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Thicken   /θˈɪkən/   Listen
Thicken

verb
(past & past part. thickened; pres. part. thickening)
1.
Make thick or thicker.  Synonym: inspissate.  "Inspissate the tar so that it becomes pitch"
2.
Become thick or thicker.  Synonym: inspissate.  "The egg yolk will inspissate"
3.
Make viscous or dense.  Synonym: inspissate.



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"Thicken" Quotes from Famous Books



... through its labyrinths, they would inevitably escape, and I should lose the reward. Hark thee. Stay here and I'll fetch the writing for the message. Stir not for thy life. Shouldst thou betray me I'll have thy crooked bones ground in a mill to thicken pigs' gruel." ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... Hocbridge watched and whispered, its animus would have been little more than a trifle to persons in thriving circumstances. But unfortunately, poverty, whilst it is new, and before the skin has had time to thicken, makes people susceptible inversely to their opportunities for shielding themselves. In Owen was found, in place of his father's impressibility, a larger share of his father's pride, and a squareness of idea ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... broke as cheerless as his mood. It had rained during the night and was still raining, or sleeting, and freezing as fast as it fell. The sky was a leaden grey; the drops that came down only went to thicken the sheet of ice that lay upon everything. No face of the outer world could be more unpromising than that which slowly greeted him, as the night withdrew her veil and the stealthy steps of the dawn said that no bright day was chasing her forward. Fast enough it lighted up the ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... the party met again on the old ground; and we shall take up the thread of our narrative, during the summer in which the circle was re-united. It is to be hoped that this break in the movement of our tale will be forgiven, when we declare, that the plot is about to thicken; perplexities, troubles, and misfortunes are gathering about our Longbridge friends; a piece of intelligence which will probably cheer the reader's spirits. We have it on the authority of a philosopher, that there is something gratifying to human nature in the calamities ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... for there's a swallow: Come one swallow, his mate will follow, The bird race quicken and wheel and thicken. ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... for each of us is whether the veil will thicken till it darkens the Face altogether, and that is death; or whether it will thin away till the last filmy remnant is gone, and 'we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... this will require about three hours on the stove or five hours in the fireless cooker. Add carrots, turnips, onions, pepper, and salt during the last hour of cooking, and the potatoes fifteen minutes before serving. Thicken with the flour diluted with cold water. Serve with dumplings (see below). If this dish is made in the fireless cooker, the mixture must be reheated when the vegetables are put in. Such a stew may also be made of mutton. If veal or pork is used ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... opinion that it is hopeless for us to get out of this. We could tow the vessels a short distance, but every hour the ice will thicken. They concluded that anchors shall be got up, and that the ships all lie together as close as they ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... the washers in removing the liquid from the upper part of the chest tends to thicken the pulp therein, and the said thickened pulp is conveyed from one chest to the next in the series by any suitable conveying device, f (shown in this instance as a worm working in a trough or case, f2), which may be made foraminous for the purpose of permitting the liquid to ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various

... distance across the main island, over a porous soil which refuses to retain the recent foot-prints, until they were again placed in boats, and were concealed upon some of the innumerable little islands which thicken on the waters of the Laguna in the rear. These islands, being covered with a thick growth of bushes and grass, offer an inscrutable hiding place for the 'black diamonds.'"[47] These methods became, however, ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

... devote myself to coaxing the left ventricle wall to thicken pro rata—among the mountains, and to have nothing to do with any public functions or other exciting bedevilments. So the International Geological Congress will not have the pleasure of seeing its Honorary President in September. I am disgusted at having to break an ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... made an epoch; the fish hung in the swift stream, the birds circled overhead, the pine-tops rustled underneath the stars, the tall hills stood over all; and Will went to and fro, minding his wayside inn, until the snow began to thicken on his head. His heart was young and vigorous; and if his pulses kept a sober time, they still beat strong and steady in his wrists. He carried a ruddy stain on either cheek, like a ripe apple; he stooped a little, but his step was still firm; and ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... mount afresh and thicken Cannot so dense before the morn's light hover That we may not through cloud-rifts clear discover Great thoughts that new-born victories ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... the temperature of ninety degrees of Fahrenheit. It is thrown into a large cistern, in the bottom of which are small apertures for the aqueous part to drain off, when the oil is left for some time to thicken. It is then put into large earthen jars, placed in rude carts drawn by oxen, and carried to the banks of the river, from whence it is sent by water-carriage to every part of the empire. By the number and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various

... and strain the water to it, which must be put back in the pot; put into it a chicken cut up, with the tops of asparagus which had been laid by, boil it until these last articles are sufficiently done, thicken with flour, butter and milk, ...
— The Virginia Housewife • Mary Randolph

