"Turnspit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... considerations. Why, Jack, we haven't begun to guess at the wonderful changes that are to be made in all our housekeeping affairs, as well as in everything else by electricity. In a few years we shall find our present cooking arrangements as much out of date as the old turnspit and tin ovens and the great wood fires on the hearth. And light! Our houses will be as light as day all the time, unless we choose darkness in order ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... kind in temper to every living thing. He did not, of course, agree particularly well with his brothers, or rather they did not agree with him. He was usually appointed to the honorable office of turnspit, when there was anything to roast, which was not often; for, to do the brothers justice, they were hardly less sparing upon themselves than upon other people. At other times he used to clean the shoes, the floors, ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... we should have no racehorses like those of England, nor drayhorses so heavy in build and so unlike the racehorse; for there are no such breeds in a wild state. For the same reason, we should have no turnspit dogs with crooked legs, no greyhounds nor water-spaniels; we should have no tailless breed of fowls nor fantail pigeons, &c. Nor should we be able to cultivate wild plants in our gardens, for any length of time we please, without ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... chief turnkey at the Fleet in Mr. Pickwick's time, may have sprung The Cook was assisted by the Baster and Hasler, or turnspit, the latter from Old Fr. hastille, spit, dim. of Lat. hasta, spear. The Chandler was a servant as well ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... toy dog, bull dog, badger dog; mastiff; blood hound, grey hound, stag hound, deer hound, fox hound, otter hound; harrier, beagle, spaniel, pointer, setter, retriever; Newfoundland; water dog, water spaniel; pug, poodle; turnspit; terrier; fox terrier, Skye terrier; Dandie Dinmont; collie. [cats—generally] feline, puss, pussy; grimalkin^; gib cat, tom cat. [wild mammals] fox, Reynard, vixen, stag, deer, hart, buck, doe, roe; caribou, coyote, elk, moose, musk ox, sambar^. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Occam, that runneth toward the city Skicoack, and the evening following we came to an isle called Roanoak, from the harbor where we entered seven leagues: At the north end were nine houses, builded with cedar, fortified round with sharp trees [palisaded] and the entrance like a turnpike [turnspit]. When we came towards it, the wife of Granganimeo came running out to meet us (her husband was absent) commanding her people to draw our boat ashore for beating on the billows. Others she appointed to carry us on their backs aland, others to bring our oars into the ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... raise a weight. Now, although I know that in fact there is nothing more objectionable in a man turning a wheel by treading inside of it than there is if he turn it round by a winch-handle, yet somehow it strikes one more as being merely the work of an animal, a turnspit, or a squirrel, or, indeed, as the task imposed on the criminal. But, nevertheless, in this way there were a large number of persons getting their living by the mere exercise of their muscles, but, as might be expected, a very poor living, derived as it was from unintelligent labor. That work ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... the skull of a turnspit, which, after a wretched life of dirty work, was turned out of doors to die on a dunghill. I have been induced to preserve it, in consequence of its remarkable similarity to this, which belonged to a courtly poet, who having grown grey in flattering the great, was cast off in the same manner ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... common Selenites I have seen at work is exquisitely adapted to the social need it meets. Fine work is done by fined-down workers, amazingly dwarfed and neat. Some I could hold on the palm of my hand. There is even a sort of turnspit Selenite, very common, whose duty and only delight it is to apply the motive power for various small appliances. And to rule over these things and order any erring tendency there might be in some aberrant natures are the most muscular beings I have seen in the moon, a sort of lunar police, ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... are, good soul!" she cried. "I didn't recognize you, you have turned so gray. Yet you don't really drudge, you people; you've got good places. As for me, I work like a turnspit that deserves baptism." ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... a groan, for I was only taking the place of the water and turning the wheel just as a turnspit dog would work, or a squirrel in its cage, only that I was outside the wheel and they ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... ancient jack against the wall, and 'Dolph sprang for it, though he understood the command only. But he was a heavy dog, and as the rusty machine began to revolve under his weight, his wits jumped to the meaning of it, and he began to run like a turnspit demented. ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Jack still haunts us at every turn and phase of our existence. The smoke-jack and bottle-jack, those revolutionary instruments that threw the turnspit out of employment (and have well-nigh banished him from the face of the earth), cook the Jack hare, which we bring in in the pocket of our shooting-jacket. We wear jack-boots, and draw them off with boot-jacks; prop up our houses with jack-screws; ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. • Various
... having short crooked legs, long backs, and pricked ears. I did not observe any variety in them, except in their skins, some having long and rough hair, and others being quite smooth. They are about the size of a common turnspit, exceedingly sluggish in their nature, though perhaps this may be more owing to the manner in which they are treated, than to any natural disposition in them. They are in general fed and left to herd with the hogs; and I do not recollect one instance in which a dog ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr |
