Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Pier   Listen
noun
Pier  n.  
1.
(Arch.)
(a)
Any detached mass of masonry, whether insulated or supporting one side of an arch or lintel, as of a bridge; the piece of wall between two openings.
(b)
Any additional or auxiliary mass of masonry used to stiffen a wall. See Buttress.
2.
A projecting wharf or landing place.
Abutment pier, the pier of a bridge next the shore; a pier which by its strength and stability resists the thrust of an arch.
Pier glass, a mirror, of high and narrow shape, to be put up between windows.
Pier table, a table made to stand between windows.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Pier" Quotes from Famous Books



... was leaving its Antwerp pier, and all seemed excitement. Many people were already fleeing madly from Belgium, now partly overrun by the vast invading army of the German Kaiser. At any day Antwerp was likely to be bombarded by the tremendous forty-two centimetre guns that had reduced the steel-domed ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow

... done, your steamship lies at her pier, and you are thrust into the midst of distractions. Families are trying to keep together; the din is indescribable; crying babies add to the general confusion of tongues; all sorts of people with all sorts of baggage are making ready ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose

... Chase, passing his hand across his brow. For a full minute there was no sound to be heard on the pier except the lapping of the waves. Deppingham, repressing a ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... expression of grief, but a gathering of friends who send kindly thoughts and helpful good wishes to the comrade whose life work in the physical world is finished. The general feeling should be very much like that of a party of friends who go to the pier to see a well loved traveler off on a long journey to remote parts of the earth for a sojourn of many years or possibly a lifetime. There should be constant thought of his welfare, not of the loss to his friends. Grief that thinks of itself is an expression of selfishness and is ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers

... they were formed up behind a huge shed in order that none should witness the scheme of departure, or the undignified transfer of its companions. A selected victim was coaxed, flattered, caressed, and then marched proudly down the pier between two deceitful and majestic tuskers, a pair of stern old gentlemen that would stand no nonsense; soothed and bribed by a generous supply of sugar-cane, the unsuspicious traveller was halted directly under the crane; a belly-band encircled his enormous ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... of the light was just below the projecting streak, which runs, iron-bound, round the most prominent part of a vessel, from stem to stern, to protect the side from injury when it glides up to wharf, pier, or pile. This stood out about a foot, and Vince felt that if he could only climb on this, the ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... said the coxswain to-day, when we were struggling to get our cutter off from the pier, and I gave away to such an extent, in fact, that I suddenly found myself balanced cleverly on the back of my neck in the bottom of the boat, so that I experienced the rather odd sensation of feeling the hot sun on the soles of my feet. This procedure, ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.

... just returned from a visit to the Liverpool Observatory, under the direction of Mr. Hartnup. It is situated on Waterloo dock, and the pier of the observatory rests upon the sandstone of that region, The telescope is an equatorial; like many good instruments in our country, ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell

... undecided—unformed—when that which is mere caprice, frequently assumes the hue of passion, and wears all its fervour and intensity. Or if it should continue unabated—as I must confess [observing him turn himself with an air before a pier glass,] I see no reason why it should not—you will find the unsophistication of the young lady as quickly tending to domestic disquiet, as might have been her inconstancy—She will be unreasonable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various

... 2-3/4 hours. Commenting on these details, the Times observes, that 'it must not be understood that every accident implies a total wreck, with the loss of all hands. If a ship carries away any of her important spars, or, on entering her port, strikes heavily against a pier, whereby serious damage is occasioned, the accident is duly registered in this pithy chronicle of Lloyd's. Nevertheless, as we glance up and down the columns, it is no exaggeration to say, that ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various

... July, from the window of his office, he saw the Oceanic steam up the bay and up the river to her pier. He sent down a request that the ship-news reporter be sent up as soon as he returned. "Is it a good story?" he asked when the reporter, Blackwell, entered. "Was there anybody ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)

... sail at noon on Friday, and on the Thursday evening he left Paddington by the mail that reaches Dartmouth about midnight. On the pier, he and one or two other fellow-passengers found a boat waiting to take them to the great vessel, that, painted a dull grey, lay still and solemn in the harbour as they were rowed up to her, very different from the active, living thing that she was destined ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... tiresome; the hum of voices wearied me; the showroom at Marshall and Snelgrove's seemed a confused Babel,—everywhere strange voices, a hubbub of sound, tall figures in black passing and repassing, strange faces reflected in endless pier-glasses,—faces of puckered anxiety repeating themselves ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... slowly and silently away from the dock. Only three were there to bid us farewell—a man and two women,—and though they sang with great enthusiasm, "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary," the effect was melancholy. Imperceptibly the pier and the lights of the city receded and we steamed on down the mighty St. Lawrence to our trysting place on the sea. The second morning afterwards we woke to find ourselves riding quietly at anchor in the sunny harbour of Gaspe, with all the other transports anchored about us, together ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... I said to the skipper that I supposed there must be many dangerous submerged rocks. 'My dear fellow!' exclaimed the skipper, driven to familiarity by my naivete. And with that we reached the island. Upon the end of a pier stood a tall figure, solitary. 'My host!' thought I. Not so. Merely an advance guard: his engineer. We greeted—my reception being that of some foreign potentate—and I was led up a fine winding road that made me think of Samoa and ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... jetty, it looked much bigger than it had appeared to be in the distance. It was a long wooden pier, indeed, that projected some hundred yards or so into the sea, and it had a crane at the end for hoisting and lowering the heavy hogs-heads of sugar. Dozens of these were ranged along its length awaiting shipment, and a gang of negroes were busily engaged under ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... upon my belly to the utmost edge of the still standing pier, until I could feel with my hand the jagged splinters left by the fallen planks, and have looked down. But the chasm was full to the brim with darkness. I shouted, but the wind shook my voice into mocking ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome

... one-half hour, we reached the pier, destined for the halting-place of yachts; and welcomed by the supervisor of the harbor, we ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... dive!" cried Mollie, as she climbed out on the end of the pier, and mounted a mooring ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope

... been possible for Sylvia. She dropped on the further side, just as Sylvia had done, and traced Sylvia's steps to near the landing-place. Then she stopped short. Men were loading boxes on a schooner at the end of the pier, and she could see a tall officer in uniform standing on the ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis

... had selected; the courtiers who came in his train; the English nobles who came to welcome him, and on many of whom the shrewd old cynic turned his back—I protest it is a wonderful satirical picture. I am a citizen waiting at Greenwich pier, say, and crying hurrah for King George; and yet I can scarcely keep my countenance, and help laughing at the enormous absurdity of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... eyes from that engaging spectacle the schooner had slipped betwixt the pier-heads of the reef, and was already quite committed to the sea within. The containing shores are so little erected, and the lagoon itself is so great, that, for the more part, it seemed to extend without a check to the horizon. Here and there, indeed, where the reef carried an inlet, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... meantime took a few turns on the pier, and got into conversation with two or three of the old seafaring men who were standing about; the younger were at sea in their boats, or had gone home after the night's fishing. He made enquiries about the man he had just met. They all repeated the same story; their opinion was that ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... words of conversation, and then got small canvas hoisted and quietly slipped moorings. The night was very black, and thick with driving rain; and we slid out through the pier-heads unquestioned save by a passing launch which hailed, and was ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... dining-room, to send in its place one of the handsomest large mahogany rounds she could procure. So Ellen's room was neatly furnished with Madame Bonnivel's square heavy set, stately if not graceful, while the latter's bloomed out with pier-glass and satinwood of the daintiest. The Bonnivels' worn cane chairs somehow found places on Joyce's veranda, while a new half-dozen rockers, of quaint and comfortable shape, took their places through the pretty ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... of caes, or jetty, which was dashed to pieces more than a score of years ago, remains as it was; The landing-place calls loudly for a T-headed pier of concrete blocks, or a gangway supported upon wooden piles and metal pilasters: one does not remark the want in fine weather; one does bitterly on bad days. There has been no attempt to make a port or even a debarcadere by connecting the basaltic lump Loo (Ilheu) ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... I saw him, was standing on the pier at Calais, endeavoring, with a cheap telescope, to make out the Dover cliffs, from a nearer prospect of which certain little family circumstances might possibly debar him. He recognized me in a moment, and held out his hand, while his eye twinkled ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... take what he could get. This time it was a leading part; but a leading part in a crude melodrama in a fit-up company. They had played in halls and concert rooms, on pier pavilions, in wretched little towns. It was glorious July Weather and business was bad—so bad that the manager abruptly closed the treasury and disappeared, leaving the company stranded a hundred and fifty miles from London, with a ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... on the other side of the village. Here there was much small traffic in dingies and dories and lobster-pots; the slower tides rocked the little craft at the moorings, and sent bright swinging light against the weather-worn planks under the pier. Rachael smiled when she saw Derry's little dark head confidently resting against the flowing, milky beard of old Cap'n Jessup, or heard the bronzed lean younger men shout to her older son, as to an equal, "Pitch us that painter, will ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... sat down on the end of the pier. Grandfather sat on the very end and let his wooden shoes hang down over the water; but he made Kit and Kat sit with their feet stuck straight out in front of them, so that they just reached to the edge—"So that you can't ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... pretty ears, tossing his slender head, dancing upon four feet, and sometimes rearing upon two,—we arrive at the long, low, picturesque old bridge, the oldest of all the bridges that cross the Thames, so narrow that no two vehicles can pass at once, and that over every pier triangular spaces have been devised for the safety of foot passengers. On the centre arch is a fisherman's hut, occupying the place once filled by a friar's cell, and covering a still existing chapel, dedicated to the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... the recess of one of the windows. He supposed Miss Pilgrim to be upstairs, and while his heart fluttered, expecting her footfall at the particular door, he heard an earnest boyish voice in the inside room. Looking from his concealment he beheld Miss Pilgrim on a sofa in the pier and sitting by her side, with her hand clasped in his, his brother Billy. Before he could avoid it, he became aware that Billy was ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow

... the shack he could hear the moccasined feet of Peggy moving busily to and fro, as she prepared the meal. They had netted some white-fish over night, so their larder was freshly supplied. On the edge of the pier, which ran out from the Point, Beorn sat, mending one of his traps. Along the top of the roof perched a row of whisky-jacks, most impertinent of birds, who, when a man has carried his food almost to his mouth, will flash down, light on his hand, and, before he knows that they have ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... of alohas, kisses, hand-shakings, and reiterated welcomes. The glee singers threw their beautiful garlands of roses and ohias over the foreign passengers, and music, flowers, good-will and kindliness made us welcome to these enchanted shores. We landed in a whaleboat, and were hoisted up a rude pier which was crowded, for what the arrival of the Australian mail-steamer is to Honolulu, the coming of the Kilauea is to Hilo. I had not time to feel myself a stranger, there were so many introductions, and so much friendliness. ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... part of the building is supported by a very strong buttress or pier, leaving the diagonal passage between it and the internal wall. Can any one tell whether this was done merely to afford a gangway for want of ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 53. Saturday, November 2, 1850 • Various

... Padilla y Ramos Paer, Ferdinando Paesiello, Giovanni Paganini, Achille Palestrina, Angelo Palestrina, Doralice Palestrina, Giovanni Pier Luigi Palestrina, Igino Palestrina, Lucrezia Palestrina, Rodolfo Palestrina, Silla Pan Pasetti Paul IV., Pope Pecht, painter Pelissier, Olympe Pember, E.H. Pergin, Joseph Pergin, Marie Anna Pergolesi, G.B. Peri, Jacopo Perl, Henry Pepys, Samuel Peyermann, Frau Pfeiffer, Marianne ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes

... on the sea-shore; and lingering only, as all must linger and gaze on a first return to the sea, who ever deserved to look on it at all, proceeded towards the Cobb, equally their object in itself and on Captain Wentworth's account: for in a small house, near the foot of an old pier of unknown date, were the Harvilles settled. Captain Wentworth turned in to call on his friend; the others walked on, and he was to join ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... and the steam-yacht warped up slowly to the pier. There was little or no noise on her, only a voice raised occasionally in an authoritative command, and the rattling of chains that paid out through the donkey-engine. Idly I moved to the stone quay when the ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... had got safe into the drawing-room, and shut the door behind him, he was aware of a respite from alarms. The room was quite dismantled, uncarpeted besides, and strewn with packing cases and incongruous furniture; several great pier-glasses, in which he beheld himself at various angles, like an actor on the stage; many pictures, framed and unframed, standing with their faces to the wall; a fine Sheraton sideboard, a cabinet of marquetry, and a great old bed, with tapestry hangings. The windows ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... at the end of the pier to watch the big boat swing out into the river. She went very slowly at first, then with astonishing quickness. Charles Edward and Lorraine were standing on the hurricane-deck, Peggy close beside them. Dane had given her his walking-stick, and she had tied her handkerchief to the handle. She ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... Father and Mother, with Grannie and Michael, stood by the rail for a long time, and watched the crowd on the pier until it grew smaller and smaller, and at last disappeared entirely from sight around a bend ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... wanderin', neither," declared the old Come-Outer fretfully. "I'm sane as ever I was and if you try to stop me I'll—Gracie, your Uncle Eben's v'yage is 'most over. He's almost to his moorin's and they're waitin' for him on the pier. I—I won't be long now. Just a little while, Lord! Give me just a little while to get my house in order. Gracie, I don't want to go till I know you'll be looked out for. I've spoke to Nat about this, but I ain't said much to you. Seems if I hadn't, ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... tolling the Curfew is still retained in the town of Sandwich, to which place your correspondent, Reginald, no doubt alludes, as the sea-shore is distant about two miles; hence is distinctly visible the red glare of the Lighthouse on Ramsgate Pier, as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various

... of the cove, Scotty was already docking. The husky ex-Marine threw a hitch over the dock cleat and jumped to the pier, waving excitedly ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... senior member of the Madras Council and was in charge of Public Works, wrote it down that he thought it 'possible to carry out a causeway or pier into the sea beyond the Surf, to which boats might come and land their goods or passengers, without being exposed to the Surf.' At various times different engineers devised plans for such a pier as Warren Hastings proposed, ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow

... her until she entered the mouth of the harbour. A crowd of their fellow-townsmen from other vessels had come on to the pier with the object of rendering any assistance they could, and by their goodness and skill she was moored without the necessity of letting go the anchors or even breaking a ropeyarn. Plunker was very grateful to these fine fellows for the valuable service they had rendered. They knew that he was ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... in tow. They did not try to heave the unconscious captive into the boat, merely kept the lolling head above water as they turned downstream once more and vanished from Raf's sight around the end of a pier, while the second party on the bank reclaimed the now ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... sparkling Moselle is pronounced a gem by connoisseurs." And again flaunting her embroidered apron, she trips hurriedly out of the room. While she is gone we turn to view its human furniture. Yonder, in a cozy alcove, stands a marble-topped pier-table, at which are seated two gentlemen of great respectability in the community, playing whist with fair but frail partners. Near them, on a soft lounge, is seated a man of portly person and venerable appearance (his hair is snowy white, and he has a frank, open countenance), ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... warning, but still felt rather doubtful if he was right. To convince me, he procured two pieces of offal, which he carried at the end of his stick, and accompanied me down to the landing-place, a rough stone pier which projected into the lake. Taking a piece, he jerked it some distance into the water, when in an instant a huge pair of jaws with rows of sharp teeth rose above the surface and snapped it up. He then took the other piece and threw it in an opposite ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston

... one whose daily life demanded extreme prudence, desired to mentally review the strange facts made known to him before he committed himself further. With ready tact the barrister changed the conversation to matters of the moment until they reached the pier at Calais, when both men, not encumbered with much luggage, were among the first flight of passengers to ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy

... robber-porters invaded the steamer the moment we came alongside the pier. The bustle, the loud shouting, the pushing, seemed most irritating. Ill as I was, for a few moments I almost contemplated the idea of turning back toward the virgin forest. The heat was oppressive, the bells of the tramways jangled all ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... soon as school closes," said Sprite, "and I'll be company for ma, I'll gather lovely shells for you to keep, I'll read to pa evenings, but most of all, I'll be watching the long white road that leads from the pier. ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks

... he was fit to appear in the company of Nausicaa of Greece? She dirties herself with the dirty saltwater; and probably chills and tires herself by walking thither and back, and staying in too long; and then flaunts on the pier, bedizened in garments which, for monstrosity of form and disharmony of colours, would have set that Greek Nausicaa's teeth on edge, or those of any average Hindoo woman now. Or, even sadder still, she sits on ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... well pleased as when he had little Master Thomson in his arms, carrying him about, and showing him whatever amusing sights the place afforded. On one occasion the King was standing on the shore near the pier-head, in conversation with Mr. Pitt, who had come down from London to confer with His Majesty about affairs of State. His Majesty was about to embark in the royal yacht for a short cruise, and, as was usual at that time of the day, he had Master Thomson in his arms. When just on the point ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... ten days to put Mr. Buller's sailboat into proper condition, and for ten days Mr. Podington stayed with his friend, and enjoyed his visit very much. They strolled on the beach, they took long walks in the back country, they fished from the end of a pier, they smoked, they talked, and were ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... Mr. Bumpkin, as they crossed Palace Yard on their way to the steamboat pier, "bean't that where all these 'ere chaps be tried ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... shattered his strength. Within the narrow limits of this island were typified also the state and strength of a kingdom, and its religion as it had been, and was,—for neither was the druidical circle uncreated, nor the church of the present establishment; nor the stately pier, emblem of commerce and navigation; nor the fort to deal out thunder upon the approaching invader. The taste of a succeeding proprietor rectified the mistakes as far as was practicable, and has ridded the spot of its puerilities. The church, after having been ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... noisily disputed the possession of fragments of fish and the offal of the market. In the pool a dozen trawlers, green striped and numbered, with furled brown sails and slackened rigging rode sweetly at anchor. A knot of seamen leaned against the outer stone wall of the pier smoking pipes and gazing idly across the opal coloured sea. A couple of artists were wrestling valiantly with the thousand subtle difficulties of the scene—trying to transmit to canvas the changing lights upon the water, the pink blush on the white-washed ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... were gradually got off the brig, and she had but little way on when her anchor was dropped, a cable's length from the end of the Mole. Scarcely had she brought up when a boat shot out from the end of the pier. ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... might have let her fancy play upon the gold tint of the sea at sunset, and thought how it lapped in coins of gold upon the shingle. Little pleasure boats shoved out into it; the black arm of the pier hoarded it up. The whole city was pink and gold; domed; mist- wreathed; resonant; strident. Banjoes strummed; the parade smelt of tar which stuck to the heels; goats suddenly cantered their carriages ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... go down to the pier and drown herself comfortably,' said Jim. 'If she knew what was before us all, perhaps she would. Poor little Jeanie! We'd no right to drag other people into our troubles. I believe we're getting worse and worse. The sooner we're shot or locked up ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... beaker, schooner, bocal; decanter; carafe; looking-glass, mirror, speculum, cheval glass, pier glass; lens, spyglass, microscope, telescope, binocular, binocle, opera glass, lorgnette, polyscope, altiscope, optigraph, prism, reflector, refractor; hourglass; barometer; hydrometer; pipette; graduate; hygrometer; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... attitude toward women. He is used to being treated as a master; women seek him, and vie for his favour. If you had been able to hold it, you might have had a million-dollar palace on Riverside Drive, or a cottage with a million-dollar pier at Newport. You might have had carte blanche at all the shops, and all the yachting trips and private trains that you wanted. That is all that other women want, and he could not understand what more ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair

... shaded village of Tibara, logs had been lashed together to form a pier which jutted from the shore and provided a mooring for the hollowed logs used by men of the village in harvesting the fish of the lake. Several boats nested here, their bows pointing toward the fender logs of the pier. More were drawn up on the gravel of the shore, where ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole

... I could think of nothing else. Its mild, calm courage, its utter carelessness of self, its immense tenderness—all blazed out in such beautiful lines, in such beautiful white and black, that I lost all self-control; and when we walked back to the pier, following the rest of the party, I asked her to be ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... upon the great pier. Far to the left was the prismatic, rainbow curtain between the Cyclopean pillars. On the white waters graceful shells—lacustrian replicas of the Elf chariots—swam, but none was near that distant web ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... railway carriage will make them almost one. A very large steamer is lying in Southampton Water: the Oriental, which goes to Alexandria. The Lady Mary Wood, a large steamer for Lisbon and Gibraltar, was lying at the pier. The said pier is a very pleasant place of promenade, the water and banks are so pretty, and there is so much liveliness of ships about it. Well I started in a gig, in a swashing rain, which continued off and on for a good while. Of the 21 miles, I should ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... end of the Storia Fiorentina, for episodes in the life of Pier Luigi Farnese, and Cellini for a popular estimate ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... near the centre of the island, opposite to the gates of the town, which are regularly shut at eight P.M.; why, it is difficult to say, as it is possible to land on any part of the island quite as easily, if not more so, than on the greasy pier. On the landing-place a few huts have been erected by the collector of customs and his subordinates; these, surrounded by the brokers and tallow-scented Bedouins, register the imports, exacting such duties as they like, before the merchandise is allowed to be purchased by ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... a more or less safe anchorage for light draft craft. There was a pier. At least it was called a pier by the more reckless. It was propped and bolstered in every conceivable way to keep it from sinking out of sight in its muddy bed, and became a source of political discord on the subject of its ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... that water-dog of a Jack gripping Ben by the scruff of the neck; and when by our united strength we had hauled them both on the pier, little Mistress Hortense was the one to roll Gillam on his stomach and bid us "Quick! Stand him on his head ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... attempt to get away. I carted out my feed and saddles, and when all was ready I sat on the pier and watched the burnished water of the bay for the dim speck which a steamer makes in rounding the distant island. At last the cry arose, "A steamer from the north!" I hurried for Ladrone, and as I passed with the horse the citizens smiled incredulously ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland

... pass round the lower end of the island, where the village lay, in order to reach Mr. Strafford's house; but the lights were all extinguished, and the inhabitants already asleep. They coasted along, passing a little wooden pier, and some fishing-boats and canoes lying moored beside the beach, and at last came to a boarded landing-place with a small boat-house at one end. Here they stopped, and Mr. Strafford bidding his boy run up to the door and knock, assisted the strangers ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... to see the 11th Division go off. Young Brodrick, who was with us, proved himself much all there on the crowded pier and foreshore; very observant; telling me who or what I had not noticed, etc. First the destroyers were filling up and then the lighters. The young Naval Officers in charge of the lighters were very keen to show me ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... too excited to be afraid. One of those strange spirits of adventure had seized upon us which make boys ready for anything, and the thought of standing alone at midnight at the pier-head in a storm like that ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... vignettes in Rogers's Italy and Poems, and to the Liber Studiorum, unless you have access to some examples of Turner's own work. No other artist ever yet drew the sky: even Titian's clouds, and Tintoret's, are conventional. The clouds in the "Ben Arthur," "Source of Arveron," and "Calais Pier," are among the best of Turner's storm studies; and of the upper clouds, the vignettes to Rogers's Poems furnish as many examples as ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... inch to one and a half inch. The works were commenced in 1813, and the bridge was opened by lamp-light, March 24th, 1819, as the clock of St. Paul's Cathedral tolled midnight. Towards the middle of the western side of the bridge used to be a descent from the pavement to a steam-boat pier." ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... and so were the pier-heads prepared on both sides, for the convenience of embarking and landing. Carriages, horses, palankeens, camels and troops, all passed without the slightest difficulty. The elephants were preparing to cross, some in boats and some by swimming, as might seem to them best. Some refuse ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... wise, not because they watched all night for the bridegroom, for it is written "they all slumbered and slept," but because they were prepared; and five were foolish, not because they did not watch, but because they were unprepared. "The fisherman's wife who spends her time on the pier-head watching for the boats, cannot be so well prepared to give her husband a comfortable reception as the woman who is busy about her household work, and only now and again turns a longing look seaward."[56] So Christ's command to ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson

... hills, and rises on Cheyne Row, a side street off the river Thames, that winds, as slowly as Cowper's Ouse, by the reaches of Barnes and Battersea, dotted with brown-sailed ships and holiday boats in place of the excursion steamers that now stop at Carlyle Pier; hard by the Carlyle Statue on the new (1874) Embankment, in front the "Carlyle mansions," a stone's-throw from "Carlyle Square." Turning up the row, we find over No. 24, formerly No. 5, the Carlyle medallion in marble, marking the house where the Chelsea prophet, rejected, recognised, and ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... had stopped, and half a dozen row-boats were approaching from different directions. A grizzled waterman and his companion picked up the two and pulled them across to Strand-on-the-Green. Others followed towing Jack's boat and the canoe, and the big steamer proceeded on her way to Kew Pier. ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon

... to his summers, Mr. Port—after a month spent for the good of his liver in taking the waters at the White Sulphur—of course went to Narragan-sett Pier. It may be accepted as an incontrovertible truth that a Philadelphian of a certain class who missed coming to the Pier for August would refuse to believe, for that year at least, in the alternation of the four seasons; while an enforced absence from that damply delightful watering-place for two ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier

... latinized as de insula tontis, as though it were the impossible hybrid de l'isle burn, and Beautoy sometimes as de bella fide, whereas foy is the Old French for beech, from Lat. fagus. Napier of Merchiston had the motto n'a pier, "has no equal," and described himself on title-pages as the Nonpareil, but his ancestor was a servant who looked after the napery. With Holyoak's rendering of his own name we may compare Parkinson's "latinization" of his name in his famous book on ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... to efface the impression made upon Elizabeth's imagination by the handsomest man in Europe. With a commonplace capacity, and with a narrow political education, he intended to circumvent the most profound statesman of his age. And there, upon the pier at Flushing, he stood between them both; between the magnificent Leicester, whom he had thought to outshine, and the silent Prince of Orange, whom he was determined to outwit. Posterity has long been aware how far he succeeded in the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... mounds, So fram'd, though not in height or bulk to these Made equal, by the master, whosoe'er He was, that rais'd them here. We from the wood Were not so far remov'd, that turning round I might not have discern'd it, when we met A troop of spirits, who came beside the pier. ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... and homes, when the stern and inexorable edict came to each of them that one loved member of the household must be selected to go. And when, at last, the hour arrived for their departure, and they assembled upon the pier, the picture was one of intense and unmingled suffering. The poor exiles stood bewildered with terror and grief, about to part with all that they ever held dear—their parents, their brothers and sisters, and their native land—to go they knew not whither, under the care of iron-hearted soldiers, ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... on the rocks behind the far pier at low water on Saturday. Few people came to the far pier, and, when they did, it was seldom that they looked over; and they could not have seen much if they had, for the rocks were brown with seaweed, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... the northernmost of the factories on the water-front, there projected into the river, near the end of the crescent bend above the town, a long pier, relic of steamboat days, rotting now, and many years fallen from its maritime uses. About midway of its length stood a huge, crazy shed, long ago utilized as a freight storeroom. This had been patched and propped, and a dangerous-looking veranda attached to it, over-hanging ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... go with Lula to the North River pier, where her great steamer lies, and see what she intends to carry to Liverpool. Bales of cotton, barrels of flour, of beef, and of petroleum. All very good, so good-by to her. In a few weeks we will see ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews

... a public telephone in the corner shop, and Indiman dashed into the booth, upsetting Officer Brownson into the gutter as he rushed past him. The clerk at the pier of the Cis-Atlantic Company answered that the RUSSIA had sailed a little before seven, and must be in the lower bay by this time. Impossible to reach her, as the morning was densely foggy and she carried no wireless apparatus. An indescribable expression came into the man ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... framework of heavy timber, supported on these massive piles, was carried out so far that the width of open water was reduced from twenty-four to thirteen hundred feet, and strong blockhouses were erected upon each pier to protect them from assault. Had a concerted attack been made by the Antwerp ships from above, and the Zeeland fleet from below, the works could at this time have been easily destroyed. But the fleet had been paralyzed by the insubordination of Treslong, and ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... battle-ship, perfect-modelled, majestic, that I saw pass the offing to- day under full sail? The splendours of the past day? Or the splendour of the night that envelops me? Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me?—No; But I record of two simple men I saw to-day, on the pier, in the midst of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends; The one to remain hung on the other's neck, and passionately kissed him, While the one to depart tightly pressed the one to remain ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... place was the lowest in a lofty three-decker, against one pier of the chancel arch, surmounted by a golden angel blowing a trumpet, and with lettering round the sounding-board, recording it to have been the gift of the Reverend Lancelot Underwood, Rector and Vicar of this parish—the owner of the mural slab before mentioned. That angel recalled to Felix ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to take up the chase and rescue his pup, the cat decided to break off the engagement. The ruffled fur subsided slightly as the animal turned from the chase and approached the four who had been hurrying to the pier. In the beam of Steve's flashlight Rick saw that the cat was a huge blue Persian, and though he knew little about cats, he recognized that this was an aristocrat of ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine

... Bennet, Esquire, who had been sent out by the directors of the London Missionary Society to visit their stations in the Pacific. When they reached it they were not certain what island it was, but were greatly surprised at seeing several neat-looking white houses at the head of the bay. A pier, a quarter of a mile in length, had been constructed of vast coral blocks, affording a convenient landing-place. Besides the two comfortable mission-houses, there was a large place of worship, eighty feet by thirty-six, ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston

... crowd of passengers were grouped around the gangway, with their baggage piled on the pier, waiting for the decision of the captain, before ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... the battle numbers of his soldiers had deserted. According to their custom, as soon as any clansman had secured as much booty as he could conveniently carry, he started off home to his mountains to deposit his spoil. A stalwart Highlander was seen staggering along the streets of Edinburgh with a pier glass on his back, and ragged boys belonging to the army adorned themselves with gold-laced hats, or any odd ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... hung doubtfully a ship's length from the pier, the oars dipping to hold it into the wind, the men hesitating, ashamed of their terror yet fearing to come closer. Again the cry broke forth, resounding again and again, mingling in terrible, ghostly fashion with the splashing and gurgling ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs

... manner; a silk hat badly rumpled is near it. Over the top of sofa is an opera-cloak, and hung on the mirror is a huge hat, of the evening type, such as women would pay handsomely for. A pair of gloves is thrown on top of the pier-glass. The curtains in the bay-window are half drawn, and the light shades are half drawn down the windows, so that when the curtain goes up the place is in a rather dim light. On the table are the remains of a breakfast, which ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter

... away, and then went for a walk over the lawn towards the water. I reached the little pier and stood for a few moments looking at a small row boat which was tied there, wondering whether I should go out for a few minutes on the bay, but as the night was rather chilly I turned to ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn

... hotel of Munkebjerg, standing on the summit of the ridge, which you espy through a clearing in the trees, is reached by some scores of steps from the landing-stage. Patient "Moses," the hotel luggage-carrier, awaits the prospective guests at the pier. This handsome brown donkey is quite a character, and mounts gaily his own private zigzag path leading to the hotel when heavily laden. His dejection, however, when returning with empty panniers, is accounted for by the circumstance ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson

... left the house and took the train together. They went to New York, and in an out-of-the-way locality they went down to a wharf; but there was no steamer or vessel of any kind there, and the pier was falling to pieces from decay. Captain Passford stopped short, and seemed to be confounded when he found the dock ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic

... toward dusk of the third day and he was beginning to think they would never sail, when suddenly he heard a tramp, tramp, on the pier and up the gangplank, and before he realized it the soldiers swarmed over the deck, their tin plates and cups jangling at their sides. They must have come through the adjoining ferry house and across a low ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... house drain does not rest on the floor, but is hung on the wall or ceiling of the cellar, the connection of the vertical soil and waste pipes must have suitable supports, the best support being a brick pier laid nine inches in cement and securely fastened ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various

... tear-stained eyes. I'll go and wash. Yes, yes; did I do my hair or not?" she asked herself. And she could not remember. She felt her head with her hand. "Yes, my hair has been done, but when I did it I can't in the least remember." She could not believe the evidence of her hand, and went up to the pier glass to see whether she really had done her hair. She certainly had, but she could not think when she had done it. "Who's that?" she thought, looking in the looking glass at the swollen face with strangely glittering eyes, that looked in a scared way at her. "Why, it's I!" she suddenly understood, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... the three centre piers stood squat cribs of railway-sleepers, filled within and daubed without with mud, to support the last of the girders as those were riveted up. In the little deep water left by the drought, an overhead-crane travelled to and fro along its spile-pier, jerking sections of iron into place, snorting and backing and grunting as an elephant grunts in the timber-yard. Riveters by the hundred swarmed about the lattice side-work and the iron roof of the railway-line, hung from invisible staging under the bellies ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling

... began with a view of setting such to work as really wanted it, and sending the rest to the island as vagrants, their number fell off most remarkably. From between 400 and 500 who had crowded the barge and the pier sheds, the attendance fell on March 16, the day the investigation began, to 330, on the second day to 294, and on the third day to 171; by March 21 it had been cut down to 121. The problem of the honestly homeless, who were without means to pay for ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... ceased, the wind abated, and the tide began to run seawards once more. Bit by bit the jetty rose above the swirling waters. Inshore the sands of the river-bed were uncovered, and the fishers and wharfmen swarmed along them and on the pier, saving from the sea the logs of oak that were within reach. For a while the man on the cliff watched them; then he turned aside into the dripping recesses of the forest. "Comfort thyself," he said, tapping his bosom as he walked; "the omens are good. ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... mantelpiece was ornamented with a clock inserted in a block of mahogany and surmounted with a tazza, and two large vases of white porcelain with gold lines, which held bunches of Cape heather. A lamp was on a pier-table, and a backgammon board on legs before the fireplace. Two wide bands of cotton held back the white cambric curtains, which had no fringe. The furniture was covered with gray cotton bound with a green braid, and the tapestry ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... the biggest beaver-houses I ever saw in my life. You'll find beaver sign all around this lake, but I suppose they caught the last one—maybe old Swift could tell who got him, or some of his Indian friends. So all we'll use the old beaver-house for is as a kind of pier to stand on while we fish—the trees come so close to the lake that it is hard to get a ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough

... of fifty or sixty pious men and women, taken from a place of public worship and incarcerated in such dens or dungeons with felons, as was the case while Bunyan was a prisoner. Twelve feet square was about the extent of the walls; for it occupies but one pier between the center arches of the bridge. How properly does the poor pilgrim call it a certain DEN! What an abode for men and women who had been made by God kings and priests—the heirs of heaven! The eyes of Howard, a Dissenter, penetrated these dens, these hidden things of darkness, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... became mischievous, and tore he furniture from its place, and broke it in pieces, and then amused themselves with breaking it up, throwing pieces at the pier-glasses, in which they made dreadful holes; and when that was gone, they broke ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... work; although many of the bawleys go out on the day-tide also, for at Leigh the tide is all-important. For five hours in the day it washes the foot of the wharves, for seven a wide expanse of mud stretches away to Canvey Island in front, and Southend Pier to ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty

... are going out with the ladies, one of them steps into the boat and helps the ladies in and seats them, the other handing them down from the bank or pier. When the ladies have comfortably disposed themselves, and not before, the boat may be shoved off. Great care must be taken not to splash the ladies, either in first dipping the oars or subsequently. Neither should anything be done ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... day—cold withal; a little boat is putting off from the pier at Gravesend, and making for a ship that is lying moored in the middle of the river; therein are some half-dozen passengers and a lot of heterogeneous-looking luggage; among the passengers, and the owner of some of the most heterogeneous of the heterogeneous ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... been thoroughly revised, and some of them considerably increased. Botticini, Pier Francesco Fiorentino, and Amico di Sandro have been added, partly for the intrinsic value of their work, and partly because so many of their pictures are exposed to public admiration under greater names. Botticini ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson

... into the East India Docks that v'y'ge, and got there early on a lovely summer's evening. Everybody was 'arf crazy at the idea o' going ashore agin, and working as cheerful and as willing as if they liked it. There was a few people standing on the pier-head as we went in, and among 'em several ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... steamer Etruria which was sighted off Fire Island to-day. They will spend a few weeks in New York, and early in March Miss Barclay will enter the state university to do some post-graduate work in English, and Mrs. Barclay will return to Sycamore Ridge. Mr. Barclay will meet them at the pier, and they expect to spend the coming two weeks attending German opera. Mrs. Mary Barclay left to-day for the East to join them. She will remain a month ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... Canons, who sought by their preaching to attract large congregations, some fresh departure in the design was made. Evidence of this can be seen in the east bay of the south side (fig. 4), where an Early English clustered-shaft, with the springing of some groining, standing clear of the older Norman pier, gives an idea of the character of the work of the now destroyed nave. With this building, which was apparently achieved before the close of the thirteenth century, we may regard the priory as finished, having taken over a hundred and fifty years ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

... Bridge was built it was thought necessary to consecrate it to some saint. The latest saint, St. Thomas Becket, was chosen as the titular saint of this Bridge. A chapel, dedicated to him, was built in the centre pier of the Bridge: it was, in fact, a double chapel: in the lower part, the crypt, was buried Peter of Colechurch himself: the upper part, which escaped the Great Fire, became, after the Reformation, ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant

... was no use in Boots offering to remain and comfort her as Drina had to go to bed, anyway; so she kissed him good-bye very tearfully, and generously forgave Gerald; and comforted herself before she retired by putting on one of her mother's gowns and pinning up her hair and parading before a pier-glass until her nurse announced that her bath ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... her long voyage. Walter and Mr. Crabb stood on the pier and watched it till Hector's face was no longer distinguishable for the distance, and then went home, each feeling that ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger



Words linked to "Pier" :   wharfage, levee, bollard, span, wall, bridge, platform, bitt, support, quay, pier table, architecture, wharf, pier glass, Pier Luigi Nervi



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com