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verb
Span  v.  archaic Imp. & p. p. of Spin.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Span" Quotes from Famous Books



... oh good beyond compare! If thus thy meaner works are fair! If thus thy bounties gild the span Of ruined earth, and sinful man; How glorious must the mansion be Where thy redeem'd ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various

... a matter of fact, nothing the matter with it. It was as spick and span as paint and polish could make it. The curtain-stretching days were long past. There had even been talk of moving out of the house by the tracks, but at the last moment ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... goddess! since in early bloom Thy son must fall, by too severe a doom; Sure to so short a race of glory born, Great Jove in justice should this span adorn: Honour and fame at least the thunderer owed; And ill he pays the promise of a god, If yon proud monarch thus thy son defies, Obscures my ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... practically shut out; for what know they of the grand themes which inspire each tongue and kindle every thought? Even the brothers and the sons whom they have educated, now rise to heights which they cannot reach, span distances ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... victuals. What had passed between them neither he nor Zora would afterwards relate; but Wiggleswick spent the whole of that night and the following days in unremitting industry, so that the house became spick and span as his own well-remembered prison cells. There also was a light of triumph in Zora's eyes when she entered a few moments afterwards with the tea-tray, which caused Sypher to smile and a wicked feeling of content to enter ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... tidy officers who so love to see a ship kept spick and span clean; who institute vigorous search after the man who chances to drop the crumb of a biscuit on deck, when the ship is rolling in a sea-way; let all such swing their hammocks with the sailors; and they would soon get sick of this daily damping ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... with silver plate; and there on a sofa lay Aaron Bang in all his pristine beauty, and fresh from his toilet, for he had just got out of his cot after an eight—and—forty hours sojourn therein—nice white neck cloth white jean waistcoat and trowsers, and span—new blue coat He was reading when we entered; and the Captain, in his flame—coloured costume, was close aboard of him before he raised his eyes, and rather staggered him a bit; but when seven ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... had touched upon the hidden rifles, and the abrupt digression was no digression to her, reached by the span of suggestion. ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory

... goes on. The snows of winters have drifted deep above its rough beginnings; the suns of many a spring have melted the snows away. Well nigh a generation of human lives has already measured its brief span about the cornerstones. Far-brought, many-tongued toilers, toiling on the rising walls, have dropped their work and stretched themselves in their last sleep; others have climbed to their places; the work goes on. Upon the ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen

... old bridges that span the river, the Ponte Vecchio— that bridge which is covered with the shops of Jewellers and Goldsmiths—is a most enchanting feature in the scene. The space of one house, in the centre, being left open, the view beyond is shown as in a frame; ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... opportunity; but Reddin was afraid to leave Hazel alone, in case she might see Sally; so September came and drew out its shining span of days, and still Vessons and ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... with them, and so, though they were many more in number, they had to submit themselves to the robbers, who took away everything from them, even the very clothes they wore, and gave to each only a small loin cloth a span in breadth and a ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... (2) is misleading; the reading of the 4to "flye-boat" is no doubt right. "Fly-boat" comes from Span. filibote, flibote—a fast-sailing vessel. The Dons hastily steer clear ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... fringes, which in front formed an apron, with broad, stiffened ends which fell to his knees; a wide belt of white and silver brocade confined the drapery of his robe. Round his throat and far down on his bare breast hung a necklace more than a span deep, composed of pearls and agates, and his upper arm was covered with broad gold bracelets. He rose from the ebony seat with lion's feet, on which he sat, and beckoned to a servant who squatted by one of the walls of the sitting-room. He rose and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the short planetary life-span of the average human, the logic of this position seems inescapable, whether it applies to the next hour, day, year, or century. In terms of our children and grandchildren it is even more impressive. Today we find ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... Splitwater will see his friend on board, he says, as they follow her down the companion-ladder. "Wife thinks as much of the Maggy-and would, I believe in my soul, cry her life out if anything happened till her: wife's a good body aboard a ship, and can take a trick at the wheel just as well as Harry Span the mate." Skipper Splitwater leads the way into a little dingy cabin, a partition running athwart ships dividing it into two apartments; the former being where Skipper Hardweather "sleeps his crew" and cooks his mess, the sternmost where he receives ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... breath of relief when she saw that this was no ravening monster. Her immediate thought was the hunter's thought. She drew her bow to the full length of her shaft, and as the panting beast went by she let drive. The arrow pierced to half its span, just behind the straining fore-shoulder. Blood burst from the animal's nostrils. It fell on its knees, struggled up again, blundered on for half a dozen strides, and dropped ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... silence of her dark retreat, Address'd her God,—"Almighty power divine! 'Tis thine to raise, and to depress, is thine; With honour to light up the name unknown, Or to put out the lustre of a throne. In my short span both fortunes I have prov'd, And though with ill frail nature will be mov'd, I'll bear it well: (O strengthen me to bear!) And if my piety may claim thy care; If I remember'd, in youth's giddy heat, And tumult of a court, a future ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... tide, Whom thunders utter, and tempest and darkness hide, With larger light than flamed from the peak whereon Prometheus, bound as the sun to the world's wheel, shone, A presence passed and abode but on earth a span, And love's own light as a river before him ran, And the name of God for awhile upon ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... in their works. Therefore, and very weakly, I avoid them altogether. There is Balzac, for example, with his hundred odd volumes. I am told that some of them are masterpieces and the rest pot-boilers, but that no one is agreed which is which. Such an author makes an undue claim upon the little span of mortal years. Because he asks too much one is inclined to give him nothing at all. Dumas, too! I stand on the edge of him, and look at that huge crop, and content myself with a sample here and there. But no one ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the short span of a day, but for one whole year the charm of spring blossoms shall ...
— Chitra - A Play in One Act • Rabindranath Tagore

... replied Dr. Jones. "We should have the restoration of Eden immediately if all men would but serve God and observe the Golden Rule. Not another tear or sigh would ever be seen or heard again upon earth. But O the pity of it! Man, willfully blind, goes stumbling on through the short span of life, blighted and blighting everything about him with unbelief. Full of misery and heartaches here, he goes into Eternity to stand at the bar of God, naked and undone, and hears the fearful sentence, 'Anathema Maranatha!' or 'Cursed and banished from God!' And all this in the lovely world ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman

... dark, although you know That, not a span below, A thousand germs are groping through the gloom, And soon will burst ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... strictly necessary for his family, it is his greatest pleasure to invite and press the stranger to take a place at his humble board, and partake of his family cheer. When an old man, whose days are dwindling to the shortest span, can work no longer, he is sure to find a refuge, an asylum, a home, at a neighbour's, where he is looked upon as one of the family. There he may remain till he is called to "that bourne from ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... church or not is not known. It looks much like it, tho the tower is simpler and the two rows of windows in the Fulton Street building become one row of great windows on Henry Street. But it has all stood the test of time. The old hand-hewn oak timbers still span the lofty ceiling, the glistening gray stone walls still stand four-square against all the winds that blow. The hand-made hinges and numbers are still on the pew doors, and the so-called slave galleries are still there, tho neither colored servants nor Sunday school children are consigned ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer

... very soul and eclipse a sun which aforetime shone with great geniality because unclouded. Fate hits such men particularly hard when her delayed blow falls. Existences long attuned to success and level fortune; lives which have passed through five-and-thirty years of their allotted span without much sorrow, without sharp thorns in the flesh, without those carking, gnawing trials of mind and body which Time stores up for all humanity—such feel disaster when it does reach them with a bitterness unknown by those who have been in misery's school from youth. Poverty does not bite the ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... science of genealogy will become a useful servant of the whole race, and its influence, not confined to a few, will be felt by all, as a positive, dynamic force helping them to lead more worthy lives in the short span allotted to them, and helping them to leave more worthy posterity to carry on the names they bore and the sacred thread of immortality, of which they were for ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... affected with sickness and giddiness, and falling upon the sand, felt as if the hour of death was approaching. "Here then," said he, "after a short but ineffectual struggle, terminate all my hopes of being useful in my day and generation; here must the short span of my life come to an end. I cast, as I believe, a last look on the surrounding scene, and whilst I reflected on the awful change that was about to take place, this world, with all its enjoyments, seemed ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... officer of the court and he frequently took upon himself the adjudication of petty quarrels and the summary punishment of small offenses committed within his view. He was appointed by the chief for one or more days' service and he made the most of his brief span of authority. In addition to executing the orders of the court he was always on watch to preserve the tranquility of the camp during the day and he stood upon guard at night. When ordered to do a thing it was a point ...
— Sioux Indian Courts • Doane Robinson

