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Tack   /tæk/   Listen
Tack

verb
(past & past part. tacked; pres. part. tacking)
1.
Fasten with tacks.
2.
Turn into the wind.  Synonym: wear round.  "The boat tacked"
3.
Create by putting components or members together.  Synonyms: assemble, piece, put together, set up, tack together.  "He tacked together some verses" , "They set up a committee"
4.
Sew together loosely, with large stitches.  Synonym: baste.
5.
Fix to; attach.  Synonyms: append, hang on, tack on, tag on.
6.
Reverse (a direction, attitude, or course of action).  Synonyms: alternate, flip, flip-flop, interchange, switch.



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"Tack" Quotes from Famous Books



... the gray. The red fox, he says, depends upon his legs to elude the hounds, and will sometimes lead the hunt twenty-five miles from the place where he gets up, but the gray fox depends on cunning, and is more prone to run a few miles and "tack." ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... of them struck the hull of the privateer, another wounded the mainmast, while the rest cut holes through the sails and struck the water a quarter of a mile to windward. With an oath the captain of the privateer brought his vessel up into the wind, and then payed off on the other tack. ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... replied Brass, in a very grave manner, 'he'll not serve his case this way, and really, if you feel any interest in him, you had better advise him to go upon some other tack. Did I, sir? Of course ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... Bobolink, "seeing that you've made up your mind to reform after this, p'raps we might let you off easy, Bud. But the next time you get caught, oh! but you're going to get it. Better quit that crowd, and try another tack. Ted and Ward have all the fun, and you fellows take the drubbings. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren

... Eede, but the tide was ebbing, and the attack could not be driven home till it turned, and gave deep water everywhere between the banks of the inlet. King Edward used the interval to array his fleet and get it into position for the dash into the river. His ships stood out to sea on the starboard tack, a brave sight with the midsummer sun shining on the white sails, the hundreds of banners glowing with red, blue, white, and gold, the painted shields hanging on poop and bulwark. On the raised bows and sterns of the larger ships barons and knights and men-at-arms stood arrayed in complete armour. ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... forefathers, when there was nothing but wretched boats up in Nordland, and folks must needs buy fair winds by the sackful from the Gan-Finn, it was not safe to tack about in the open sea in wintry weather. In those days a fisherman never grew old. It was mostly womenfolk and children, and the lame and ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie

... you ought to have done something to delay, if you could not stop it. Of course, you had the settlements, and devil's in it if you could not have beat about a while—it was not so quick with me—and not doubled the point in a single tack; and you know the beggar has next to nothing. Any way, it was your duty to have printed some notice that the thing was thought of. If you had put it, like a bit of news, in "Galignani," I would have seen it, and known what to do. Well, that ship's blew up. But I won't let all ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... did the kanakas sleep through that long hot day that they did not see the cutter run out through the passage and head south, close-hauled on the southeast trade. Nor was the cutter ever sighted on that long tack to the shores of Ysabel, and during the tedious head-beat from there to Malaita. He landed at Port Adams with a wealth of rifles and tobacco such as no one man had ever possessed before. But he did not stop there. He had taken a white ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... its long passages and large rooms, was full of those nameless sounds which fill the air in the quiet of night. He heard his father's footsteps as he paced up and down in his study, he heard the tick-tack of the old clock on the stairs, the bureau creaked, the candle spluttered, but there was no human voice to break the silence, With a yawn he rose, stretching his long legs, and, throwing back his broad shoulders, made his way along the dark ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... four," he resumed imperturbably, "Mrs. Kershaw was never requested to produce a specimen of her husband's handwriting. Why? Because the police, clever as you say they are, never started on the right tack. They believed William Kershaw to have been murdered; they looked for ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy

... by no means a coward, screamed out, "We are lost!" She flung herself into the bottom of the boat and laid her head in Greenleaf's lap like a frightened child. He soothed her and denied that there was danger; he did not venture to tack again, however, for fear of being swamped, but determined to run northwardly along the coast in the hope of getting ashore on some sandy beach before the fury of the storm should come. The boat now careened so far that her gunwale was under water; he saw that he must take in the mainsail. With ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... the handle of the Perfect Automatic, stretched with our united strength, and pushed down on the lever. The spring-hammer drew back, a little trap or mouth at the end of the slotted tin barrel opened for the tack, the tack jumped out, turned over, landed point downward upon the right spot in the carpet, the ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... could form a regular order of battle, Sir J. Jervis, by carrying a press of sail, came up with them, passed through their fleet, then tacked, and thus cut off nine of their ships from the main body. These ships attempted to form on the larboard tack, either with a design of passing through the British line, or to leeward of it, and thus rejoining their friends. Only one of them succeeded in this attempt; and that only because she was so covered with smoke that her intention was not discovered till she had reached ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... Tick, tack, tick, tack! the old clock filled the night air with its measured beat. "Surely it does not tick so loudly in ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... being now on the dealing tack, commenced in the poverty-stricken strain adapted to the occasion. Having deposited his hat on the floor, taken his left leg up to nurse, and given his hair a backward rub with his ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... Fate had created for them both an atmosphere charged with unspoken possibilities. He had turned her words over again and again, reflecting upon the abrupt angles her speech had taken. In their few minutes' conversation three times she had had to make a sudden tack to safer subjects. What had she meant by that reference to Eastern and Western flowers? His answer reminded him how well he knew. And the confession about her husband, the worshipper of success—"what he calls success"—how much tragedy ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... amid her sums, for the welcome voice that would call her away; she saw herself again examining its grave face and striving to calculate, with childish eagerness, if she would have time to build another Tower of Babel or put another tack in the doll's frock before the ruthless iron ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... of Clare's childhood had scarcely altered, and it now shone full on the captain. He turned away, and made a tack or two on the quarter-deck. He was a tall, thin man, with a graceful carriage, and a little stoop in the shoulders. He had a handsome, sad face, growing old. His hair was more than half way to gray, and he seemed somewhere about fifty. He had the sternness of a man used to command, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... support measures which he considered doubtful, he did, now and then, "tack a provision" on a bill to please a friend, as the following ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various