... troubles began to thicken upon the party. Gourgaud rejoined them on the 24th: he had not been allowed to land. Orders came on the 26th for the "Bellerophon" to proceed to Plymouth; and the rumour gained ground that St. Helena would be their destination. It was true. On July 31st, Sir Henry Bunbury, Secretary to the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... Aim for economy of line. If a shadow can be rendered with twenty strokes do not crowd in forty, as you will endanger its transparency. Remember that in reproduction the lines tend to thicken and so to crowd out the light between them. This is so distressingly true of newspaper reproduction that in drawings for this purpose the lines have to be generally very thin, sharp, and well apart. The above rule should be particularly regarded ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis

... into a saucepan with melted butter and sweet oil and brown on both sides, season with salt. Add a half cupful of meat stock, thicken with a little flour and butter, and boil three minutes, squeeze a little lemon juice into it, add a sprinkling of parsley and a dash of pepper, pour ...
— Vaughan's Vegetable Cook Book (4th edition) - How to Cook and Use Rarer Vegetables and Herbs • Anonymous

... unfolded in the mellow air under the dull, warm sun. The willows were in perfect leaf, and wore their delicate green like veils caught upon their boughs; the may-apples had already pitched their tents in the woods, beginning to thicken and darken with the young foliage of the oaks and hickories; suddenly, as the train dashed from a stretch of forest, the peach orchards flushed pink beside the brick farmsteads. The child gave a cry of delight, and pointed; and her mother seemed to forget all that had gone before, and abandoned ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... boulevards, a compact little knot of people is stationed in front of a poster. I fancy they are studying the proclamation of one of the candidates, but it turns out only to be a play-bill. The crowd continues to thicken; the cafes are crammed; gold chignons are plentiful enough at every table; here and there a red Garibaldi shirt is visible, like poppies amongst the corn. Every now and then a horseman gallops wildly past with dispatches from one section to another. The results of some of the ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... the first airs of spring assume their natural blandness; when ladies are out with their 'spring hats' and carmen with their spring-carts; when the snow has left us, and the city-trees are about leave-ing; how innumerous kites begin to thicken in the air? Yonder a big unwieldy fellow rises with calm dignity, trailing his long tail with great propriety behind him; here a little bustling creature ducks and dives, coquetting first on this side, then on that; until finally turning two or three somersets, it almost ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... to shelter Her delicate head Would quicken and quicken Each tentative tread If drops chanced to pelt her That summertime spills In dust-paven rills When thunder-clouds thicken And birds ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy

... but do not let this discourage any one who does not like onions. One reason that onions are so unpopular is that so often they are improperly cooked. In making curry onions should be cooked until they are perfectly soft. Indeed they should be reduced to a pulp. This pulp helps thicken the curry gravy, and many people who claim that they cannot eat onions really enjoy them without realizing ...
— The Khaki Kook Book - A Collection of a Hundred Cheap and Practical Recipes - Mostly from Hindustan • Mary Kennedy Core

... endosmose has saturated the albumen and fibrin of the serum, which is returned to the liquid state. The red globules which desiccation had agglutinated, had become motionless like ships stranded in shoal water. Now behold them afloat again: they thicken, swell, round out their edges, detach themselves from each other and prepare to circulate in their proper channels at the first impulse which shall be given them by the contractions ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... Torchbearers, rich men, footmen, Figaros, grandees, alcaldes, dames, and damsels—the whole company on the stage began to eddy about, and come and go, and look for one another. The plot thickened, again I left it to thicken; for Florine the jealous and the happy Coralie had entangled me once more in the folds of mantilla and basquina, and their little feet were ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... effect. You may take a plant which has single flowers, and by dealing with the soil, and nourishment, and so on, you may by-and-by convert single flowers into double flowers, and make thorns shoot out into branches. You may thicken or make various modifications in the shape of the fruit. In animals, too, you may produce analogous changes in this way, as in the case of that deep bronze colour which persons rarely lose after having passed any length of time in tropical countries. You may also alter ...
— The Perpetuation Of Living Beings, Hereditary Transmission And Variation • Thomas H. Huxley

... one of the best manures to apply in the first instance. As we have already said, farmyard manure will do more to maintain the quality of pasture than any kind of artificial manure. Mr Cooke is of opinion that no system of manuring yet discovered will both thicken and improve the herbage at all equally in success to the careful and regular feeding upon the grass of cattle or sheep, the animals having a good allowance of decorticated ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman

... sex this association between the face, throat, nose, and pubis does not exist; whence no hair grows on their chins at the time of puberty, nor does their voices change, or their necks thicken. This happens probably from there being in them a more exquisite sensitive sympathy between the pubis and the breasts. Hence their breasts swell at the time of puberty, and secrete milk at the time of ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... he inquired. He realized that the bottom of the valley would shortly thicken into darkness, and that the way out, unguided, would become impossible. "It sounds like the name of ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... milk is made into cottage cheese, and many people, in making their cottage cheese, stand it for a moment on the fire to thicken. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 17, March 4, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... now began to thicken, and altogether the whole affair was the most exciting thing I ever experienced, and beat Ghuzni out of the pit. We moved steadily on, the guns from the redoubts blazing at us as fast as they could load them; but ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth

... Doves, whom she wanted to give her courage for the introduction to my Lady, and to explain to her the wonders of the streets of London, which she did not quite expect to see paved with gold! She ate her extemporised meal, gazing from the window, and expecting to see houses and churches thicken on her, and hurrying to brush away her crumbs, and put on her gloves lest she should arrive unawares, for she had counted half-a-dozen houses close together. No! here was another field! More fields and houses. ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... therefore aware of all that you bring in your train, O Fire! I foresee winter; its coming both troubles and pleases me. I've already begun to thicken and embellish my fur-coat in its honor, the darker stripes are becoming black, my white tippet swells into a dazzling boa, and the fur on my belly surpasses in beauty anything that has ever been seen. What shall I say of my tail, broad as a club, with alternate rings of fawn-color ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette

... require it. His heroines are, on the whole, better treated, as such, than his heroes, who are, for the most part, thrown into the ring to be bandied about, the sport of circumstances;—owing almost all their interest to the events which thicken around them. Many of them exhibit no definite character, or, when they rise above nonentities, are not so much individuals as abstractions. A strong fraternal likeness to the vacillating Waverley does not raise them in our esteem. They seem ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various

... Jeremy, pinching his arms, putting pins into his legs, and shouting suddenly into his ears. Jeremy, who had feared Johnny Bain, had always "felt" the stout youth's arrival before he appeared. The sky had seemed to darken, the air to thicken, the birds to gather in the ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole

... ripples that seemed to be merrily racing the ship to port and starboard. Occasionally a break or clear space in the fog-bank swept down upon and overtook us, when it would be possible to see for a distance of a quarter of a mile for a few seconds; then it would thicken again and be as blinding as ever. But every break that came was wider than the one that preceded it, showing that the windward edge of the bank was rapidly drawing down after us; and as these breaks occurred indifferently on either side of, or sometimes on both sides at once, with now ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... gallons of soup stock and bring to boil. Pass the boiling liquid through a fine sieve. Make a smooth paste of a half pound flour and add paste, ten ounces of sugar and three ounces of salt to the soup stock. Cook until soup begins to thicken. Pack in glass jars or tin cans. Partially seal glass jars. Cap and tip tin cans. Process ninety minutes if using hot-water-bath outfit or condensed-steam outfit; eighty minutes if using water-seal outfit; seventy minutes if using five-pound steam-pressure outfit; forty-five ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray

... (Rural New Yorker).—Boil the cauliflower in salt water until nearly done. For a small head, bring another quart of water (or milk and water) to boil, adding half an onion, or a bit of spice if desired, and thicken it as for drawn butter sauce, with an ounce of butter and some flour. Boil the cauliflower in the liquid until soft, then put the whole through a colander; return to the fire, and add a cup of cream; simmer for five ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier

... to thicken as we advance to the southward. Lismahago has now professed himself the admirer of our aunt, and carries on his addresses under the sanction of her brother's approbation; so that we shall certainly have a wedding by ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... library. Since the pictures were usually idealized, it followed that Klavan was an above-average specimen of his people. He stood a full eight feet from fetters to crest, and had not yet begun to thicken his shoes in compensation for the stoop that marked advancing middle ...
— Citadel • Algirdas Jonas Budrys

... forests as they still exist in European Russia, where myriads of square miles in the north and centre of the land are covered by birch, spruce, larch, pine, and oak plantations. Where do these forests begin and where do they have an end? That is the traveller's thought. He finds that they thicken and broaden, and deepen as they sweep in their majestic gloom across the Urals, and make up for thousands of miles the grand Siberian arboreal belt. In this taiga the Tsar possesses wealth beyond all computation; and the railway will ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... swell and thicken, and, after some days, the membrane around them assumes a reddish tint. The mesenteric glands are enlarged. M. BRETONNEAU has seen one as large as a hen's egg: they generally equal in size that of a pigeon. The disease spreads and affects an additional number of glands. It reaches its ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... animation died out of his face, but in his eyes there was a restless light, a look of apprehension and suspense. He kept clasping and unclasping his big hands as if he were trying to realize something. The clock ticked through the minutes of a half-hour and the afternoon outside began to thicken and darken turbidly. Alexander, since he first sat down, had not changed his position. He leaned forward, his hands between his knees, scarcely breathing, as if he were holding himself away from his surroundings, from the room, and from the very chair in which he sat, from everything except ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes

... for us, spears at our throats, all we Made women by our hunger; and I saw Gigantic thirst grieving our mouths with dust, Scattering up against our breathing salt Of blown dried dung, till the taste eat like fires Of a wild vinegar into our sheathed marrows; And a sudden decay thicken'd all our bloods As rotten leaves in fall will baulk a stream; Then my kill'd life the muncht food of jackals.— The wind of vision died in my brain; and lo, The jangling of the caravan's long gait Was small as the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... those forests of America coeval with the world; what profound silence pervades these retreats when the winds are husht! What unknown voices when they begin to rise! Stand still and everything is mute; take but a step and all nature sighs. Night approaches, the shades thicken; you hear herds of wild beasts passing in the dark; the ground murmurs under your feet; the pealing thunder rebellows in the deserts; the forest bows, the trees fall, an unknown river rolls before you. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... presently told, though some of them may have had word of it before without feeling any concern about it. Two, however, whom it did concern—though little dreamt they of its doing so—were only made aware of what the crowd was collecting for, when it began to thicken. These were Kearney and Rivas, who, knowing the language of the country, could make out from what was being said around them that there was to be a funcion. The foundation-stone of a new church was to be laid in the suburb of San Cosme ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... thicken upon us, and we are come to give an account of such nations with whom the custom of getting drunk was heretofore very much in vogue; and of those with whom this same custom reigns at this ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus

... was stationary, sometimes it was drawn taut. The first great wave that came flung a yard or so of slack amongst them. Then, after the roar of its breaking had died away, they saw the rope suddenly tighten, and pass rapidly out, and the excitement began to thicken. ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... a town, plague-stricken, Each man be he sound or no Must indifferently sicken; As when day begins to thicken, 250 None knows ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... by the pressure of events, and then subside into common levels; but he is the true commander during a crisis, who can wield the waves of difficulty to advantage, and be a sure pilot amid the on-rush of events when they thicken and deepen into ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... all its timbers crack, and in a few moments gave audible signal that he was fast asleep. Bertram slipped off his coat and boots and occupied the other dormitory. The strangeness of his destiny, and the mysteries which appeared to thicken around him, while he seemed alike to be persecuted and protected by secret enemies and friends, arising out of a class of people with whom he had no previous connexion, for some time occupied his thoughts. Fatigue, however, gradually composed his mind, and in a short time he was as fast asleep as ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... lamb into small pieces, season, and stew until tender in enough gravy to cover the meat. Thicken the sauce, flavor with a wine-glass of wine, pile in the centre of a platter and garnish ...
— 365 Luncheon Dishes - A Luncheon Dish for Every Day in the Year • Anonymous

... have seen it come over in the forme of other Aromatick Oyles, to the Delight and Wonder of those that beheld it. In Oyle of Anniseeds, which I drew both with, and without Fermentation, I observ'd the whole Body of the Oyle in a coole place to thicken into the Consistence and Appearance of white Butter, which with the least heat resum'd its Former Liquidness. In the Oyl of Olive drawn over in a Retort, I have likewise more then once seen a spontaneous ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle

... day, the gutter gammoned and humbugged all us 'vagabonds' so deucedly, that the rush to secure a claim "dead on it" rose to the standard of 'Eureka style,' that is, 'Ring, ring,' was the yell from some hundred human dogs, and soon hill and flat poured out all spare hands to thicken ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... Grace and The Influences of Grace, they will have no conception of the intellectual rank of Samuel Rutherford himself, or of the intelligence and the attainments of his hearers and readers and correspondents. Thomas Goodwin was always telling the theological students of Oxford in those days to thicken their too thin homilies with more doctrine: Rutherford's very thinnest books are almost too thick, both ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte

... alternative than independence, or the most ignominious and galling servitude. The legions of our enemies thicken on our plains; desolation and death mark their bloody career; whilst the mangled corpses of our countrymen seem to cry out to us as a ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... done with one—in real, urgent housekeeping, I mean, such as ours, until one has tried. It makes a perfect double boiler, and as for a bain Marie, well, I used to cream potatoes in the top part, and when they were all done but the simmering of the cream to thicken it, I used to put tomatoes in the bottom part to stew, and put the potato part back on the tomatoes for a cover and to keep hot. ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... the brow whereby the bone was laid bare. But there was no mistaking the voice that called out: "He's alive, Rayburn!" and added, "I don't see what right he's got t' be alive, either, after a crack like that. I guess studyin' antiquities must everlastin'ly harden an' thicken ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... luggermen, the uprooter of anchors? From all these, perhaps, and from other monsters likewise—goblin shapes evolved by Nature as destroyers, as equilibrists, as counterchecks to that prodigious fecundity, which, unhindered, would thicken the deep into one measureless and waveless ferment of being... But when there are many bathers these perils are forgotten,—numbers give courage,—one can abandon one's self, without fear of the invisible, to the ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn

... reenforcements must mingle with and thicken the firing line. In battle the latter method will be the rule rather than the exception, and to familiarize the men with such conditions the combat exercises of the battalion should include both methods of reenforcing. Occasionally, to provide ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department

... are prolonged or thicken, they get enraged against God, and vent their anger against Him, raising their eyes and hands in savage anger to Heaven, and stamping their feet on the ground. They will reiterate language which means ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock

... paper with a short address to General Howe. You, sir, are only lingering out the period that shall bring with it your defeat. You have yet scarce began upon the war, and the further you enter, the faster will your troubles thicken. What you now enjoy is only a respite from ruin; an invitation to destruction; something that will lead on to our deliverance at your expense. We know the cause which we are engaged in, and though a passionate fondness for it may make us grieve at every injury which threatens it, yet, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... of jokelets and beat them up small, In sophistical fudge, with no logic at all; Then pepper the mixture with snigger and jeer; Add insolent "sauce," and a soupcon of sneer; Shred stale sentiment fine, just as much as you want, And thicken with cynical clap-trap and cant, Plus oil—of that species which "smells of the lamp"— Then lighten with squibs, which, of course, should be damp; Serve up, with the air of a true Cordon Bleu, And you'll find a few geese to taste it and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 6, 1891 • Various

... embraces two or more years of grass, or one of clover followed by only one of grass, it is better practice to use the manure to thicken the sod. The object in view is the largest possible amount of crops, and the maximum amount of organic matter for the soil. Grass is a heavy feeder, like corn, and makes good use of nitrogen. Its roots fill the soil so that no loss attends the use of manure. When the supply is given the grass, after ...
— Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement • Alva Agee

... in the south-western part of New Jersey, during the years 1820-30. An unusual situation develops when Tom Bell, a quondam gentleman highwayman, returns to take up the offices of the long-lost heir, Henry Morvan. Troubles thicken about him and along with them the romance develops. Through it all rides "The Lady of the Spur" with a briskness, charm, and mystery about her that give an unusual zest to the book ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... continuous movement, but of a definite sensitiveness which acts only upon the occasion. Most leaves make no regular sweeps; but when the stalks of a leaf-climbing species come into prolonged contact with any fitting extraneous body, they slowly incurve and make a turn around it, and then commonly thicken and harden until they attain a strength which may equal that of the stem itself. Here we have the faculty of movement to a definite end, upon external irritation, of the same nature with that displayed by Dionaea and Drosera, although slower for the most part than ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... labels to tin boxes either of the following will answer: 1. Soften good glue in water, then boil it in strong vinegar, and thicken the liquid while boiling with fine wheat flour, so that a paste results. 2. Starch paste, with which a little Venice turpentine has been incorporated ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... boiled in it is always spoiled for anything else and must always be thrown away. This is why you must take a quart of milk instead of a pint. There is no thickening in the soup, because the potatoes will thicken it themselves. Put the parsley in at the very last, after the soup is ...
— A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl • Caroline French Benton

... to hunt for necessary food, they should not, one would suppose, crowd together in pursuit of sustenance at a time when it is most likely to fail; yet such associations do take place in hard weather chiefly, and thicken as the severity increases. As some kind of self-interest and self-defence is no doubt the motive for the proceeding, may it not arise from the helplessness of their state in such rigorous seasons; ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... here fairly well worn. The sun went down as we plodded on, the light faded from the west, and still we saw no Jacob's Pools. The air was biting, and with our thin, worn garments we felt it keenly and wished for a fire. At last just as the darkness began to thicken a patch of reeds on the right between some low hills was discovered, where it seemed there might be water, and we could not well go farther. The ground was moist, and by digging a hole we secured red, muddy liquid enough ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... to thicken, and Denys, wearied of stirring up the mud by questions, held his peace to see if it would not clear of itself. Then the girl, finding herself no longer questioned, seemed to go through some internal combat. At last she said, doggedly and aloud, "I will. The Virgin give me ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... The left bank is low and sandy, liable to flood; a haunt of lizards in the summer, of frogs in winter-time. The lower bank is bordered by poplar trees, and here and there plots of land have been recovered from the riverbed for tillage and the growth of that harsh red wine which seems to harden and thicken the men of Aragon. ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... thicken round me. A large looming, rubicund visage smiles kindly on me, bringing back into my heart the old, odd mingling of instinctive liking held in check by conscientious disapproval. I turn from it, and see a massive, clean-shaven face, with the ugliest mouth and ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... the copal and cassava gatherers bearing their loads to Yandjali. Here and there the forest thinned out and a riot of umbrella thorns, vicious, sword-like grass and tall, dull purple flowers, like hollyhocks made a scrub that choked the way and tangled the foot; then the trees would thicken up, and with the green gloom of a mighty wave the forest would fall upon the travellers ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... torch showed the stone walls of the vault shining with the trickling of water. A cold steam appeared to thicken the air, oppress the lungs, and ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... made into flour for the use of the common people, and goes by the name of Turkey wheat. Here likewise, as well as in Dauphine, they raise a vast quantity of very large pompions, with the contents of which they thicken their soup ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... of August the British began to thicken round his lurking-place, and De Wet knew that it was time for him to go. He made a great show of fortifying a position, but it was only a ruse to deceive those who watched him. Travelling as lightly as possible, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Gather again from all their far-flown nooks, Singly at first, and then by twos and threes, Then in a throng innumerable, as the rooks 190 Thicken their twilight files Tow'rd Tintern's gray repose of roofless aisles: Once more I see him at the table's head When Saturday her monthly banquet spread To scholars, poets, wits, All choice, some famous, loving things, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... preventing the sparrows from giving them any blows with their beaks. Besides, the mud, shot with such perfidious precision, had so blinded the sparrows, after the first discharge, that they very soon knew not in what manner to defend themselves. Still the mud continued to thicken more and more on the nest, whose original shape was soon obliterated: the opening would have almost entirely disappeared, had not the sparrows, by their desperate efforts at defense, broken away some portions of it. But the implacable swallows, by a strategic ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the flies as they float, Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of mystic miraculous moonshine, These that we feel in the blood of our blushes that thicken and threaten with throbs through the throat? Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor's appalled agitation, Fainter with fear of the fires of the future than pale with the promise ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... easily with the finger nail; then drain it; run plenty of cold water from the faucet over it, while it is still in the colander; drain it again, chop it fine, and pass it through a kitchen sieve with the aid of a wooden spoon; boil two quarts of milk, add the spinach to it, thicken it by stirring in one tablespoonful of corn starch dissolved in cold milk; season it with one teaspoonful of salt, quarter of a saltspoonful of white pepper, and the same of nutmeg; and serve it as soon as it ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson

... barren isle, and scattered the life of the seas." Authority of law! Respect the law, and to that end let us have laws that are respectable. Laws are made to be kept, else we live in a house of chicane. But there is a danger that decrees may thicken until they form a dungeon grate for Freedom, until, like Gulliver, she is held down to earth by every several hair. Few laws and just, and those not lightly broken. The Contract between the States—let it be kept. It was pledged in good faith—the cup went around among ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... me not a ripple, the more as I was delighting in a consoling discovery. Listening and watching as she talked with these young men, whom she evidently knew well, I noted that she was distant and only politely friendly in manner habitually, that while the ice might thicken for me, it was there always. I knew enough about women to know that, if the woman who can thaw only for one man is the most difficult, she is also the most constant. "Once she thaws toward me!" ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... first, and foretold that nothing would come of "thicken a'"; that the "mangled weazel," as he called the mangel wurzel, would not grow; and that the cows would never eat "that there red clover as they calls apollyon;" but when the mangel swelled into splendid crimson root and the cows throve ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge

... temptation; do not be perplexed because it seems to thicken round you more and more, and ceases neither for effort nor for agony nor prayer. That is your practice. That is the practice which God appoints you; and it is having its work in making you patient, and humble, and ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond

... that they will escape through a sieve. A tamis is the best strainer, and if the soup is strained while it is hot, let the tamis or cloth be previously soaked in cold water. Clear soups must be perfectly transparent, and thickened soups about the consistence of cream. To thicken and give body to soups and gravies, potato-mucilage, arrow-root, bread-raspings, isinglass, flour and butter, barley, rice, or oatmeal, in a little water rubbed well together, are used. A piece of boiled beef pounded to a pulp, with a bit of ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... a parsley soup that might begin your dinner, or rather your luncheon. For the soup, thicken flour and butter together as for drawn butter sauce, and when properly cooked thin to soup consistency with milk. Flavor with onion juice, salt and pepper. Just before serving add enough parsley cut in tiny bits to color the soup green. ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains

... left?" God's image must have been sadly defaced in the murderers of the poor inoffensive children of Eigg, ere they could have heard their feeble wailings, raised, no doubt, when the stifling atmosphere within began first to thicken, and yet ruthlessly persist in ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... hysterics at the sniff of powder! Wonderful transformation. What a pleasant sight—a hawk looking so innocent, and preaching peace to doves, his talons loosely wound with cotton! A clump of wolves trying to thicken their ravenous flanks with wool, for this occasion only, and composing their fangs to the work of eating grass! ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds

... a pint of White-wine, a bundle of Herbs, whole Mace, season it with Verjuyce, put Marrow, Dates, season it with Sugar, then take preserved Lemons and cut them like Lard, and with a larding pin, lard in it, then put the capon in a deep dish, thicken your broth with Almonds, and poure ...
— The Compleat Cook • Anonymous, given as "W. M."

