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Launch   Listen
verb
Launch  v. i.  (past & past part. launched; pres. part. launching)  (Written also lanch)  
1.
To throw, as a lance or dart; to hurl; to let fly.
2.
To strike with, or as with, a lance; to pierce. (Obs.) "Launch your hearts with lamentable wounds."
3.
To cause to move or slide from the land into the water; to set afloat; as, to launch a ship. "With stays and cordage last he rigged the ship, And rolled on levers, launched her in the deep."
4.
To send out; to start (one) on a career; to set going; to give a start to (something); to put in operation; as, to launch a son in the world; to launch a business project or enterprise. "All art is used to sink episcopacy, and launch presbytery in England."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Launch" Quotes from Famous Books



... the following morning when a launch drew up beside the Nautilus. In it were Edwards and Dr. Jermyn, ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... banks, with here and there a settler's "clearing" or a squatter's cabin, were the only signs of civilisation to be met with. A single day's ride in a westerly direction would carry the traveller clear of all these, and launch him at once into the labyrinth of swamps and woods, that stretched away for hundreds of miles before him. It is true, there were some scattered settlements upon the bayous farther west, but most of the country ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... soon accepted by Chinese society as a semi-official warning of what was coming, it alone was not sufficient to launch a movement which to be successful required the benign endorsement of foreign opinion. The Chinese pamphleteer had dealt with the emotional side of the case: it was necessary to reinforce his arguments with an appeal which would be understood by Western statesmen as well as by Eastern ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... the "Geisterschiff" in the autumn; we will then launch it at once with Sgambati, who has just composed several Lieder, exquisite in sentiment. I have recently written, as an Impromptu, without any forethought, an Elegie in memory of Mme. de Moukhanoff, entitled "Schlummerlied im Grabe" [Slumber Song in ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... athwart the deck with the roll of the ship. Nothing daunted by this, however, he dashed recklessly in among them, and escaping, heaven knows how, from the incessant danger of fractured limbs, managed to drag out, one after the other, and launch overboard several of the lighter spars. Having commenced the work, he now toiled persistently on, allowing himself neither pause nor rest until he had disposed of every spar which his unaided strength would allow him to move. Then, panting, breathless, ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... stepping into the launch which immediately swung away toward the beautiful yacht, dazzling white in the ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... pockets of the men's stiff oilskins a piece of bread, a half-filled bottle—knowing that, as often as not, their husbands must pass the night and half the next day on the beach, or out at sea, should the weather permit a launch through the surf. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... names as their administrative centers (exceptions have the administrative center name following in parentheses); in 1995, the Governments of Kazakhstan and Russia entered into an agreement whereby Russia would lease for a period of 20 years an area of 6,000 sq km enclosing the Baykonur space launch facilities and the city of Bayqongyr (Baykonur, formerly Leninsk); in 2004, a new agreement extended the ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... for us he did not reach us, and I might almost say luckily for himself; for we had only a small breaker of water and some soddened ship's biscuits with us, so sudden had been the alarm, so unprepared the ship for any disaster. We thought the people on the launch would be better provisioned (though it seems they were not), and we tried to hail them. They could not have heard us, and the next morning when the drizzle cleared,—which was not until past midday,—we could see nothing of them. We could not stand up to look about us, because of ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... a sailing craft, a number of rowboats, and a small gasoline launch in the boathouse. They had been ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope

... of self-preservation within us that I doubt not a would-be suicide, caught in the act of hanging himself, would struggle madly for his life were someone else to forcibly adjust the noose about his neck. At all events, I found myself unwilling, at the last moment, to have someone else launch me into eternity and, as I wished to gain time to think what I should do to escape, ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... into sallad oil; the Tories being put down, and the banks having entered into what some time ago seemed the paulo post futurum of specie payments; I desire to share in the general tide of prosperity; I launch myself upon it at its flood, discard all reserve, and shall descend at once without farther preface into the midst of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... the launch that carried him away as it left Manila. She rushed down to the Pasig river, loosened her little boat from the tree to which it was tied, jumped in, seized the oars and started in pursuit. The launch on which he was being carried had for its power a gasoline engine, and, of course, it soon left her ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey

... had no great sympathy with some of his love verses, which were probably of too sentimental a strain for his taste, we may be sure that he admired the brilliant genius as well as the fine workmanship of many of his other poems. At all events, he had too much good sense to launch a sneer at so great a poet recently dead, which would not only have been in the worst taste, but might justly have been ascribed to jealousy. When he talks, therefore, of a pair of fribbles who can sing nothing but Calvus and Catullus, it is, ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... edge, we saw a fence enclosing some pasture land, and were glad to see another gate, for we wanted a raft for our clothes, and we thought this would do. It was a heavy brute of a gate. We could hardly launch it. Perhaps we were getting weaker—that may have been the reason it seemed so heavy. Anyway, when we got it to the water's edge, we had to rest before undertaking to swim the river. The current was not so ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung

... launch a joke—a quotation from newspapers. He desired to say, "All quiet on the Rappahannock," but the guns refused to permit even a comment upon their uproar. He never successfully concluded the sentence. But at last the guns stopped, and among the men in the rifle ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... eager eyes shorewards was the fluttering banner high on the house-top on the hill. Having nothing else convenient with which to return the salute, he and his mates snatched a sheet from a bunk and waved it from a porthole. Meanwhile Mrs. Stevenson had despatched her son to hire a launch and take the mother and sisters of her nephew out to meet him, and as soon as the sea-worn and tired young soldiers had landed at the Presidio she sent out baskets of fruit and bottles ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... wireless man continued to watch sharply the casual movements of this Chinese, quite as he had been observing him since they had left Tandjong Priok in the company's launch and come out to the ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... clan of grey Fingon, whose offspring has given Such heroes to earth and such martyrs to heaven, Unite with the race of renown'd Rorri More, To launch the long galley and ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... have checked these forces for evil. The first would have been an immediate decision to make Home Rule law. This would have put an end to the pestilent growth of suspicion among Nationalists, and it would have enabled Redmond to launch at once his appeal for soldiers. The other would have been a decision to make good the pledge contained in the Government's message to Lord Aberdeen and to accept in some practical way the offered service ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... promised to spend the whole afternoon with them. Never had he felt so happy. The deep blue water, ruffled by a summer breeze, sparkled with a million points of crystal light. Valerius became absorbed in trying to launch a tiny red-sailed boat, but Catullus rushed back to his mother, exclaiming, "Mother, mother, the waves are laughing too!" And she had caught him in her arms and smiled into his eyes and said: "Child, a great poet said that long ago. Are you going to be a poet some ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson

... going up the harbour. It had been blowing hard outside the night before from the N.E., and there was still much wind, and some sea, even in the harbour. I was much struck by his appearance and manner. Having to launch his boat through a surf at Kohimarama beach, he had only on a shirt and trousers, and was of course drenched. He stepped on board more like a sailor than a clergyman, and almost immediately made one or two sailor-like remarks about the vessel, as if he understood ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the sheep and goat, I will launch the bonny boat, Skim the loch in canty glee, Rest the oars to pleasure thee; When chilly breezes sweep the tide, I 'll hap ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... constructions which lend themselves better to architectural treatment than water-gates and stairways. They would become one of the features of the Embankment. On the river itself the City Companies would once more launch their State barges, and the Houses of Parliament would have a flotilla of decorative steam or electric launches. Permanent moorings, now difficult to maintain near the bank on account of the runaway tide, would hold boats, launches, and single-handed ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish

... right. Directly afterwards, to our great satisfaction, we stumbled upon the canoe. To launch it was the work of a moment; but though we hunted in every direction, we could only find ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... oldest and premier educational institution in the United States, is located at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 3 m. W. of Boston; it is named after the Rev. John Harvard, a graduate of Cambridge, who by the bequest of his library and small fortune helped to launch the institution in 1638; it was originally intended for the training of youths for the Puritan ministry, but it has during the present century been extended into a university of the first rank, under emancipation from all sectarian control; it has a student roll ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... tribe which had been giving much trouble, was intercepted and brought to Cavagnari; in it the Amir praised and complimented the Khagianis for their religious zeal and fidelity to himself. He exhorted them to have no fear of the infidels, against whom he was about to launch an irresistible force of troops and Ghazis, and wound up as follows: 'By the favour of God, and in accordance with the verse "Verily God has destroyed the powerful ones," the whole of them will go to the fire ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... frigate is refitting, I will describe some of our sailors' frolics on shore. Returning one afternoon from Plymouth, I met two hackney coaches driving very rapidly. The first of them contained one of our boatswain's mates and the coxswain of the launch with their delicate ladies. On the roof was another of our men playing the fiddle. I expected to see him fall off every moment, but, like a true sailor, he had learnt to hold fast. The second coach contained the men's hats and their ladies' bonnets. As they were ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... as a small steam-engine was employed to hoist the sails, it became possible to launch much larger schooners and to operate them at a marvelously low cost. Rapidly the four-master gained favor, and then came the five-and six-masted vessels, gigantic ships of their kind. Instead of the hundred-ton schooner of a century ago, Hampton Roads and Boston Harbor saw these great cargo carriers ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... are sure to. The average mechanic along the route is a veritable bull in a china shop,—once inside your machine, and you are done for. He knows it all, and more too. He once lived next to a man who owned a naphtha launch; hence his expert knowledge; or he knew some one who was blown up by gasoline, therefore he is qualified. Look out for him; his look of intelligence is deception itself. His readiness with hammer and file means destruction; if he once gets at the machine, give it ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... cross to cross, in quest of dust; and, without its finger-posts to guide it, would have wandered devious. It is surely a better devotion that, instead of thus creeping over the earth to a mouldy sepulchre, can at once launch into the sky, secure of finding Him who once arose from one. In less than an hour we were descending on the Bay of Laig, a semi-circular indentation of the coast, about a mile in length, and, where it ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... leaves of dead books; you are too young for antiquities. Look about you, the pale throng of men surrounds you. The eyes of life's sphynx glitter in the midst of divine hieroglyphics; decipher the book of life! Courage, scholar, launch out on the Styx, the deathless flood, and let the waves of sorrow waft you to ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... sun was dropping below the horizon filling the air with a golden light, the anchor was slowly raised. A number of the French people who had been visitors to the Molkte were in a steam launch near by waiting ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... and she was lying a quarter of a mile away from the docks, awaiting her mail-bags and her important passengers. Besides Mrs. Harry Lawson and ourselves, Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Beit, and Dr. Rutherford Harris, the two latter of whom were also going to England, embarked quite unnoticed on a small launch, ostensibly to make a tour of the harbour, which as a matter of fact we did, whilst waiting for the belated mail. An object of interest was the chartered P. and O. transport Victoria, which had only ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... of caste in the upper grades of employment in the South forbade Negroes from working side by side with the whites. She felt that the most practicable manner of banishing this dead line was for Negroes to combine their capital and launch enterprises that would make it possible for their people to rise in keeping with the claims of merit, unhampered by the fact of their color. She felt that the infusion of hope in the industrial world, the breaking of the bands that ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... audience that, much as the singer has accomplished, the limit of his capacity has by no means been reached, and that, like a great commander, he has his forces well in hand, is holding back his reserves and does not expect to launch them into action at all, can be created only by perfect control of the air-column; and that control of breath is gained best by a pause, if only for a fraction of a second, between ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... McKinley and Hanna know once for all that he would not be Vice-President, and found to his stupefaction that nobody in Washington, except Platt, had ever dreamed of such a thing. He did not even have a chance to launch his nolo episcopari at the Major. That statesman said he did not want him on the ticket—that he would be far more valuable in New York— and Root said, with his frank and murderous smile, "Of course not—you're not fit for it." And so he went back quite eased ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... of the trader's pack. French missionaries were the first white men to settle in the populous Huron country near Lake Simcoe. A missionary was the first European to catch a glimpse of Georgian Bay, and a missionary was probably the first of the French race to launch his canoe on the lordly Mississippi. As a father the priest watched over his wilderness flock; while the French traders fraternized with the red men, and often mated with dusky beauties. Many French traders, according to Sir William Johnson—a good authority, of whom we shall learn more ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... the advice, assented to it; and ordered the archers to descend, at once, into the valley between the two hills; and to launch their arrows against the Scots. On descending, it was found that the Scottish bowmen were already in the valley. These they speedily drove up the hill, and then sent their arrows thick and fast ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty

... spaceship. I assumed it was one of those that were involved in that commercial raid a few decades ago, but I see it wasn't. No—I knew nothing about this development. And Douglas, I guess, wanted to keep it hidden. He gave your co-ordinates and ordered Mullins to launch a missile. But he apparently forgot to turn on his IFF. At any rate the missile lost you—but found Douglas. Douglas was still talking to Alexandria when ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... stream, They launch their buoyant skiff, Bless'd, if they may but trust hope's dream, ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... Denviers, when at last we found our junk, after walking several miles along the coast, and prepared to launch it into the sea in order to leave the island. "We lost the treasure after all, but still we have something left to recall this strange adventure at times," and he drew from his sash the Spanish sword which he had thrust there. After examining ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... tyrants forcing conquered queens to drink their lovers' blood, or some horror of the Inquisition, or the barrel of Regulus bumping down-hill and coming to smash at the bottom. The second part was a modern comedy carried on in Parisian drawing-rooms or on board an electric launch on an American river. The third part was always a wild farce and usually contained an impossible chase. Not till after the cinematograph had concluded its show did the audience ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... executioner behind him. He bore three ropes round his neck; two the size of the little finger, and called tortouses, each of which had a slip-knot; the third, called the jet, was only used to pull the victim off the ladder, and so to launch him into eternity (Fig. 350). When the cart arrived at the foot of the gallows, the executioner first ascended the ladder backwards, drawing the culprit after him by means of the ropes, and forcing ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... near the banks of this river suggested other thoughts. At once a design entered into my mind. "We can build a raft," thought I, "launch it upon this noble river, and float down to the Amazon, and thence to the mouth of the great stream itself. There is a Portuguese settlement there—the town of Grand Para. There we shall ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... to explore, manipulate or somehow launch forth into the new, and the negative tendencies of fear, inertia, shyness, etc., is {530} something that recurs again and again in human experience, as illustrated by making up your mind to get up in the morning, or to plunge into the cold water, or to speak up and have your ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... this haste to launch the plan for the suppression of the government tax and restoring the value of the currency? Why did he send him, Caesar, on this errand, and not somebody in ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... wars, naturally, but civilized wars. Afterwards? Why, future posterity! Own up that you'd like to save the world, eh, what? When you launch out into these great machinations you say enormities compulsively. The ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... after weighing these chances launch out into an offensive war in the West, the struggle would probably assume a quite different character from that, for example, of a Franco-German war. Russia, owing to her vast extent, is in the first place secure against complete subjugation. In case of defeat her centre of ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi

... a steam-launch. It contained Lady VIOLET, the other characters, lunch, and (played ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various

... looked at him as he said it, then pulled him down the passage a little faster than before. Yet the way they ran dancing along that oil-cloth passage held something of the joy and confidence with which birds launch themselves into flight across the earth. There was this sense of spontaneous ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... made at Havre with an electric launch built to the order of the French government by the Forges et Chantiers de la Mediterranee. The vessel, which has rather full lines, measures 28 ft. between perpendiculars and 9 ft. beam, and is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various

... Algernon having no feeling for her. It might be only too true, but her wifely submission ought not to have acknowledged it, and they would not hear when they could not comfort; and so they were forced to launch her on the world, with a tyrant instead of a guide, and dreading the effect of dissipation on her levity of mind, as much as they grieved for her feeble spirit. It was a piteous parting—a mournful departure for a bride—a heavy ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... we left Shooa. The pure air of that country had invigorated us, and I was so improved in strength, that I enjoyed the excitement of the launch into unknown lands. The Turks knew nothing of the route south, and I accordingly took the lead of the entire party. I had come to a distinct understanding with Ibrahim that Kamrasi's country should belong to ME; not an act of felony would be permitted; all were to be under ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... to the subject of kerosene-oil, you can exterminate the mosquitoes of any locality by covering with a film of kerosene all stagnant water surfaces therein. The larvae die on rising to breathe; and the adult females perish when they approach the water to launch their rafts of eggs. And I read, in Dr. Howard's book, that the actual cost of freeing from mosquitoes one American town of fifty thousand inhabitants, does not exceed ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn

... we were ready to make what we hoped would prove the last departure from a Labrador harbor, the next morning, the wind, which had changed in the night and was blowing in exactly the opposite direction, had become so strong that the little steam launch of Bayne & Co., which had been tendered us to tow us out of the harbor, was not powerful enough to pull the schooner against it. The other entrance, for like all the rest this Labrador harbor was merely a "tickle" and ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley

... glance at the youth, and, laying one hand across his ample chest, prepared to launch a withering denunciation at him, when ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells

... ship was finished, and they tried to launch her down the beach; but she was too heavy for them to move her, and her keel sank deep into the sand. Then all the heroes looked at each other blushing; but Jason spoke, and said, 'Let us ask the magic bough; perhaps it can help ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley

... The American Indians, in their frail canoes, the Esquimaux, in their crank kayaks, braved the fury of this aquatic monster, whose size was to that of one of his enemies as the bulk of a battle-ship is to that of a pigmy torpedo launch. But the whale fishery in vessels fitted for cruises of moderate length had its origin in Europe, where the Basques during the Middle Ages fairly drove the animals from the Bay of Biscay, which had long swarmed ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... forward to launch the sea-anchor himself, leaving it to 'Frisco Kid to put the helm down at the proper moment and run into the wind. The Frenchman poised on the slippery fore-deck, waiting an opportunity. But at that ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London

... and hundreds were ready to pour shot and shell upon the French defences. In every hollow, in every fold of the ground, under the trees, behind every sort of cover, German hosts were secretly collected, getting ready for that moment, now almost at hand, when the War Lord would launch his legions. In fact, Germany was to attempt on the Western Front, and against the French, precisely what she had attempted against the Russians with some degree of success, but yet without attaining her ambitions. She had aimed to crush Russia ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... Southern States in regard to his conquest of the North that he determined to make another effort. He still had Pickett's division, the flower of Virginia, which had not been engaged, and which was full of enthusiasm. He resolved to launch them against our centre, supported on either flank by the advance of the main portion of the army. He had hoped that Johnson's division would have been able to maintain its position on the right, so that ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday

... some months, Strafford lay complete: but how to get it from the stocks; in what method to launch it? The step was questionable. Before going to Italy he had sent me the Manuscript; still loyal and friendly; and willing to hear the worst that could be said of his poetic enterprise. I had to afflict him again, the good ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... at his castle of Landstuhl, he consulted with him as to the help to be given to the man now threatened with excommunication, and Sickingen offered him his protection. Hutten at the same time proceeded to launch the most violent controversial diatribes and satires against Rome; one in particular, called 'The Roman Trinity,' wherein he detailed in striking triplets the long series of Romish pretensions, trickeries, and vexatious ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... of Charlie's arm, and launched into a glowing description of a ship "nearly two feet long," that had been made a present to him, finishing off with "She's splendid, and that's just all about it. I am going now to name her, and launch her in that big pond in Thompson's field. Come along," he said, drawing Charlie in the direction of the field as he spoke; "you shall give her the name, ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown

... A benevolent desire to launch far and wide the already well-spread reputation of the New York rowdy impels the present writer to declare his conviction, that, should Physiology offer a premium for the production of a perfect and unmitigated specimen of polisson, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... boat which the galley carried. Before all was done she struck beak first, and was lifted on to a great flat rock, where she wallowed, with the water seething round her. Then, knowing that their hour was come, the crew made shift to launch the boat and raft on the lee side, and began to clamber into them. Now Nehushta came out of the cabin and prayed the captain to save them also, whereon he answered her with an oath that this bad luck was because ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... voyage across the North Sea, through the destroyer and armed motor launch patrol, maintained by men who work unflinchingly in the shadow of death, I felt once again the power of the British Navy. I cast my lot with that Navy when I left Holland. I know what its protection means, for I could not have crossed on a neutral ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... brush for whole days together; then the inspiration, as he called it, would come upon him; then he would swagger about as if he were drunk, clumsy, awkward, and noisy; his cheeks were flushed with a coarse colour, his eyes dull; he would launch into discourses upon his talent, his success, his development, the advance he was making.... It turned out in actual fact that he had barely talent enough to produce passable portraits. He was a perfect ignoramus, had read nothing; why should an artist read, indeed? ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev

... insurrectionary period that began in 1848 he became active, but he appears to have done little noteworthy before January, 1849, when he went secretly to Leipsic in the hope of aiding a group of young Czechs to launch an uprising in Bohemia. Shortly afterward an insurrection broke out in Dresden, and he rushed there to become one of the most active leaders of the revolt. It is said that he was "the veritable soul ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... is the rock which most young people split upon: they launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, but without a compass to direct their course, or reason sufficient to steer the vessel; for want of which, pain and shame, instead of pleasure, are the returns of their ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... four paces from me, and I was grasping tightly a root of holly that was growing out of a rock to launch out a kick at the ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian

... trod on the dry rustling leaves. As he passed through the wood; as he passed through the wood; And silently gained his rude launch on the shore, As she played with the flood; as ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... him to do a maximum amount of work with least suffering in health, would come and fetch him away after half an hour's talk, that he might lie down alone in a quiet room. Then after an hour or so he would return with a smile, like a boy released from punishment, and launch again with a merry laugh into talk. Never was there an invalid who bore his maladies so cheerfully, or who made so light of a terrible burden. Although he was frequently seasick during the voyage of the Beagle, he did ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... long discussions before it was finally decided that Bob should launch upon the venture. Bob's mother opposed it. The terrible winter of suspense when Bob, lost in the snow, was given up for dead, was still a vivid remembrance to her. She recalled those tedious months of grief as one recalls a horrid nightmare, ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace

... recollections of Tamatave incidents. My stay from ship being limited, after a chat, mingled with sherry and cigars and an expression of regret from Capt. Rodgers that, not being in our "bailiwick," he could not give me a consular salute from his guns, he ordered the ship's steam launch, and, escorted by the Lieutenant, under our national banner, I soon boarded my ship. I was much indebted to Capt. Rodgers and officers for their ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... November (1882) I announced my intention to bring out a new monthly magazine entitled Progress. Several friends thought it impolitic to launch my new venture in such troubled waters, and advised me to wait for the issue of the prosecution. But I resolved to act exactly as though the prosecution had never been initiated. It seemed to me ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... from which, once having conquered the desert and reached the canal, the invaders could advantageously launch an attack or attacks upon the canal defenses. The first is just south of El Kantara, where the old sea road crosses the Suez. Just south of Ismailia a group of heights on the east bank provides a second opportunity. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... frowned down upon the salt, throwing its shadow across it for hundreds of ominous yards. It towered erect and then, repeating the tactic invariably successful, it toppled forward to create a bridgehead from which to launch new assaults. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... truly Dombey and Son, while the girl, for all commercial purposes, can be nothing but a cipher. And through his pride he is struck to the heart, and ruined. Mr. Carker, his confidential agent and manager, trades upon it for all vile ends, first to feather his own nest, and then to launch his patron into large and unsound business ventures. The second wife, whom he marries, certainly with no affection on either side, but purely because of her birth and connections, and because her great beauty will add to his social prestige—she, ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... remorseless Idol, how abject we were to him! What a launch in life I think it now, on looking back, to be so mean and servile to a man of ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... Joseph, the boat action in the Bay of Cadiz, and the famous battles of the Nile and Trafalgar. Of these, perhaps, the boat action during the blockade of Cadiz was the most severe. While making an attempt against the Spanish gunboats, he was attacked by D. Miguel Tregayen, in an armed launch, carrying twenty-six men; fearful odds against his ten bargemen, captain, and coxswain. Eighteen Spaniards were killed, the rest ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park

... Phil was not all right. He was splashing and struggling out of his depth, perhaps a hundred yards away; suddenly he gave a cry, threw up his arms, and went down. Ashurst saw the girl launch herself towards him, and crying out: "Go back, Stella! Go back!" he dashed out. He had never swum so fast, and reached Halliday just as he was coming up a second time. It was a case of cramp, but to get him in was not ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... as Quennebert had anticipated. Madame Quennebert, furious at the deceit which had been practised on her, refused to listen to her husband's justification, and Trumeau, not letting the grass grow under his feet, hastened the next day to launch an accusation of bigamy against the notary; for the paper which had been found in the nuptial camber was nothing less than an attested copy of a contract of marriage concluded between Quennebert and Josephine-Charlotte Boullenois. It was by the merest ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... gives the following curious anecdote:—"The Rev. Henry Fulton was reading the commandments, when Tony Chandler sung out—'turn out, you d——d villians, and launch the boat!' As I was going out, I said to Mr. Fulton, 'I perceive Tony Chandler's word has more power here than the word of God.' Fulton smiled, and shook his head."—Memoirs, vol. ii. ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... catching fish, nor ever, if you will take my advice, return with empty hands. But you must never put to sea without having first seen me pass your house, as if going toward the shore. Obey me in this matter, and I promise you that you shall never launch your boat in vain." ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... about the camp at sunrise, and he had stirred up the smouldering fire and put a kettle and a dipper of water to boil before Kiddie crawled out of his sleeping bag. Kiddie's first occupation was to launch the canoe. ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton

... a tale of fabled might; Wang Liyang's {22} bridle will no more delight; Nor how his chariot Siyan Ou did guide; Nor how, incas'd in hauberk's steely pride, His hundred myriads, at the cymbals' sound, The falcon launch'd, or slipp'd the eager hound; Or giving rein to every fiery steed No more precipitous Tai Shan would heed, Than stair which leadeth to some upper bower; Or swarming down tumultuous to the shore, Chain'd the sea-waters with the nets they ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... ran down from Suez Quay in the Bird of the Sea (Tayr el-Bahr), the harbour mouche, or little steam-launch, accompanied by the Governor, Sa'id Bey, who has not yet been made a Pasha; by Mr. Consul West; by the genial Ra'if Bey, Wakil el-Komandaniyyah or acting commodore of the station; by Mr. Willoughby Faulkner, my host at Suez; by the Messieurs Levick, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... off to Bathurst, and the progress of the party was resumed. Before the day closed, they found themselves on a dreary expanse of flats and of desolate reed beds. The progress of the main body was thus suddenly and completely checked, and Sturt decided to launch the boat and with two men endeavour to trace the course of the river, while Hume and two others endeavoured to find an opening to ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc

... building was not completed and ready for use until the following year, so Dr. Curwen took charge of the hospital ship Albert, and I cruised as far north as Okkak (lat. 57 deg.) in the Princess May, a midget steam launch, eight feet wide, with a cook and an engineer. As there was no coal obtainable in the North, we used wood, and her fire-box being small the amount of cutting entailed left a ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... I'll tell you the date, and you can work me a sampler. And I was born in a place you've never set eyes on—and I hope you never will set eyes on it. I was born in Glasgow. And there's a smelly old river there, called the Clyde, where they launch big ships ... a bit bigger than the Minerva. The Minerva was built in Holland. Well, my old father was a tough old chap—not a Scotchman, though my mother was Scotch—with a big business in Glasgow. He was as rich as—well, richer than anybody you ever ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton

... The flames were breaking out from below. The deck was all ablaze. The men who were left alive made haste to launch a small boat. They leaped into it, and rowed swiftly away. Any other place was safer now than on board of that burning ship. There was powder ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin

... her the next day, and took her, with the Marshes, out for a launch ride, and otherwise devoted himself to being an agreeable cavalier. On the launch excursion it was settled definitely that Hazel should accompany them East. She had no preparations to make. The only ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... In the acquisition of a new thought or the leaving off of an old one we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and decided initiative ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji

... the Alabama, has been better acted up to than such legends usually are. Just before the funnel, and near the centre of the vessel, was the bridge, at either side of which hung the two principal boats, cutter and launch; a gig, and whale-boat, being suspended from the davits on either side of the quarter-deck, and a small dingy over the stern. On the main deck she was pierced for twelve guns, with two heavy pivot guns amidships. ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... the sunlight, Not of the moonlight, Nor of the starlight! O young Mariner, Down to the haven, Call your companions, Launch your vessel, And crowd your canvas, And ere it vanishes Over the margin, After it, follow it, Follow the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... kiss swords, each his mate's, in the face of the sun, Warm with the generous wine of the battle; and Willoughby's might To the turf bore Crescia, and lifted again,—knight honouring knight; All in the hurry and turmoil:—where North, half-booted and rough, Launch'd on the struggle, and Sidney struck onward, his cuisses thrown off, Rash over-courage of poet and youth!—while the memories, how At the joust long syne She look'd on, as he triumph'd, were hot on his brow, 'Stella! mine own, my own star!'—and he sigh'd:—and towards ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... the message into a waste receptacle in disgust and went over to look at the screens where Kloomiria was showing. The humans of Cathay might try a return raid, but he was unworried. Cathay's fleet was pitiful, and she had no heavy ships from which to launch planet bombs. Of course, there were spy reports of vast numbers of what seemed to be guided missiles, but they could never get through the confusion-signals that ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey

... 'under the wing of my eldest brother, then in the upper division, and this helped my start and much mitigated the sense of isolation that attends the first launch at a public school.' The door of his dame's house looked down the Long Walk, while the windows looked into the very crowded churchyard: from this he never received the smallest inconvenience, though it was his custom (when master of the room) to sleep with his window open both summer ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... Virginia induced them to change their minds. Moreover, hundreds of letters from leading Virginians who knew Jackson well poured in upon him, asking him to withdraw the resignation. So it was arranged and Jackson remained, biding his time for the while at Winchester, until he could launch the thunderbolt. ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler

... wife's attentions with an angry hand. But just as he was about to launch a reply more congruous with his gout and his contempt for 'Driffield's low-life friends' than with the amenities of ordinary society, and while Lady Venetia was slowly and severely studying David through her eyeglass, Lord Driffield threw himself into the breach with a nervous story of some favourite ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... who rarely, perhaps some who never, served afloat except in a man-of-war. Some of the interesting naval families which were settled at Portsmouth and the eastern ports, and which—from father to son—helped to recruit the ranks of our bluejackets till a date later than that of the launch of the first ironclad, could carry back their professional genealogy to at least the days of Charles II, when, in all probability, it did not first start. Though landsmen continued even after the civil war to be given naval appointments, and ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge

... I do myself with the impieties of my Mokanna,—all I wish and implore is that you, who are such a powerful manufacturer of these thunderbolts, would not choose subjects that make it necessary to launch them. In the next place, were you even a decided atheist, I could not (except, perhaps, for the decision which is always unwise) blame you. I could only pity,—knowing from experience how dreary are ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... the hotel in time to have their choice of chicken and everyone was glad to see that Mary Rose was hungry and seemed to enjoy her dinner. After dinner they went for a ride on the lake in a launch and then they sat in the shade of a dump of linden trees and ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett

... come and go of March-day loves Through the flower-vine, trailing screen; A fluttering in of doves. Then a launch abroad of shrinking doves Over the waste where no hope is seen Of open hands: Dance in and out Small-bosomed girls of the spring of love, With a bubble of laughter, and shrilly shout Of mirth; then the dripping ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence

... I was about to pour my own coffee and launch forth on another tirade on the subject of my neighbor, I heard a rich tenor voice singing just outside the window in the garden beside the steps that led down from the long windows in the dining room to the old flagstone walk. ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... manner of island remedies were exhibited in vain, and rubbing only magnified their sufferings. The man of the house was called, explained the nature of the visitation, and prepared the cure. A cocoa-nut was husked, filled with herbs, and with all the ceremonies of a launch, and the utterance of spells in the Paumotuan language, committed to the sea. From that moment the pains began to grow more easy and the swelling to subside. The reader may stare. I can assure him, if he moved much among old residents of the archipelago, he would be driven ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "Binghis" (natives of New Guinea), when they saw him, blamed him for a recent tidal wave, saying that he had fallen overboard. He was the most active man I have ever known, and on rough days would board the schooner by catching the dinghee boom with one hand as it dipped toward the launch, and swing himself hand over hand inboard. I never expected the schooner to complete the opposite roll until Chum was "playing plum" ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... with the plane, When the man would the grand-stepping maxims, the language gigantic, repel Of the hero-creator of thought. There will his shaggy-born crest upbristle for anger and woe, Horribly frowning and growling, his fury will launch at the foe Huge-clamped masses of words, with exertion Titanic up—tearing Great ship-timber planks for the fray. But here will the tongue be at work, uncoiling, word-testing refining, Sophist-creator of phrases, dissecting, detracting, maligning, Shaking the ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes

... hitherto has run aground on moral prejudices and timidities, it has not dared to launch out into the depths. In so far as it is allowable to recognize in that which has hitherto been written, evidence of that which has hitherto been kept silent, it seems as if nobody had yet harboured the notion of psychology as the Morphology ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... must say something to him, after he gets through singing; and now that I have seen him, three or four times, I can't launch into a sea ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... employed by the Confederates, with equal gallantry and success, in sinking a Union sloop of war off Charleston harbor, the torpedo-boat itself going down to the bottom with its victim, all on board being drowned. The other type of torpedo-boat was simply a swift, ordinary steam-launch, ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... six consecutive hours. Since then a dozen electric boats of various sizes have been fitted up and worked successfully by means of storage batteries and motors of my design. The most important of these were the launch Volta and another similar craft, which is used by the Italian government for torpedo work in the harbor of Spezia. On the measured mile trial trips the Italian launch gave an average speed of 8.43 miles an hour ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... of Yankee go-aheadism. A launch! We are in Webb's shipbuilding-yard. Look around. Five huge vessels are on the stocks: three are to be launched at highwater. The first is a liner of 1708 tons, built for running, and, with a fair wind, it will outsail any ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various



Words linked to "Launch" :   set out, launcher, motorboat, establish, launch pad, rocket launching, start, begin, blast off, launching, plunge, commence, displace, move, start out, get, smoothen, set about, propel, set up, found, rocket firing, open, smooth, float, open up, get down, impel, abolish, set in motion, powerboat, propulsion



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