... drawn and shaded, and cross each other; where one makes out, at times, a hat bound and befeathered, swaying as it goes; a little boy with sky-blue tie and buttoned boots, and tubular knickers hanging round his thin, bare calves; a couple of gossiping dames in swollen and somber petticoats, who tack hither and thither, meet, are mutually attracted and dissolve in conversation, like rolling drops of ink. In the foreground of this colored cinema which goes by and passes again, Brisbille, the sinister, is ranting away, as always. He ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... these swampers down to the levee where the men are working. As long as this flood keeps rising we're safe. Then the other three of us will go for the house. We may be seen that way, but there's no use spending any more time here playing tick-tack-toe on that wood up there. We locate what we want, and if we're cornered we can come out through here to the bayou. ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... come dey called us to de wagons an' tole us we wus free. Dey give each of us a cap full of hard-tack. Dey took clothes an' provisions an' give us nothin'. One crowd of Yankees would come on an' give us something an' another would come along an' take it away from us. Dey tole us to call marster an' missus Johnny Rebs, that we wus free an' had no marsters. Dat wus a ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... soon got her cargo on board, and we then put to sea, to return to the brig. We had to make a long reach off-shore to weather a headland, which ran out towards the north, and we were just about to tack when the wind, which had been very light, failed us altogether. There we lay, with our sides lazily lapping up the burnished water, and throwing it off again in showers of sparkling drops, as we rolled away helplessly in the swell. At the same time a strong current ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... of the days when I used to swab the deck. There's nothin' more elevatin', to my mind, than just that sort of thing. I do it sometime when I am eatin' my meals at the hotel, and the better I can bring to mind the bad coffee and hard tack, the better I ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... had three great pans of bacon sizzling, a young mountain of brown sugar piled upon a Poncho, a big can of hard-tack broken open, and the coffee had come to boil under his hands—three gallons at least. The watered mules had to do just so much kicking, so much braying at the young moon; had to be assured just ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... 227, vary in size and shape according to their use; as, flat-headed, gimp, round-headed, and double-pointed or matting tacks, a sort of small staple. Their size is indicated by the word "ounce." For example, a two-ounce tack is 1/4" long, a three-ounce tack is 3/8" long, a four-ounce tack is 7/16" long, a six-ounce tack is 1/2" long, etc. This term once meant the number of ounces of iron required ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... time. I thought the night would be over and the daylight come before it was all done; it was so slow. I could hear the tick-tack of his iron every time he knocked one of the spikes in. Of course he went higher every time. They were just far enough apart for a man to get his foot on from one to another. As he went up he had one end of the coil of the rope round his wrist. When ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... chief of state: Queen ELIZABETH II (since 6 February 1952); represented by Governor General Louisse LAKE-TACK (since 17 July 2007) head of government: Prime Minister Winston Baldwin SPENCER (since 24 March 2004) cabinet: Council of Ministers appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister elections: the monarch is hereditary; governor general chosen by the monarch on the advice ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... and impure water to drink, and that not in sufficient quantities to sustain life. Their allowance was, nominally, two pounds of hard tack and two of pork per week, and this was often uncooked, while either the pork, or the biscuit, or both, were usually ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... or accident, the bows of the Good Hope were liberated; and the ever-ready Lawless, who had maintained his place at the helm through all the hurly-burly by sheer strength of body and a liberal use of the cold steel, instantly clapped her on the proper tack. The ship began to move once more forward on the stormy sea, its scuppers running blood, its deck heaped with fallen men, sprawling and struggling in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... set in, so that the vessels could only keep in company by constant firing, and were obliged to tack about continually, at the risk of running foul of each other. Upon the 5th of December, although it would have appeared impossible, the fog increased in density to such an extent that those on board the Aigle could ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... Proctor, called Peachy for short. Oh, yes, I knew all about you beforehand, although you happen to be the newest girl. Dad wrote me a whole page—wonderful for him!—and said he'd stayed at your house in London, and I was to tack myself on to you and show you round, and see you didn't fret and all the rest of it. Are you wanting a crony, temporary or otherwise? Then here I am at your service. Link an arm and we'll parade the place. I guess by the ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... when they come to them two boxes. The sale is just about startin' now. Go as high as you think you can in order to get the ginseng at a profitable figger, an' pay the auctioneer fifty dollars down to hold the sale; that will give you boys time to rush around to dig up the balance o' the money. Tack right along now, lads, while I go down the street an' get me some breakfast. I don't want Blumenthal to see me around that sale. He might get suspicious. After I eat I'll meet you here aboard th' Maggie, an' ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... free, or before the wind Wind abeam Port tack Wind abeam Starboard tack Pointing into the wind Port tack Pointing into ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... council, who were gazing with deep interest at a solitary vessel dimly discernible through the fog in the offing. As she neared us we found her to be a barque of apparently considerable burthen, making a tack to weather the Torhead, which lay several miles under her lee, with a strong breeze from windward. She was evidently quite out of her reckoning from the indecision and embarassment displayed in her movements; and the captain seemed not sufficiently aware of the hazard ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various