... man's environment and habits as the world has rarely seen, took place in the generation that reached early manhood in the year 1500. [Sidenote: 1483-1546] In the span of a single life—for convenience let us take that of Luther for our measure—men discovered, not in metaphor but in sober fact, a new heaven and a new earth. In those days masses of men began to read many books, multiplied by the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... the men of the 65th and Wheat's Tigers speedily found, crossing the wagon bridge over the Shenandoah! One span was all afire. The flooring burned their feet, flames licked the wooden sides of the structure, thick, choking smoke canopied the rafters. With musket butts the men beat away the planking, hurled ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... parties visit various points of our own universe and frequently span the incredible distances in order to study the works and life ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... society did she need but that of Caroline, and it sufficed if she were within call; no spectacle did she ask but that of the deep blue sky, and such cloudlets as sailed afar and aloft across its span; no sound but that of the bee's hum, the ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... to-day had Sarah Manvers found the genius of the neighbourhood so unmitigatedly intolerable. It was with downright relief that presently she turned from the avenue eastward and accomplished in the span of one short cross-town block a transit of the most violent contrasts, from the dull dignity of the socially eligible, if somewhat passe, through a stratum of shabby gentility, to a region of late years dedicated to the uses of ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... afraid," he heard him say to her; "but stay and watch with me. Thou mayst live twice the span of my life, and see nothing of human interest equal to this; and there may be revelations more. Let us ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... why he should center attention and interest on this the proudest moment of his life. No. 999 was the crack locomotive of the system, brand new and resplendent. Its headlight was a great glow of crystal, its metal bands and trimmings shone like burnished gold, and its cab was as spick and span and neat as the private office of the ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman

... amalgamation pass. Melicent and I were not tolerant of each other. Since she has given you back to me, I can love and respect her as I never did before; but a little breach in youth becomes too wide in age for either repentance or your affection, my dear, to be able to span it.' ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... death which had lost its sting—of that grave which had lost its victory; for in the might of her earthly love—in the ardour of her living faith, she discerned the shortness of time, the fulness of eternity; life seemed to her now but a little span, and she could say in the spirit of David, "I may not stay with thee, but thou wilt ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... Description of the Creation form'd after the same manner in one of the Prophets, wherein he describes the Almighty Architect as measuring the Waters in the Hollow of his Hand, meting out the Heavens with his Span, comprehending the Dust of the Earth in a Measure, weighing the Mountains in Scales, and the Hills in a Balance. Another of them describing the Supreme Being in this great Work of Creation, represents him as laying the Foundations ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... stern of a little pleasure boat off Fort Point in the Golden Gate, listlessly watching a steam whaler come in from the Pacific. My boatman called my attention to her, remarking that she was spick-and-span new, and the biggest one he ever saw, but I took very little notice of the ship until in tacking across her wake, I noticed her name in gold letters across the stern—'Duncan McDonald.' Now that is my own name, and was my father's; and try ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... you for this and every other happy meeting? Through him I was at once delivered from all formality, and terror, and constraint. In love affairs, there is no mediator like a merry, simple-hearted child—ever ready to cement divided hearts, to span the unfriendly gulf of custom, to melt the ice of cold reserve, and overthrow the separating walls of dread ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... his taw so that it will enter and stay in the first hole. If he succeeds, he is allowed to place his thumb on the far edge of the first hole, and using his hand as a pair of dinders, by a twist of the wrist he marks with his longest finger a curved line on the ground. This is called "taking a span." From the span line he shoots at the second hole, and if successful continues on to the third. If this is won, he takes a span backward for the middle hole. If he reaches the first hole, he repeats it over, but this time he is entitled to two ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort

... more genial for the purpose, and the prospect of a few miles' march, with the people of town and village en fete, was a welcome one to all but the men in the infirmary, who were looking gloomily from the windows at their comrades, all spick and span, eager ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... Lake Fields even recently. Just where Oxford-street is now intersected by Grove-street, the brook opened out into a large pond, which was divided into two by a bridge and road communicating between the meadows on each side. The bridge was of stone of about four feet span, and rose above the meadow level. The sides of the approach were protected by wooden railings, and a low parapet went across the bridge. {167} Over the stone bridge the road was carried when connection was opened to Edge-hill from Mount Pleasant, and Oxford-street ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... cups of gold. While they were talking, Helen came forth from her fragrant chamber, like a Goddess, her maidens following her, and carrying for her an ivory distaff with violet-coloured wool, which she span as she sat, and heard Paris tell how far he had travelled to see her who was so famous for her beauty even ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang

... him literally, for there wasn't anything, at the time, to make me think of Cervantes. But I'd already noticed his hands, and I felt sure they weren't the hands of a laboring man. They were long and lean and finicky-fingered hands, the sort that could span an octave much better than they could hold a hayfork. And I decided to see him ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... fashion, behind. And after this fashion I saw them at sunset next day pass over the bridge and into the mouth of the Gap whence they came. Through this Gap come strange people and strange tales from the Kentucky hills. Over it, sometimes, is the span ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.

... and stronger far, still remained standing. But even from that distance Stern could quite plainly see, without the telescope, that the Williamsburg Bridge had "buckled" downward and that the farther span of the Blackwell's Island ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... but as a moment in that Titanic spell of work necessary to bring to the birth the teeming burden with which the universe lay in travail. Here is one and perhaps the strongest reason of his hatred of old age; because through the shortness of his span of time he could only deal with a grain or two of the sand lying upon the shores of knowledge. Cicero, with his more limited vision, conscious that sixty years or so of life would exhaust every physical delight, and blunt and mar the intellectual; ignorant ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... standing on one of the little bridges that span the gutterwide Oosbach, idly gazing into the water and wondering whether a good sized Rangely trout could swim the stream without personal inconvenience, when the porter of the Badischer Hof came to him on ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... world over, and that is the one which spans Clear Creek, Virginia—the remnant of a cave-roof, all the rest of the cavern having collapsed. It is two hundred and fifteen feet above the water, and is a solid mass of rock forty feet thick, one hundred feet wide, and ninety feet in span. Thomas Jefferson owned it; George Washington scaled its side and carved his name on the rock a foot higher than any one else. Here, too, came the youth who wanted to cut his name above Washington's, and ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... thews, sinews, and bulk in proportion, would have enabled him to enact Colbrand, Ascapart, or any other giant of romance, without raising himself nearer to heaven even by the altitude of a chopin. The legs and knees of this son of Anak were bare, as were his arms from a span below the shoulder; but his feet were defended with sandals, fastened with cross straps of scarlet leather studded with brazen knobs. A close jerkin of scarlet velvet looped with gold, with short breeches of the same, covered his body and a part of his limbs; and ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... stream of time rolled on, burying beneath its dark waves, our little span of present, in the huge ocean of a perpetual past, and devouring, as the food of both, our swift decaying future. But I floated on its surface, and beheld whole generations flourish and fade away, while age and silver hairs, growing infirmities, and the closing sigh that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various

... thousand, anything—he knew that. And as he gazed upon the yellow lure, and panted for air, and wiped the sweat away, his quick vision leaped and set to work. He saw the spur-track that must run up from the valley and across the upland pastures, and he ran the grades and built the bridge that would span the canon, until it was real before his eyes. Across the canon was the place for the mill, and there he erected it; and he erected, also, the endless chain of buckets, suspended from a cable and operated by gravity, that would carry the ore across the canon to the quartz-crusher. Likewise, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... such a kitchen he had never seen in all his born days. It was so grand and fine; there were vessels of silver and vessels of gold, but still never a living soul. So when Halvor had stood there a while and no one came out, he went and opened a door, and there inside sat a Princess who span upon ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen

... towns on rivers, but the Ouse is no more an image or forecast of the Hudson than Old York is of New York. For that reason, the bridge over it is not to be compared to our Brooklyn Bridge, or even to any bridge which is yet to span the Hudson. The difference is so greatly in our favor that we may well yield our city's mother the primacy in her city wall. We have ourselves as yet no Plantagenet wall, and we have not yet got a mediaeval gate through which the traveller passes in returning ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells

... lodger had packed up all his little belongings and had bought a wagon and a span of oxen, which ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn

... put on a span-new dress, observing, modestly, that a genius could appear in anything, but she hadn't the position which would stand wearing ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... without waiting to be addressed, and does not scruple to instruct on all subjects its elders, he will have it that he feared me when a lad—and with cause! If fancy can so distort impressions within such short span, it does not become me to be too set about events which come back slowly through the mist and darkness of nearly ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... enthusiasm, and, speedily losing interest, he was brought back to the manor where he had his apartments, and put speechless and half dead to bed, actually dying the next day from this last over-exertion, scarce half a century of the span of his ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... And saw, while sea was calm and air was clear, The Coast of France, the Coast of France how near! Drawn almost into frightful neighbourhood. I shrunk, for verily the barrier flood Was like a Lake, or River bright and fair, A span of waters; yet what power is there! What mightiness for evil and for good! Even so doth God protect us if we be Virtuous and wise: Winds blow, and Waters roll, Strength to the brave, and Power, and Deity, Yet in themselves are nothing! One decree Spake laws to them, and said that by the Soul ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth

... dusty and derelict, in the spick-and-span office, where hung the old-fashioned steel engravings on the wall, of Civil War battles, of generals and officers seated about tables ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... Ariel now— "Let me remember how I saved a man, Whose fatal noose was fastened on a bough, Intended to abridge his sad life's span; For haply I was by when he began His stern soliloquy in life dispraise, And overheard his melancholy plan, How he had made a vow to end his days, And therefore follow'd him ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... me that, though there might be a little risk, there was no paralyzing danger. I had forgotten the narrowness of the gully through which alone we could gain the cliffs. From the open span of beach where we were now standing, there was no chance of leaving the caves except as we had come to them, by a boat; for on each side a crag ran like a spur into the water. The comparatively open space permitted the tide to lap in quietly, and steal imperceptibly higher upon its ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... Elizabeth, of the Child Jesus, etc. Reinhard says correctly that sweet memories are frequently nothing more or less than outbursts of hidden passion and attacks of sensual love. Seume is mistaken in his assertion that mysticism lies mainly in weakness of the nerves and colic—it lies a span deeper. ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... I doubt a clashing of metaphors: "to load a span" is, I am afraid, an unwarrantable expression. In verse 114th, "Cast the universe in shade," is a fine idea. From the 115th verse to the 142d is a striking description of the wrongs of the poor African. Verse 120th, "The load of unremitted ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... excellency, stepping nearer, peered through a window in upon the operator, a slender young man—French. A message was being received. Who were they that thus dared span space to reach out toward him? Ei! ei! "The devil has long arms." He recalled this saying of the Siberian priests and the mad Cossack answer: "Therefore let us ride fast!" The swaying of the yacht was like the rhythmic motion of his ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... my property there, consisting of some twenty-two lots, all in the heart of the city, for practically a song. Six of these lots were situated where now is a big planing mill. Several lots I sold to a German for a span of mules. The German is alive today and lives in Phoenix a wealthy man, simply because he had the foresight and acumen to do what I did not do—hang on to his real estate. If I had kept those twenty-two lots until now, without doing more than simply ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady

... the stalk is cut, particularly under the thick part, into span-long pieces, which are stuck obliquely into the earth. In five or six months the roots are fit for use, but they are usually allowed to remain some time longer in the earth. The stalks are sometimes cut off, and the roots left in the earth. They then put forth new leaves and flowers, ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... perhaps ten fathoms below the surface has to be fished, and this demands the service of picked men, divers possessing the highest vitality. Several divers collapse every season through toiling at unusual depths, and two or three pay the penalty of death. Most divers, however, live to as full a span as men pursuing other ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... in solemn rows, And not a child is seen; The blinds are drawn, the doors are shut, The walks are span and clean. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... the propriety of placing a handsome, gentlemanly man at Jenkintown, who should be provided with a span of horses and a handsome carriage, and deport himself generally as a gentleman of leisure. His duties would be to get up a flirtation with Mrs. Maroney, prevail on her to drive out with him, and, if possible, entice her to quiet, little fish-suppers, where he could ply her with champagne, ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton

... make the ordinance of death in itself an accusation against the Most High; we are not specially shocked or outraged by the thought that the whole population of the globe dies out within quite a moderate span of time, nor even by the reflection that several hundred thousand persons die every year in the United Kingdom alone. We know quite well that every one of those who perished in Messina must have paid his debt to nature in, at most, a few decades. So, then, the whole point in our arraignment is ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... pulling-boats) was finishing amid banging of guns and bursts of music from the "Troy Town Band," saluting the winner with "See the Conquering Hero Comes," the second boat with strains consecrated to first and second prize-winners in Troy harbour since days beyond the span of living memory, even as all races start to the less classical but none the less immemorial air of "Off She goes to ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... drum-major. Wonderful were the stories this boy could tell, to special cronies, of his adventures in the city: they beat the Geography "all hollow." Such an air, too, as this Boody had, leaning against the pump-handle by his father's door, and making cuts at an imaginary span of horses!—such a pair of twilled trousers, cut like a man's!—such a jacket, with lapels to the pockets, which he said "the sailors wore on the sloops, and called 'em monkey-jackets"!—such a way as he had of putting a quid in his mouth! for Nat Boody chewed. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... of old-time splendour and luxury. Something of impressiveness has recently been introduced into the interior by the artistic arrangement of old furniture which the house's present owner, Mr. Templeton Coolidge, has brought about. But the exterior is "spick-span" in modern yellow and ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... him, and deep in his heart he stifled a heavy sigh, and let idle tears fall. Then with kindly words the father accosts his son: 'Each hath his own appointed day; short and irrecoverable [468-502]is the span of life for all: but to spread renown by deeds is the task of valour. Under high Troy town many and many a god's son fell; nay, mine own child Sarpedon likewise perished. Turnus too his own fate summons, and his allotted period hath reached ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... roars where the rocket soars Is the song of the stellar flame; The dreams of Man and galactic span Are equal and much ...
— The Stoker and the Stars • Algirdas Jonas Budrys (AKA John A. Sentry)

... Point to-day, so that we can go there now whenever we can get the house ready. Then we shall have horses and vehicles more at our disposal; you may hear of our carriage and span yet, but I shall hate to leave here. This moon is lovely, and to-night the flats are covered with water by the full moon tide, and the sea looks as if ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... the famous Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, lived and wrote his classical work at such a date after Alaric's Roman adventure and Radagasius' defeat that the life of a man would span the distance between them; it was a matter of nearly seventy years between those events and his maturity. A grandson of his would correspond to such a spectator as we are imagining; a grandson of ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc

... I wonder! Chick, look a-thar: them little stripes and stars. I heerd a feller onct, down to the store,— a dressy mister, span-new from the city— layin' the law down: "All this stars and stripes," says he, "and red and white and blue is rubbish, mere sentimental rot, spread-eagleism!" "I wan't' know!" says I. "In sixty-three, ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... had suffered enough already, poor devil! The result of loving for the last time, with no hope of possession, might fling him from Parnassus into the Inferno, where he would roast in unproductive torment for the rest of his mortal span. Even that might not be for long. He looked frail enough beside these fresh young English sportsmen, or even the high-coloured ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton

... his blood boil at sight of the cowardly indignities being heaped upon his men, and in the brief span of time occupied by the column to come abreast of where he lay hidden he made his plans, foolhardy though he knew them. Then he drew the girl close to him. "Stay here," he whispered. "I am going out to fight those beasts; but I shall be killed. Do not ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... general, Nimes is poor; its only treasures are its Roman re- mains, which are of the first order. The new French fashions prevail in many of its streets; the old houses are paltry, and the good houses are new; while beside my hotel rose a big spick-and-span church, which had the oddest air of having been intended for Brooklyn or Cleveland. It is true that this church looked out on a square completely French, - a square of a fine modern disposition, flanked on one side by a classical ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... of Mekin continued in overdrive, heading for Kandar. Each second it traversed a distance equal to the span of a solar system, out to its remotest planet. A heartbeat that would begin where a pulsing Cepheid, had it been possible to see, would have seemed at its greatest brilliance, and would end where the light ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... purpose of the dark star was destruction, none of the planets could offer much opposition, for no weapon of theirs was effective beyond a few thousand miles range at most—and the dark star could span millions. If the invader passed on, its havoc would be only a trifle smaller, for it had already destroyed two members of the solar system and was now striking at its most vital part. Without the sun, life would die, but even with the sun the planets must ...
— Raiders of the Universes • Donald Wandrei

... of all this magnificence was his wife. She was her own housekeeper, and employed, besides the coachman, whose business was in the stables and upon his box, five servants. There were twenty-five rooms in the palatial house, giving to each servant five to be kept in the spick-and-span array demanded by the master's position and taste. As a matter of course something was neglected in every department, the instinct of self-preservation being innate and cultivated in Abigail, Phyllis and ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... from all craving want was free, Who to Nirvana's tranquil state had reached, When the great sage finished his span of life, No gasping struggle vexed that steadfast heart! All resolute, and with unshaken mind. He calmly triumphed o'er the pain of death. E'en as a bright flame dies away, so was His last deliverance from the bonds ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... besides, it soaks unseen through the moss; and yet for the sake of auld lang syne, and the figure of a certain GENIUS LOCI, I am condemned to linger awhile in fancy by its shores; and if the nymph (who cannot be above a span in stature) will but inspire my pen, I would gladly carry the reader ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the next morning, before the sun was the span of a man's hand above the hill, the young Fisherman went to the house of the Priest and knocked three times ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde

... overhead lamp Mostyn saw Buckton alight and ascend the steps to the veranda. A half-smoked cigar cast into the shrubbery emitted a tiny shower of sparks. Mostyn saw the young man peering in at the window of the lighted drawing-room. He noted the spick-and-span appearance, the jaunty, satisfied air of expectancy, and his blood began to boil ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... they throng, I hear their wild song, And echo its truthful strain. The power of man, that limitless span Of ocean, ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats

... Boer sharpshooters might already be hidden, for the affluent Dutchmen forced their poorer countrymen to maintain eyrie-like positions—padded with blankets and hedged in with boulders—in readiness for the approach of an army, while they themselves arrived fresh, spick and span, only on the rumour ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... these sins, I am a saintly man, And live like other saints on prayer and praise, My long face longer, if life be a span, Than any two ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various

... the double sleigh and span, for he prided himself on his horses, and a fall of snow came most opportunely to beautify the landscape and add a new pleasure to ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... sallied from the fortress, and laden with gold from Montezuma's treasury, took the route of Tlacopan. Soon their escape was detected and instantly a fierce attack was made upon them from every quarter. The bridge that they had brought with them to span the gaps in the causeway became fixed in the mud, so that their only path across the canals lay over the bodies of their comrades. At length they won through, but out of their small force there had perished, or been taken captive ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... 1815, when the number of inhabitants was three hundred and thirty-one. The aqueduct which takes the Erie canal across the river forms a prominent object of interest to all travellers. It is of hewn stone, containing eleven arches of 50 feet span: its length is 800 feet, but a considerable part of each end is hidden from view by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various

... murdered," the officer hastened to add, seeing my mistake. "He was on the middle span of the bridge when it was carried away by the flood, and that's the last ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis

... hilt! father," said Aylward, looking keenly at him, "it is a marvel to me that thy girdle should have so goodly a span and clip thee so closely, if you have in sooth had so little to place ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of feeling or of will, and I comprehended the older doctrine of association of 'ideas' to be no longer tenable.... Besides all this, experimental observation yielded much other information about the span of consciousness, the rapidity of certain processes, the exact numerical value of certain psychophysical data, and the like. But I hold all these more special results to be relatively insignificant by-products, and by no means the important thing."—Philosophische ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... span of grass rope, had been thrown overboard from the pursued vessel, in the hope that the submarine would foul her propellers in the tangle of line. Once a blade picked up that trailing rope, the latter would coil round the boss as tightly as a band ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... are making increasing use of radioisotopes to improve manufacturing, testing, and crop-raising. Atomic energy has improved the ability of the healing professions to combat disease, and holds promise for an eventual increase in man's life span. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... were rightly due to a King alone. As we gaze on his work today its beauty is instinct with life, and the patient love that gave it birth seems to cling to it still. The white magic of the artist's holy hands has bridged the span of a ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... eternity before the great circle of its scheme shall bring us the superabundant recompense for all these sorrows! But what the lover asked was such prompt consolation as might consist with the brief span of mortal life; the assurance of Hilda's present safety, and her restoration ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... said, lingeringly clinging to him as the last familiar thing in her happy span of life; "Billy, you must turn back, and God bless you, dear. You see Jude must not know anything about you—and it's all right ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... wuz keepin' his face an' han's clean, an' in takin' keer er his cloze. Nobody, not even his mammy, had ter patch his britches er tack buttons on his coat. See 'im whar you may an' when you mought, he wuz allers lookin' spick an' span des like he done come right out'n a ban'-box. You know what de riddle say 'bout 'im: when he stan' up he sets down, an' when he walks he hops. He'd 'a' been mighty well thunk un, ef it hadn't but 'a' been fer his habits. He holler so much at night dat de yuther creeturs ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... Span across in treble curving, Bow of promise, upper lip! Set them free, with gracious swerving; Let the wing-words float and dip. DUMB ART THOU? O Love immortal, More than words thy speech must be; Childless yet the tender portal ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... last moment, to sever all ties between the parent and the child. The character of that population has greatly altered since; generations have been born on the soil, whose recollections of their progenitors across the Atlantic have dwindled to the smallest span; and the intermixture of races has since done everything but destroy all filial feeling, has in fact destroyed nearly all but the common language, whilst ultra-democracy has been steadily at work upon ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... in an eye-bolt in the stem-head of a sloop or boat, and fastened by a forelock in order to secure the bowsprit down to the bows. (See SPAN-SHACKLE.) ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... by And he was able to sit up awhile; And soon, with me beside him in the carriage, To take a drive;—when one day, Percival Said to me: 'Mary, you and I must try The span to-day; our patient shall keep house.' My heart beat wildly; Kenrick looked as if Approving the arrangement; so we went. 'I wished,' said Percival, 'to talk with you In private; do not answer if I put Questions that may embarrass or annoy; It ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent



Words linked to "Span" :   structure, distance, twain, span loading, doubleton, duration, steel arch bridge, yoke, extend, Bailey bridge, straddle, movement, truss bridge, continuance, footbridge, toll bridge, transit, spick-and-span, call, duad, two, spic-and-span, arch, trestle bridge, pontoon bridge, pier, duo, drawbridge, 2, sweep, floating bridge, put, couple, construction, cover, bateau bridge, duet, overpass, linear measure, transportation, deuce, bridge, overcrossing, viaduct, twosome, trestle, couplet, transportation system, linear unit, continue, call option, fellow, motility, traverse, rope bridge



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