Our intention was to mount early on Friday morning. When we awoke, however, a mule had strayed and was not brought ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... limbs, passion yet in his heart-reconciled to what loom nearest in the prospect,—the armchair and the palsied head. Well! life is a quaint puzzle. Bits the most incongruous join into each other, and the scheme thus gradually becomes symmetrical and clear; when, lo! as the infant claps his hands and cries, 'See! see! the puzzle is made out!' all the pieces are swept back into the box,—black box with the gilded nails. Ho! Lionel, look up; there is our village church, and here, close at my ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Forthwith, one can hear heavy cannon being rolled across the courtyard; and forty soldiers, halberds in hand, come and range themselves around the room: they are veterans, with gray moustaches. The little Dauphin claps his hands feebly as he sees them, and recognizing one he calls him by name, "Lorrain! Lorrain!" The old soldier takes a step towards the bed. "I love you well, my good Lorrain. Let me see your big sword. If Death comes to take me, we must kill him, must we not?" Lorrain ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... Saut de Gayra. The mists rising from it can be seen at a distance of many miles. An enormous volume of water is suddenly forced through a narrow channel, and rushes with terrific force and the noise of a hundred thunder-claps into the gulf below. There, indeed, one could find ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... of its various repercussions by the clouds and terrestrial obstacles. Hence it is, that in vales, which are surrounded by mountains of a different Height, there is a terrible and long continued Bellowing of thunder Claps. Whereas for one Explosion it has been observed that there is but one Clap. Yet however if the Flame set Fire to two, three, or more fulmineous Tracts, each of them at last will end in a Clap, and thus several Sounds may be heard together, ...
— The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to Judge of the Changes of the Weather, Grounded on Forty Years' Experience • John Claridge

... gave a name to Corisco, which the natives know as Mange: it was called, says Barbot, "'Ilha do Corisco,' from the Portuguese, because of the violent horrid lightnings, and claps of thunder, the first discoverers there saw and heard there at the time of their discovery." There is still something to be done in investigating the cause of these electrical discharges. Why should ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... 'la bora, la bora!' and you are caught up in their whirl and landed in some interior, the man with the guitar on one side of you, and the boy with a cageful of little brown owls for sale, on the other—meanwhile, the thunder claps, claps, with such a persistence, and the rain, for a finale, falls in a mass, as if you had knocked out the whole bottom of a huge tank at once—then there is a second stop—out comes the sun—somebody clinks ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... leur distrait. For instance, there is the Princess de L——, there's her villa, close by, with green blinds. She makes little excuses to go over to Havre, just for this—to be carried in the arms like an infant. You should hear her, she shouts and claps her hands! All the beach assembles to see her land. When she is wet she cries for joy. It is so difficult to amuse one's self, it appears, in ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... that hasn't anything to do with it. The truth is I'm afraid of lightning and thunder, and thunder-claps hurt my head. If we have a bad storm, will you stay ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... invites eavesdropping. I can remedy that. (He claps his hands twice. The curtains are drawn, revealing the roof garden with a banqueting table set across in the middle for four persons, one at each end, and two side by side. The side next Caesar and Rufio is blocked with golden wine vessels and basins. ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... out, yes. And then done it. You should see her dance—ah! You should see her dance round the bear, when I bring him in! Ah, a beautiful thing, you know. She claps her hand—" And Ciccio stood still in the street, with his hat cocked a little on one side, rather common-looking, and he smiled along his fine nose at Alvina, and he clapped his hands lightly, and he tilted his eyebrows and his eyelids as if facially ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... but a night, a long and moonless night; We make the grave our bed, and then are gone. Thus, at the shut of even, the weary bird Leaves the wide air, and in some lonely brake Cowers down, and dozes till the dawn of day, Then claps his well-fledged wings, and ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... but before the canvas could be handed, with claps like thunder, the main-topmast-staysail and jib were blown from the bolt-ropes, the topsails and courses were flying in shreds from the yards, the topsail sheets, clew-lines and bunt-lines were carried away, as were also the ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... I was wondering if that were, after all, the true description, when the road began to go down into the narrow and naked chasm of a torrent. The waters thundered tumultuously in the bottom; and the ravine was filled full of the sound, the thin spray, and the claps of wind, that accompanied their descent. The scene was certainly impressive; but the road was in that part very securely walled in; the mule went steadily forward; and I was astonished to perceive the paleness of terror ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his neck, waddles up, as if he had been born, and had lived ever since, in a gale of wind at sea. The upper half of his sharp dogged visage seems of brick-red leather, the lower of badger's fur; and as he claps Drake on the back, and, with a broad Devon twang, shouts, "be you a coming to drink your wine, Francis Drake, or be you not?—saving your presence, my lord;" the lord high admiral only laughs, and bids Drake go and drink his wine; for John Hawkins, admiral of the port, is the patriarch ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... knows not Bremo's strength, Who like a king commands within these woods. The bear, the boar, dares not abide my sight, But hastes away to save themselves by flight. The crystal waters in the bubbling brooks, When I come by, doth swiftly slide away, And claps themselves in closets under banks, Afraid to look bold Bremo in the face: The aged oaks at Bremo's breath do bow, And all things else are still at my command, Else what would I? Rend them in pieces, and pluck them from the earth, And each ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... alone together with their grief. The sky was still dark, with threatening dark clouds, which threw their deep shadows over the room, and at intervals a blinding flash of lightning illuminated with dazzling ray the bowed figures of father and daughter; while loud claps of thunder called to them, as if to rouse them from the ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus

... I could describe it all to you! These wounded men are picked up after a fight and taken anywhere—very often to some farmhouse or inn, where a Belgian surgeon claps something on to the wounds or ties on a splint, and then our (Dr. Munro's) ambulances come along and bring the men into the Field Hospital if they are very bad, or if not they are taken direct to a station and left there. They may, and often do, have to wait for hours till a train loads ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... merrily, saying, "See my pretty kitten, that knows a hundred tricks! and see my brave mungooz, that can kill cobras in fair fight! My Persian kitten for your silver bells, Chinna Tumbe, and my cunning mungooz for your golden chain!" And Chinna Tumbe laughs, and claps his hands, and dances for delight, and all his silver bells jingle gleefully. And the pleasant peddler all the way from Cabool says, "Step without the gate, Little Brother, if you would see my pretty ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... the sport, Cries "Bravo!" and claps his hands, And calling in haste for his man, Jack Frost, He gives ...
— King Winter • Anonymous

... and tossing caps, Full merry the rabble huzzas and claps; But the boy regards not the token— ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... surfaces and will delight in expressing what he knows to do cleverly. Under this impulse the dexterity of his art is poured forth; the long training of the workshop aids him. He paints the horse and makes it look not only like a real horse, but a particular one. The bourgeois claps his hands exclaiming, "See it is unmistakably old Dobbin, the white spot on his fetlock is there and his tail ragged on the end; and the laborer, I know him at once. How true to life with side whiskers and that ugly ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore

... their demise. The peine forte et dure is, you know, nothing in comparison to being obliged to grind verses; and so devilish repulsive is my disposition, that I can never put my wheel into constant and regular motion, till Ballantyne's devil claps in his proofs, like the hot cinder which you Bath folks used to clap in beside an unexperienced turnspit, as a hint to be expeditious in his duty. O long life to the old hermit of Prague, who never saw pen and ink!—much happier in {p.007} that negative ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... day and a night the heavens glowed like a furnace with incessant flashes of lightning, while the loud claps of thunder were often mistaken for signal guns of their ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich

... as a king; and when the two years are out, and another is chose, a messenger is sent to him, who stands at the bottom of the stairs, and he at, the top, and says, "Va. Illustrissima Serenita sta finita, et puede andar en casa."—"Your serenity is now ended; and now you may be going home;" and so claps on his hat. And the old Duke (having by custom sent his goods home before,) walks away, it may be but with one man at his heels; and the new one brought immediately in his room, in the greatest state in ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... the men of pleasure are forced one day in the week, to game at home instead of the chocolate houses?[10] Are not the taverns and coffeehouses open? Can there be a more convenient season for taking a dose of physic? Are fewer claps got upon Sundays than other days? Is not that the chief day for traders to sum up the accounts of the week, and for lawyers to prepare their briefs? But I would fain know how it can be pretended that the churches are misapplied? Where are more appointments and rendezvouzes of gallantry? Where more ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... the customary morning worship offers perhaps the best example of the ancient rules of devotion. Immediately upon rising, the worshipper performs his ablutions; and after having washed his face and rinsed his mouth, he turns to the sun, claps his hands, and with bowed head reverently utters the simple greeting: "Hail to thee this day, August One!" In thus adoring the sun he is also fulfilling his duty as a subject, paying obeisance to the Imperial Ancestor .... The act ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... July there cam' a spell o' weather, the like o't never was in that countryside; it was lown an' het an' heartless; the herds couldnae win up the Black Hill, the bairns were ower weariet to play; an' yet it was gousty too, wi' claps o' het wund that rummled in the glens, and bits o' shouers that slockened naething. We aye thocht it but to thun'er on the morn; but the morn cam', an' the morn's morning, and it was aye the same uncanny weather, sair on ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... lecture Coleridge stopped, and said loud enough to be heard by the individual, that before the intruder "kicked up a dust, he would surely down with the dust," and desired the man to admit him. The individual had not long been in the room before he began hissing, this was succeeded by loud claps from Coleridge's party, which continued for a few minutes, but at last they grew so warm that they began to vociferate, "Turn him out!"—"Turn him out!"—"Put him out of the window!" Fearing the consequences of this increasing clamour, the lecturer was compelled to request silence, ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... heroes of the mimic stage No longer whine in love, and rant in rage; The monarch quits his throne, and condescends Humbly to court the favour of his friends; For pity's sake tells undeserved mishaps, And, their applause to gain, recounts his claps. Thus the victorious chiefs of ancient Rome, To win the mob, a suppliant's form assume; 10 In pompous strain fight o'er the extinguish'd war, And show where honour bled in every scar. But though bare merit might in Rome appear The strongest plea for favour, 'tis not here; ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... should certainly have lain-to; but, in the present exigency, we were necessitated to carry both our courses and top-sails, in order to keep clear of this lee-shore. In one of these squalls, which was attended by several violent claps of thunder, a sudden flash of fire darted along our decks, which dividing, exploded with a report like that of several pistols, and wounded many of our men and officers, marking them in different parts of their bodies. This flame was attended by a strong, sulphurous stench, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... resolution that filled the regiment and bid defiance to the future. Glancing at the General waving his one arm in the air, he answered some faint-hearted hopeful, "I'm thinking the war will not be over till Norie claps his hands." It is in that spirit that the armies of England win their way ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous

... were dead of the plague, and the ship cast ashore And with the great men in curing of their claps Expressly taking care that nobody might see this business done Having some experience, but greater conceit of it than is fit Helping to slip their calfes when there is occasion Her months upon her is gone to bed I had agreed with ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger



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