... a merciful Providence the lives of his gallant crew, all now depending upon one of the many accidents to the masts and rigging which there was so much reason to apprehend. Happily, the sails stood well; the Indefatigable continued to gain by every tack; and at eleven o'clock, with six feet water in her hold, she passed about three-quarters of a mile to windward of the Penmarcks; enabling her officers and men, after a day and night of incessant exertion, at length to rest from their toil, and to ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... did," replied the sergeant, "and I went off on another tack. Hate 'em? Well, it's this way. At the beginning I don't know that I hated 'em so much. Yes, what you call Belgian atrocities were hellish; but 'twasn't that, and as long as they fought fair that was all I cared about. But when they got using that poisonous ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking

... in no way my argument), leaves me the absolute control of this wood, and I proceed to lay an English lever watch on several places of it, keeping my ear near to that nodal point where I know will come the inner bout, or D of the violin, consequently the bridge, which I mark with a X. The tick-tack of the watch varies in strength as I get farther from or nearer to a nodal point, as, of course, it was bound to do; but, from experience, it is a fine-toned piece of wood. I detach it from the glass rod, and I try it by my finger and thumb test, and the vibrations and their quality are all ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson

... enthusiastic labour I had spent upon those eighteen feet of oak ribs and planking; I thought of all the thrilling hours of the race, when we had squeezed her into the wind past Perry's Point and saved a precious tack; I thought of the dreamy hours when she had borne us down the Pond in the summer sunshine, or through the gray, mysterious fog, or under the stars above the black water. So instead, I laid my hand gently on her rotting tiller, and then took the axe back to the woodshed. She will never ride the waves ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... which it veered to N.W. Being at this time in the latitude of 56 deg. 4' S., longitude 53 deg. 36' W., we sounded, but found no bottom with a line of one hundred and thirty fathoms. I still kept the wind on the larboard-tack, having a gentle breeze and pleasant weather. On the 8th, at noon, a bed of sea-weed passed the ship. In the afternoon, in latitude 55 deg. 4', longitude 51 deg. 43' W., the variation was ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... score—ah! maybe out of a hundred, Pretty, has been saved by the mercy of God, and come home, after being given over for dead, and told of all hands lost, I—I know a story, Heart's Delight," stammered the captain, "o' this natur', as was told to me once; and being on this here tack, and you and me sitting by the fire, maybe you'd like to hear me tell it. Would ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... with plenty of stewed rice, Indian meal cake, and maple sugar, was to make their dinner. She was weary and warm, for the day had been hot and sultry. Seating herself on the threshold of the door, she leaned her tack against the doorpost, and closed her eyes. Perhaps the poor child's thoughts were wandering back to her far-off, never-to-be-forgotten home, or she might be thinking of the hunters and their game. Suddenly a vague, undefinable ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... stroll backwards and forwards by the lakeside. Encouragement was all very well; but... "Shall I—shall I not? Shall I—shall I not? Shall I—shall I not?" The eternal question went tick-tack, tick-tack, to the rhythm of his march. He glared at vacancy, and tried hard ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... September, when we were all enjoying a smoke in the "evening," and conversation had dragged somewhat, John started us off on a fresh tack and gave us something to talk about ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... the Nation's battlefield commanders have been anything but shrinking violets; we have had now and then a hero who could boast with such gusto that this very characteristic somehow endeared him to his men. But that would be a dangerous tack for all save the most exceptional individual. Instead of speaking of modesty as a charm that will win all hearts, thereby risking that through excessive modesty a man will become tiresome to others ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... appeared to render an exclusively literary life a hopeless impossibility, he immured himself in the woods of Georgia and gave himself wholly to his pen." When Simms visited him here in 1866, the poet had for supplies "a box of hard tack, two sides of bacon, and fourscore, more or less, of smoked herring, a frying-pan and a grid-iron." He and his wife lived as simply as the Hawthornes did in the Old Manse. His writing desk was a carpenter's work-bench. ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... of the yacht was something so terrible that it got to be hysterically funny. It couldn't seem dangerous with the sun streaming down the companion-way and past my state-room windows. About five o'clock on the second day they began to tack, and then I heard shrieks of laughter and the crash of china, and groans from the saloon settee, where young Bashforth was lying ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... pemmican, hard-tack, pea soup and tea. We all wanted plenty of sugar in our tea and drank large quantities of it. Experience on Mt. McKinley had led Tucker to believe heartily in the advantages of pemmican, a food especially prepared for Arctic explorers. Neither Coello nor Gamarra nor I had ever tasted ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... these pleasant dreams by stepping on a tack that penetrated his shoe at a place where a patch was much needed, and then he appeared to see for the first time his friends, who were anxiously waiting for him to complete his ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis

... successful [30] agricultural enterprise of Dr. Nichol, a medical officer of that Colony, with whom he became acquainted for the first time during his short stay there, our author travels out of his way to tack on a gratuitous and pointless sneer at the educational competency of all the elected members of the island legislature, among whom, he tells us, the worthy doctor had often tried in vain to obtain a place. His want of success, our author informs his readers, was brought about through Dr. Nichol "being ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... one night, Lucy—I should not hurt it, love—you would not like to fetch down your Brussels point scarf, and see how it would look, would you? We need not cut the lace, dear; we could tack it on again the next morning; you are not so particular as I am—you look ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... with a floating menagerie. Twice a day the bugles sounded the call for breakfast and dinner, and the soldiers ceased to sprawl, and squatted on the deck around square tin cans filled with soup or red wine, from which they fed themselves with spoons and into which they dipped their rations of hard tack, after first breaking them on the deck with a blow from a bayonet or crushing them with ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis

... out, my daughter dear, Gang out an' tack the air; Gang out an' walk i' the good green wood, An' ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick

... Mr. Leyden," he said. "Try another tack. Sorry I can't stay to talk with you; I'm busy." He mounted the gangway without a further glance at Leyden, leaving that gentleman staring up after him with tight lips drawn back from grinning teeth and a quivering of the arm which was bent back ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... Archivarius, in proof of his ability to do what he wished. All prospered with the student; a peculiar happy star seemed to be presiding over him; his neckcloth sat right at the very first trial; no tack burst; no loop gave way in his black silk stockings; his hat did not once fall to the dust after he had trimmed it. In a word, precisely at half-past eleven, the student Anselmus, in his pike-gray frock, and black satin lower habiliments, with a roll of calligraphics and pen-drawings ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... burst forth Lancelot, adding, with his whimsical look: "There's rhyme, as well as reason. How on earth did we get on this tack?" ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill

... always do me such great injustice. You lawyers always have to be doing something, even if it is only holding down a chair so that it won't blow out of your office window. If you haven't any justice to mete out, you take another tack and dispense injustice with lavish hand. However, I'll forgive you if you'll tell me one thing. What's libel, ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs

... Beetle. "Look here. If he kissed her—which is our tack—he is a cynically immoral hog, and his conduct is blatant indecency. Confer orationes Regis furiosissimi, when he collared me ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... was seen to be viewing the proceedings from a distant gateway. He would undoubtedly expect the law to be carried out, and dogs that ran sheep to be either broken to better ways or shot. It made no difference that the sheep were not his but "on tack" in his fields. What was the lot of these might be the lot of his another day. A thrashing was, therefore, now imperative. But how was this to be administered, when the only weapon was a shooting-stick, and the site was the middle of a large grass field? The best ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry

... the Representative, as he chewed a tack awhile, thinking it was a clove. 'I want to find a boarding house where the proprietress was an orphan found in a livery stable, whose father was a dago from East Austin, and whose grandfather was never placed on the map. I want a scrubby, ornery, low-down, snuff-dipping, back-woodsy, piebald gang, ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... was half over they thought themselves in luck to have fallen in with such a chance acquaintance. Murphy fired away jokes, repartees, anecdotes, and country gossip, to their delight; and when the eatables were disposed of, he started them on the punch-drinking tack afterwards so cleverly, that he hoped to see three parts of them tipsy ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... you doing?" Jim demanded fiercely, but the man only drove another tack. It was Mr. Harbison who stepped outside and ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... the mistake of heading directly for the shore, but sought to make it by a long tack, moving half with the current and half against it. The lad had made up his mind that the cowboys would never reach them and that what was to be done must ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin

... Clerk, as you understand this tack-hammer language, and as I could see you've been following all the messages that's been sent, just tell me the whole lot of it, please, as ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... saw the ships of England even so Run at the Spaniards on a wind, lay to, Bespatter them with hail of battle, then Take their prerogative of nimble steerage, Fly off, and ere the enemy, heavy in hand, Delivered his reply to the wasteful wave That made its grave of foam, race out of range, Then tack and crowd all sail, and after them Again. So harassed they that mighty foe, Moving in all its bravery to the east. And some were fine with pictures of the saints, Angels with flying hair and peaked wings, ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... weather clears up, and a fresh breeze comes, it is generally from the southward, directly in the outward-bound navigator's teeth. He must have patience, however, and strive to make the most of it by keeping on that tack by which most southing is to be gained. It is now, I believe, generally held to be the best practice to place the ship between 18 deg. and 23 deg. of west longitude on losing the north-east Trade; and likewise to endeavour, if possible, to cross the equator somewhere between these ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... than the one that means hours of time spent in cutting around the petals of an intricate flower picture, or printing painstakingly on a difficult cardboard surface what her local newspaper would be glad to print for her, thus making a slip to thumb tack on her board without ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... to find with Mr. Bartlett's Dictionary, and that it shares with all other provincial glossaries. No accents are given. No stranger could tell, for example, whether hacmatack should be pronounced hac'matack, hacma'tack, or hacmatack'. The value of Mr. Wright's otherwise excellent dictionary is very much impaired by this neglect. Ignorance of the pronunciation enhances tenfold the difficulty of tracing analogies or detecting corruptions. The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... rather a stiff appearance, tulle or crepe lisse frilling are expensive and frail, so it is a good idea to purchase a few yards of really good washing lace, about an inch and a half in depth; quill or plait and cut into suitable lengths to tack around the necks of dresses. This can be easily removed and cleaned when soiled. A piece of soft black Spanish lace, folded loosely around the throat close to the frillings, but below it, looks very pretty; or you may get three yards of scarf lace, trim the ends with ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... nervous and jumpy by nature," he observed. "I've seen dead men before. Still, next time you want to leave one in my office after dark, I wish you'd put a light with him, or tack up a sign, or even leave somebody to tell me about it. I'm sorry it's Starr and not that thoughtful old horned toad in ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... should be commiserated by those among whom their parents had lived, and she returned but brief thanks to the farewells offered her. She would far rather have been left to pursue her way without interruption. "Fare-ye-weel, neighbours, just tack Miss Margaret's, and the laddies, and my ain thanks, but we canna delay, for Jock will be spearing for us, and we ha' a lang journey to make before nightfall," she said, bending her head towards one and ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston

... gambrel-roofed house, only smaller at the base than at the point where the roof would begin. The outline of all these kites was given, and the sticks stayed in place by a string carried taut from stick to stick, which was notched at the ends to hold it; sometimes the sticks were held with a tack at the point of crossing, and sometimes they were mortised into one another; but this was apt to weaken them. The frame was laid down on a sheet of paper, and the paper was cut an inch or two larger, and then pasted and ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells

... that I had only to wait for Claire to tell me the rest of the story. But her mind went off on another tack. "Sylvia's going to have a baby," she remarked, ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... seemed to have got hold of the clue to the riddle. She imagined herself to have been in the wrong to some extent in the past. She should not have kept Edward on such a tight rein with regard to money. She thought she was on the right tack in letting him—as she had done only with fear and irresolution—have again the control of his income. He came even a step towards her and acknowledged, spontaneously, that she had been right in husbanding, ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... on the open sea, with all sail set; whilst my little barque did little more than tack about near the shore. One day I received the following letter; it was in a pleasant and careful handwriting, and orthography was observed with complete regularity, which suggested that a man had been ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... was published yesterday; it is equal to the rest. I hope you read John Bull. It was a Scotch gentleman,(7) a friend of mine, that writ it; but they put it upon me. The Parliament will hardly be up till June. We were like to be undone some days ago with a tack; but we carried it bravely, and the Whigs came in to help us. Poor Lady Masham, I am afraid, will lose her only son, about a twelvemonth old, with the king's evil. I never would let Mrs. Fenton see me during my illness, though she often came; but ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... about my birth For I'm as old as the big round earth; Ye young Immortals clear the track, I'm the bearded Joke on the Carpet tack." ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various

... answered Foster, "I'll tell you what I am going to do: brace sharp up on the larboard tack and run down to her. I am not going to run away from one infernal Dutchman, and I can ...
— Foster's Letter Of Marque - A Tale Of Old Sydney - 1901 • Louis Becke

... us. At 8.30 our signal was made to reconnoitre the enemy—as we were now certain they were. A frigate of their's was likewise looking at us. At noon the enemy's fleet south-west to west-south-west, on the larboard tack under an easy sail in line ahead, and distant 3 or 4 leagues. Our fleet 3 or 4 leagues to leeward in the order of sailing or under a press of sail. Ushant north ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... to Gallipoli? Here are some excellent white-tailed mules, good enough for Pindar, whom Colvocoressis has just brought in from the monastery. 'Transportation for one!' Is there anything to be brought back? Nitre, powder, lead, junk, hard-tack, mules, horses, pigs, polenta, or olla podrida, or other of the stores ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... office of his astounded charge d'affaires, reached the Commercial Bank before the messenger boys. While waiting in the balm of the spring morning for the doors to open he circumnavigated the block nine times—he counted them. Coming in on the last tack he sighted the portly form of the banker careening with dignified speed around the corner. Another instant he had crossed the mat and disappeared into his financial harbor. Mr. Strumley steered rapidly in ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... another tack. He knew such a good story, which, having told, he seemed to have forgotten all about the clock, for he said nothing more about it, and not much more about ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... the Rev. James McKenzie. The mutual though qualified respect which they felt for each other dated from their first meeting, when Mr. McKenzie had walked into the saloon and asked permission to tack up some bills advertising his ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... that but little could be seen on the broad river. Dave turned the craft towards Robber Island and made a long tack. He was just coming around on the other tack when there came a ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer

... do not finish it with a flat iron. That finishes it in more senses than one. But suppose it is puckered? In that case, stretch it and damp it. To do this, first tack on to it (as explained on page 251) a frame of strong tape. Then, on a drawing-board or other even wooden surface, lay a piece of clean calico, and on that, face downwards, the embroidery, and, slightly stretching it, nail it down by the tape with tin-tacks rather close ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day

... the ship, which is now, full in sight, were to tack about again, and sail away from us as fast as she approached just now what do you ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... repeating a form of words after a gentleman in a glazed cap and black raiment, we had suffered change into base assassins, the offscouring of society, starving for want of employment, and willing to "imbrue our coarse fists in fraternal blood" for the sum of eleven dollars a month, besides hard tack, salt junk, and the hope of a Confederate States bond apiece for bounty, or free loot in the treasuries of Florida, Mississippi, and Arkansas, after the war. How carefully from that day we watched the rise and fall of United States stocks! If they should go low among the nineties, we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... it is enough sight easier getting wives than housekeepers, and I'm some of a mind to try that tack," replied Captain ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various

... reported moving toward our left. For this reason, or in carrying out the original programme, we marched in the same direction, starting just after dark. As we fell back in the afternoon, I found a haversack containing some hard-tack. This our mess divided. We did not fail to commiserate the unlucky chap whose loss was our gain. This was a very unsatisfactory fight. It always seemed to me like a scrub race. The rebels plunged in as if they thought it was a 2.20 affair, at the ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride

... tell you what I've noticed: People are quite on the wrong tack in offering less than they can afford to give; they ought to offer more, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... a worn black dress, was waiting for him in the midst of a floor strewn with wreckage. The curtain at the window had been pulled by a heavy hand and hung by one tack, dangling to and fro in the draft through the cracks at the sash. The knots of blue ribbons appeared like violated flowers. The fire in the stove had gone out. The displaced lids and open doors showed ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane

... "but keep up a good heart, like a sailor hard upon a lee shore, and all 'll be bright and sunny in a day or two. And now we'll just make a tack down the bay-street-and sight the Maggy. There's a small drop of somethin' in the locker, that'll help to keep up yer spirits, I reckon—a body's spirits has to be tautened now and then, as ye do a bobstay,—and the wife (she's a good sort of a body, though I say it) will do the best ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... unless in constant use. Take out the tacks from these, fold the carpets back, wash the floor in strong suds with a tablespoonful of borax dissolved in it. Dash with insect powder, or lay with tobacco leaves along the edge, and re-tack. Or use turpentine, the enemy of buffalo moths, carpet worms and other insects that injure and destroy carpets. Mix the turpentine with pure water in the proportion of three tablespoonfuls to three quarts of water, and then after the carpet has been well swept, go over each breadth carefully ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... morning, just after daylight, when Smoke went to the bulletin-board outside the A. C. Company store and tacked up a notice. Men gathered and were reading and snickering over his shoulder ere he had driven the last tack. Soon the bulletin-board was crowded by hundreds who could not get near enough to read. Then a reader was appointed by acclamation, and thereafter, throughout the day, many men were acclaimed to read in loud voice the notice Smoke Bellew had nailed up. And there were numbers of men who stood in ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... Our tack was toward the eastern distance, and no glimpse of land or cloud made us aught but solitary travelers in illimitable space. The sun was beneath the deep, but in the hush of the pale light one felt the awe of its coming. Slowly a faint glow began to gild a line that circled the farthest ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... doubt he is by far the best preacher we ever had in Glen St. Mary church," said Miss Cornelia, veering a tack or two. "I suppose it is because he is so moony and absent-minded that he never got a town call. His trial sermon was simply wonderful, believe ME. Every one went mad about it— and ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... "All right. Tack or nail, only let's see you get back where we started from." Lincoln was skeptical of sailboats. He had heard about sailing "just where you wanted to go," but he had his ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... saw GAWAIN'S head! With one wild bound toward the dark'ning skies, From out the garden gates he madly flies. But soon his mind it alters. Slipping back, His tune he changes—trying this new tack:"Howe'er it be, it seems to me 'Tis only noble to be good; Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various

... at Kelley's Ferry. I first knew Jim Shirley that night, although he remembered me from the time we had your regiment at our mercy. He brought me bacon and hard tack and coffee. We have been friends ever since. How long ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... into a bustle and confusion. Captain Jonathan Wellsby was in haste to catch a fair wind and make his offing before nightfall. His sailors ran to and fro, jumping at the word, active and cheery. Stately and slow, the high-pooped merchant trader filled away on the larboard tack and pointed her ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... not heed. "Grace used to be so busy every day, with fixing a curtain here and driving a tin-tack there; but she cares for no ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... you cannot sail against it. You must then get the sail in as flat as you can, and sail as near as you can to the wind. Then when you have gone some distance you must bring her head round, till the sail goes over on the other side; and sail on that tack, and so make a zigzag course: but if the wind should come dead ahead, I think your best course would be to lower the sail and row against it. However, at present, with the wind from the east, you will be able to sail free on ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty

... defined that it is difficult to go wrong; and a farmer who does his own wiring and takes pride in its appearance is more apt to be right than a professional electrician who is careless at his task. After the work has been passed, tack on the moulding capping, with brads, and paint the ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson

... that rules the sea or sky, The perjured villains promise to comply, And bid me hasten to unmoor the ship. With eager joy I launch into the deep; And, heedless of the fraud, for Naxos stand: They whisper oft, and beckon with the hand, And give me signs, all anxious for their prey, To tack about, and steer another way. 80 "Then let some other to my post succeed," Said I, "I'm guiltless of so foul a deed." "What," says Ethalion, "must the ship's whole crew Follow your humour, and depend on you?" And straight himself he seated at the prore, And tacked about, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... absently. She was staring into the fire, wondering what tack would be best to take with Ned, when she did get hold of the boy. 'Have you been talking to Ned, Goody, as you promised you would?' she turned ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell

... destination, was crossing the "Guerriere's" bows, her course was changed, in order to learn the character of the stranger. By half-past three she was recognized to be a large frigate, under easy sail on the starboard tack; which, the wind being northwesterly, gives her heading from west-southwest to southwest. The "Constitution" was to windward. At 3.45 the "Guerriere," without changing her course, backed her maintopsail, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... etc. This I suppose was written after the reception of my first cargo of specimens. Not having heard from you until March of this year I really began to think that my collections were so poor, that you were puzzled what to say; the case is now quite on the opposite tack; for you are guilty of exciting all my vain feelings to a most comfortable pitch; if hard work will atone for these thoughts, I vow it shall not be spared. It is rather late, but I will allude to some ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... was absolutely unreportable, and they were all more or less flushed with beer. I had been almost a total abstainer all my life, and though I drank a little of it out of complaisance I thought the canteen tack the nastiest stuff I had ever tasted The depot barrack-room in which the recruits slept until the time of their deportation echoed morning, noon, and night with unmeaning ribaldries and obscenities, and was stale ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray

... I would rather that the wind had been either north or south, so that we could have laid our course all round; as it is, we shall have the wind almost dead aft till we are round the Nab, then we shall be close-hauled, with perhaps an occasional tack along the back of the island, then free again back. There is no doubt that the cutters have a pull close-hauled. I fancy with this wind the schooners will be out of it; though if it had been a reach the whole way, they would have had ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... likely to be disappointed in that respect, although I have been out and home without having had to lift tack or sheet for weeks together," observed ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston

... Until we had made two-thirds of our distance across the ocean, the winds had stood very much at south-west; and, though we had no heavy weather, our progress was good; but in 20 deg. east from Greenwich, we got north-easters, and our best tack being the larboard, I stood for ten days to the southward and eastward. This brought us into the track of every thing going to, or coming from, the Mediterranean; and, had we stood on far enough, we should ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... personal interest? was it in order to stain the reputation of another? and if so, was the person calumniated a man or a woman? and was that person married or single? a member of the civil authority, or one of the clergy?" This introductory part being ended, the priest begins a fresh tack, and interrogates the penitent upon infractions not specified in any of the commandments. For example: If the penitent is accustomed to pray the rosary; if she frequents churches; if she contributes her money towards the support of divine worship; if she knows, and omits to denounce, ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... Duke," said he, taking another tack. "This property belongs to another John Merrick. It is a common name, and that is doubtless why you mistook me for the rich ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... aside to go along the water-side and show me where the large trout commonly lay, underneath an overhanging bank; and he was much disappointed, for my sake, that there were none visible just then. Then he wandered off on to another tack, and stood a great while out in the middle of a meadow in the hot sunshine, trying to make out that he had known me before, or, if not me, some friend of mine, merely, I believe, out of a desire that we should feel more friendly and at our ease with one another. At last he made a little speech to ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... up and the sails expanded to the breeze; and then, the outer jib being hoisted at the same time and the lee- braces hauled in, the man at the wheel putting the helm up the while, the ship payed off on the port tack, making over towards the French coast so as to take advantage of the tide running down Channel on that side. At the same time, the towing-hawser which had up to now still attached us to the tug, was dropped over the bows ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Shake the carpet well; tack it down, and wash it upon the floor; the floor should be very clean; use cold soap suds; to three gallons add half a tumbler of beef-gall; this will prevent the colors from fading. Should there be grease ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... had some pretty tidy ones, if you come to read your histories. But I don't know so much about those chaps being brave. It was a very clever bit of seamanship, mind you, that taking the brig out in the teeth of the storm with hardly room to tack. I am not a bad pilot in my way when I like to try, but I will be honest over it; I daren't have tried that job. It was a very clean thing. But look here, my lad. It's no use for you to try and crack that up, because him ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... Pember of ours, late of Trinity Hall, calls out from the darkness, "Here you are, mate," and forthwith the man of the Fighting Fifth and the Imperial Yeoman sit down together and chat of Heaven knows what, and the latter gives the former half of his prized hard tack ration (he wouldn't give me a biscuit for his soul's salvation), for the Northumberlands do not fare well at their quartermaster's hands, at least they did not the last time we were on the trek. Then, at about the same time Nobby is leaving us, the Fusilier ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... the application of a similar process to the Paradise Lost of Milton, or the tragedies of Shakespeare; the effect indeed may be seen by comparing, with some of the noblest speeches of the latter, the few couplets which he seems to have considered himself bound by custom to tack on to their close, at the end of a ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... and there was no movement of the troops. The ardor of their patriotism died out. It was a monotonous life, waking early in the morning to answer roll-call, to eat breakfast of salt pork and hard-tack, drilling by squads, by companies, by battalion, marching and countermarching, going through the same manoeuvres every day, shouldering, ordering, and presenting arms, making believe load and fire, standing on guard, putting out their lights at nine o'clock ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin

... subject, the strain deserted it, and went on to show that the Miss Pecksniffs were nearly related to Rule Britannia, and that if Great Britain hadn't been an island, there could have been no Miss Pecksniffs. And being now on a nautical tack, it ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... the petticoats all thinking. They saw that in studying fashion plates and practising expressions they had been going upon the wrong tack. The card for them to play was 'the poor.' But here a serious difficulty arose. There was only one poor person in the whole parish, a cantankerous old fellow who lived in a tumble-down cottage at the back of the church, and fifteen ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome

... out-door one, and heavy, and the boot is a light one. Worn together, they make one walk a little one-sided, and the ladies, in particular Miss Slowcum, don't like it, but, lor', that don't matter nothing to speak of; they can't do nothing to me except tack on a few more names to Sarah. It don't fret me, Miss Jasmine, and it needn't ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... Yalmal. Though not very high, it was a hilly country, with patches and even large drifts of snow here and there, some of them lying close down by the shore. Next morning I sighted the southernmost of the Kamenni Islands. We took a tack in under it to see if there were animals of any kind, but could catch sight of none. The island rose evenly from the sea at all points, with steep shores. They consisted for the most part of rock, which was partly solid, partly broken up by the action of the weather into heaps ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... burst in front of them. Why, it would be sheer madness! They would have to crawl, to run, to jump—then to crawl again! That wasn't what they were doing when every morning on the parade-ground one heard a continual tack—tack—tack—tack, as if a thousand telegraph clerks were hard at work. What was the good of all this senseless show, ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... overpowered that from the land, so that where the river met the influx of the sea-water and the opposition of the waves, it was extremely rough and angry; and the current was beaten back with such a violent swell, that the master of the boat could not make good his passage, but ordered his sailors to tack about and return. Caesar, upon this, discovers himself, and taking the man by the hand, who was surprised to see him there, said, "Go on, my friend, and fear nothing; you carry Caesar and his fortune in your boat." The mariners, when they heard that, forgot ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... he is doing?" said John, starting off on a new tack. "I don't suppose he can get a ...
— Andy Grant's Pluck • Horatio Alger