... dollars and fifty cents, wheat one dollar and fifty cents, but dull, because only the millers buy. The river, however, is nearly open, and the merchants will now come to market and give a spur to the price. But the competition will not be what it has been. Bankruptcies thicken, and the height of them has by no means yet come on. It is thought this, winter will be ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... it would hurt 'im any ef I'd thicken that gruel up into mush. He's took sech a distaste to soft food sense ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... these Parts would easily be perswaded. Though it seems not unlikely to me, that the Intenseness of the Cold may contribute something to the considerableness of the Effect, by much Clearing the Air of Darkish Steams, which in these more Temperate Climates are wont to Thicken it in Snowy weather: For having purposely inquir'd of this Doctor, and consulted that Ingenious Navigator Captain James's Voyage hereafter to be further mention'd, I find both their Relations agree in this, that in Dark ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... of exercise. You live here like a mouse in a cheese, without air, motion, or change. Consequently, the blood circulates badly, the fluids thicken, the muscles, being inactive, do not claim their share of nutrition, the stomach flags, and the brain ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... had faults of his own is undeniable. As he got older, and his genius, lacking its proper outlets, tended to stagnate and thicken, he fell into exaggerations—exaggerations of power into brutality, of tactile values into feats of modelling. No doubt he was also at times as indifferent to representation as Botticelli! But while there is such a thing as movement, there is no such thing as tactile values without ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson

... hanging about the horizon, and thunder muttering low in the distance. The smoky fringe might well come from the forest fires which were raging in a neighbouring district, Roger thought, and the thunder was an every-day matter of hot weather; but now the clouds were beginning to thicken at one point, and their ragged edges turned to firmer roundings, and their hue was fast deepening to black. Roger paddled with strong, even strokes, and the canoe flew over the water. The distant thunder-growl ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards

... news, to my great and all our great trouble, that the plague is encreased again this week, notwithstanding there hath been a long day or two great frosts; but we hope it is only the effects of the late close warm weather, and if the frost continue the next week, may fall again; but the towne do thicken so much with people, that it is much if the plague do ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... misplacing reinforcement in an arch are hardly warranted. If the depth and reinforcement of an arch ring are added to, as the inelastic, hinge-end theory would dictate, as against the elastic theory, it will strengthen the arch just as surely as it would strengthen a plate girder to thicken the ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey

... servant to my wits. "The dinner-hour." Twice hath he come; and first upon parade Inspected all the men; the second time The transport visited. Surmise hath grown To certainty. He will inspect the dinners! Go, faithful Adjutant, stir up the cooks And bid them thicken stews ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various

... down, and soon after a starry night appeared. Above the countless canals of Lower Egypt a silvery mist began to thicken, a mist which, borne to the desert by a gentle wind, freshened the wearied warriors, and revived vegetation which had been dying through lack ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... moment you never dreamed of' ... and there, I stopped and tore the paper; because I felt that you were too loyal and generous, for me to bear to take a moment's advantage of the same, and bend down the very flowering branch of your generosity (as it might be) to thicken a little the fence of a woman's caution and reserve. You will not say that you have not acted as if you 'dreamed'—and I will answer therefore to the general sense of your letter and former letters, and admit at once that I did state to you the difficulties most difficult ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... with the proud roar I love; When the round-mouthed guns, out of the smoke and smell I love, spit their salutes; When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me—when heaven-clouds canopy my city with a delicate thin haze; When, gorgeous, the countless straight stems, the forests at the wharves, thicken with colours; When every ship, richly dressed, carries her flag at the peak; When pennants trail, and street-festoons hang from the windows; When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and foot-standers— when the mass is densest; When the ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... —For tho' the drop may hollow out the dead stone, doth not the living skin thicken against perpetual whippings? This is the second grain of good counsel I ever proffered thee, and so cannot suffer by the rule of frequency. Have I sown it in salt? I trust not, for before God I promise you the King hath many more wolves ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... invited, From the alleys dimly lighted, From the pestilential vapours Of the over-peopled town— From the fever and the panic, Comes the hard-worked, swarth mechanic— Comes the young wife pallor-stricken At the cares that round her thicken— Comes the boy whose brow is wrinkled, Ere his chin is clothed in down— And the foolish pleasure-seekers, Nightly thinking They are drinking Life and joy from poisoned beakers, Shudder at their midnight madness, And the raving revel scorn: All are treading ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... lack stack Patrick buck duck hack stick reckon burdock chick luck suck thicken clock ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins

... pomade is made as follows: Take half a pint of fine castor oil and an ounce of white wax. Stir until it gets cool enough to thicken, when perfume may be stirred in; geranium, bergamot or ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... "four to four" rule might be adopted in some establishments, but by no means in all—as, for instance, where there was a speciality for rolls and fancy bread. It seems, as usual, that the difficulties thicken, not about the necessaries, but about the luxuries and kickshaws of life. The master relieved my immediate fears by saying that he scarcely imagined matters would come to a crisis. There was this ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... thicken in this terrible tragedy. Word is brought to OEdipus that Jocasta is dead—dead by her ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... is the inevitable change of the next few years! Slowly the bones of the cranium thicken, partly filling up the brain cavity, and slowly but surely the ape loses all affection for those who take care of it. More and more morose and sullen it becomes until it reaches a stage of unchangeable ferocity and must be doomed to close confinement, never ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... a sponge consisting of 1/2 cup of mashed potatoes, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup of yeast or 1 cake of Fleischman's yeast dissolved in a cup of lukewarm water; 1/2 cup of a mixture of butter and lard and a pinch of salt and flour to thicken until batter is quite thick. Stand in a warm place, closely covered, until morning, when add 2 eggs and 1/2 cup of sugar and flour to stiffen as thick as sponge can be stirred with a spoon. Set to rise; when light roll out one ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... them. He could picture the sudden decomposure of her firm placid features, to which a lifelong mastery over trifles had given an air of factitious authority. Traces still lingered on them of a fresh beauty like her daughter's; and he asked himself if May's face was doomed to thicken into the same ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... add the salt and pepper. Turn them into a buttered square pan, stand this in another of boiling water, and cook in the oven until the eggs are thoroughly "set." Cut the preparation into thin fillets or slices, dip in either a thin batter made from one egg, a half cupful of milk and flour to thicken, or they may be dipped in beaten egg, rolled in bread crumbs and fried in deep hot fat. Arrange the fillets in a platter on a napkin, one overlapping the other; garnish with parsley and send to the table with a boat of ...
— Many Ways for Cooking Eggs • Mrs. S.T. Rorer

... But when the sea is agitated the process is retarded, and the fine needles are broken up into what arctic navigators call sludge. This, however, soon begins to cake, and is broken by the swell into small cakes; which, as they thicken, again unite, and are again broken up into larger masses. These masses, by rubbing against each other, have their edges slightly rounded up, and in this form receive the name of ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne

... travelled, and through what ways soever he was to pass[1],' furnished my enemies with weapons which have been used to my undoing. For this last year I have suffered alternate hopes and fears. Whether my heart is sick of suspence, or the clouds of mischance really thicken around me, I can scarcely ascertain, but my meditations grow more gloomy, and I believe myself doomed to an obscure life of little usefulness to others, and less enjoyment to myself. Among my privations I must rank that ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... OR ARROWROOT.—Add to the above sufficient cornstarch or arrowroot to thicken, cook for ten minutes and then add three ounces of milk, or one ounce of thick cream, to a half pint of broth. This makes a nutritious ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... muttered, "Densely those shadows fall In the copse where the alders thicken; There she bade him come to her, once for all— Now, I well may shudder and sicken;— Gramercy! that hand so white and small, How strongly ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... dredging party, with the Valley City, would proceed four or five miles up the river; then the balance of the fleet would get under weigh and steam up to the Valley City, and then come to an anchor again; but when the rebels commenced to thicken in the woods along the river, the fleet kept together behind ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten

... in the wind, or I'm mistaken," mused Jack, "though what it is I can't guess. I'm going to be on the watch harder than ever. The plot is beginning to thicken, as they say in stories," and he made a mental picture of the ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster

... throw off the mask and convince her that she must now work with him. Another meeting would be managed for her with the girl—in which each would appear in her proper character; and in short the plot would thicken. ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James

... Margaret, "we must make a list and tick off the people's names. My aunt always does, and this fog may thicken up any moment. Have you ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... us?" cried Miss Emma at length, when the shadows began to thicken, and out of the impenetrable forest and morass about them they could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... of the substance of the lover, so that being all melted and turned to flame, he is no longer himself, because the fire whose property it is to resolve all bodies into their atoms, has converted him into impalpable dust, whereas by virtue of water alone, the atoms of other bodies thicken, and are welded together to make a substantial composition. Yet he is not deprived of the sense of the most intense flame. Therefore, in the sistine he would have space made for him to pass; for if anybody should be touched by his fires ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... and by abolishing slavery there, carry out the will of the citizens. But now new light has broken in! The optics of the thirty-six have pierced the millstone with a deeper insight, and discoveries thicken faster than they can be telegraphed! Congress has no power, O no, not a modicum, to help the slaveholders of the District, however loudly they may clamor for it. The southern doctrine, that Congress is to the District a mere local Legislature to do its pleasure, is tumbled ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... I'll tell a man. Glad to have you, stranger. Gimme your hoss. I'll take care of him. Looks like he was kind of ganted up, don't it? Well, I'll give him a feed of oats that'll thicken his ribs." ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand



Words linked to "Thicken" :   thin, thickener, change integrity, turn, change, thickening, alter, change state, modify



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