... I watched and watched, never feeling a bit like sleep though my eyes burned something cruel and my feet—they were lumps of prickly wood, not feet. Dull lumps with every now and then a stab as if a tin tack had been driven into them. Beyond me in the open alley-way the light was strong, and I could see men pass frequently, but no one came into my corner till the end, and no one saw me. I heard six bells go in the first watch ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... of getting away from the idea of its being a joke. Senator Arnold was past seventy. Slowly he extended his right arm and tested his muscle. "Not very much," he said, "but enough to drive a tack or two." That brought applause and they drew closer together, and the atmosphere warmed perceptibly. "I've fought for the State in more ways than one,"—Senator Arnold was a distinguished veteran of the Civil War—"and if I can serve her now by tacking down carpets, ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell

... girl had held off some distance from the line. Number Fifteen had just crossed and was now swooping away on her first tack toward the distant stake-boat. The momentum the Coquette obtained racing down to the ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe

... time;— All which deserve, in highest lyric, A rich and lofty panegyric; But no such thing wouldst thou desire, Whom pomp displeases, praises tire. Hence mine is simple, short, and plain; Yet, madam, I would fain Tack on a word or two Of homage to your country due,— A country well ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... soldier in Maney's and Polk's brigades loaded himself down with rations. It was a laughable looking rear guard of a routed and retreating army. Every one of us had cut open the end of a corn sack, emptied out the corn, and filled it with hard-tack, and, besides, every one of us had a side of bacon hung to our bayonets on our guns. Our canteens, and clothes, and faces, and hair were all gummed up with molasses. Such is the picture of our rear guard. Now, reader, if you were ever on ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... I'd try her on another tack. So I placed my hands on my shakey knees, and bendin' over in this guise, so she could see me plainly, while my teeth rattled in my skull as I shook my head at ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... say," he cried cheerily. "Oh! Don't look like that. You're only a bit weak, messmate. Avast there! take a good grip o' the health tack; haul in your slack, and ahoy! you'll be full sail again in a week. I say, what do you think of that? I'm getting on with my nautical ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... from the names of things. You are deluding yourself with a name. Because the law, which is always rigid and sometimes stupid, says that a man who takes that which does not belong to him is a thief, you've got your mind fixed on the name 'thief,' and the idea of theft. If I had gone off on that tack I shouldn't have the interesting privilege of introducing to you Mr. Harvey M. Greene, who now ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... stays," came the raucous bark of the Captain, who had taken on the heel. The sails slatted furiously as the schooner came about. Then the "Bertha Millner" caught the wind again and lay over quietly and contentedly to her work. The next tack brought the schooner close under Alcatraz. The sea became heavier, the breeze grew stiff and smelled of the outside ocean. Out beyond them to westward opened the Golden Gate, a bleak vista of ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... Crackers, or "hard tack" as they were called, are notoriously poor eating, but in the hands of the Confederate soldier were made to do good duty. When on the march and pressed for time, a piece of solid fat pork and a dry ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy

... for an explanation, and not receiving it, followed in a quickly growing mob that filled Margaretha Street from wall to wall. When he dismounted he had almost to fight his way to the post or door upon which he was to tack the next placard. The crowd surged about him in its anxiety to read what the placard bore, and then, between the cheering and yelling, those in the front passed back to the crowd the tidings that filled them with ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... hearts had been full of the dinner He gave the five thousand hungry men and women and children, they wouldn't have been uncomfortable about not having a loaf. And so they wouldn't have been set upon the wrong tack when He spoke about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees; and they would have known in a moment what He meant. And if I hadn't been too much of the same sort, I wouldn't have started saying it was but reasonable to be in the doldrums because they were ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... she knew it, but she had not the smallest intention of giving in. She had started on the wrong tack, that was all. Of course the boy was too chivalrous to go back on a friend, particularly as he believed he was under some obligation to her. Her plan of mercilessly tearing the lady to pieces had not been a good one, but she would think of something ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page



Words linked to "Tack" :   confuse, line, mainsheet, change of course, configure, turn, sail, reverse, attach, create, sailing, make, caparison, stitch, piloting, girth, drawing pin, trapping, bit, secure, bearing, boat, housing, confection, subjoin, pushpin, jumble, gear, yoke, sew together, reassemble, heading, stable gear, fasten, hame, nail, martingale, disassemble, cinch, pilotage, sew, change by reversal, confect, run up, saddlecloth, mix up, tag on, futtock shroud, bring together, join, appurtenance, rig up, harness, saddle blanket, paraphernalia, comfit, tie tack, compound, seafaring, horse blanket, tick-tack-toe, headgear, navigation, fix, set up, ship, aim



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