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Thong   /θɔŋ/   Listen
Thong

noun
1.
Leather strip that forms the flexible part of a whip.  Synonym: lash.
2.
Underpants resembling a G-string; worn by women especially under very tight pants.
3.
A thin strip of leather; often used to lash things together.
4.
Minimal clothing worn by stripteasers; a narrow strip of fabric that covers the pubic area, passes between the thighs, and is supported by a waistband.  Synonym: G-string.
5.
A backless sandal held to the foot by a thong between the big toe and the second toe.  Synonym: flip-flop.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Thong" Quotes from Famous Books



... continued the Constable, "are there left no ancient servants of the House, that could speak out as well as you?" "Humph!" answered the huntsman—"men are not willing to babble when Randal Lacy is cracking his thong above their heads. Many are slain, or starved to death—some disposed of—some spirited away. But there are the weaver Flammock and his daughter Rose, who know as much of ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... ancient, frugal hour of three.[26] Good Heavens! at four their costly treat is spread, And juniors lord it at the table's head; See fellows' benches sleeveless striplings bear,[27] Whilst Smith and Sutton from the canvass stare.[28] Hear'st thou through all this consecrated ground, The rattling thong's unwonted clangour sound? Awake! arise! though many a danger lour, By one bright deed to vindicate thy power." He ceased; as loud the fatal whip resounds, With throbbing heart the eager Doctor bounds. So when some bear from Russia's clime convey'd, Politer grown, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... out of his coat a pocketbook bound by a leather thong. It slapped open and he took from it two notes, one of joined halves, and laid them ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... of a small but strongly built man, who carried a short, exceedingly thick bamboo rod in his hand. My fear was too great to admit of my accurately observing anything at that time, but I noticed that some kind of leather thong or loop was attached to the end ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer

... prospect two men walking. One was an elderly savage, with a wrinkled, shrewd countenance. He was almost completely enveloped in a robe of softened skins. Followed him a younger man, dangling at the end of a thong a small three-legged stool cut entire from a single block of wood. The old man swept forward with considerable dignity; the younger, one hand held high in the most affected fashion, teetered gracefully along as mincingly as ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... handled the butt-end of his horsewhip with great dexterity about the head of Crabshaw, who declared afterwards, that it sung and simmered like a kettle of cod-fish; but the squire, who understood the nature of long lashes, as having been a carter from his infancy, found means to twine his thong about the neck of his antagonist, and pull him off his horse half strangled, at the very instant his master was thrown ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... street there is a mosque; every evening people may be seen crowding to prayers; and if boys are caught asleep during service, they are tied together, and driven round the market by an officer, who beats them all the way with a thick thong. ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer

... sufficiently close to the ditch to serve my purpose. Its lower branches were within easy reach whilst further up I espied one which stretched out across the top of the wall. Looping over my wrist the thong attached to my stick, I scrambled up into the tree and soon found ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... She feared him because Jane had often threatened her with his coming; and, secondly, because he wore, hanging from his belt, a cudgel—long and heavy and thick. How that cudgel glistened in the sunlight as it swung to and fro by a thong! ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates

... provinces (changwat, singular and plural); Ang Thong, Buriram, Chachoengsao, Chai Nat, Chaiyaphum, Chanthaburi, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Chon Buri, Chumphon, Kalasin, Kamphaeng Phet, Kanchanaburi, Khon Kaen, Krabi, Krung Thep Mahanakhon, Lampang, Lamphun, Loei, Lop Buri, Mae Hong Son, Maha Sarakham, Nakhon Nayok, Nakhon Pathom, Nakhon Phanom, ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... with tenderness are seldom strong; Man's coltish disposition asks the thong; And without discipline, the favorite child, Like a neglected forester, ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... in terror, and "the man with the dogs" had beaten her with a whip until his arm dropped with fatigue. And she did not venture to scream, although she was bleeding under the blows of the thong, which tore her dress, and cut into the flesh; all she dared to do was to utter low, hoarse groans; for while beating ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... went down the long colonnade to the last door next the belfry tower, and Vanamee pulled the leather thong that hung from a hole in the door, setting a little bell jangling somewhere in the interior. The place, but for this noise, was shrouded in a Sunday stillness, an absolute repose. Only at intervals, one heard the trickle ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... more bright, glancing weapon flying through the air, and Ted noticed attached to it by a thong a ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet

... this direction either, the Goodwife stepped quickly toward a hollow stump which stood a short distance from the cabin. Beside the stump a slender birch tree bent beneath the weight of a large circular piece of wood hung to its top by a leather thong. This was the samp-mill, where their corn was pounded into meal. Seizing the birch tree with her hands, she brought the wooden pestle down into the hollow stump with a resounding thump. The birch tree sprang back lifting the block with it and again she pulled it down and struck ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... a purchase without orders from his master hanged himself on the matter coming to Cato's ears. For slight offences, such as mistakes committed in waiting at table, the consular was wont after dinner to administer to the culprit the proper number of lashes with a thong wielded by his own hand. He kept his wife and children in order no less strictly, but by other means; for he declared it sinful to lay hands on a wife or grown-up children in the same way as on slaves. In the choice of a wife he ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... behind him. They wore moccasins on their feet, made of buckskin, with a heavy fringe or tassels pendant from the seam behind, long enough to permit it to drag upon the ground. These, with leggins made from a piece of blanket, which was wrapped about the leg below the knee and fastened with a thong of buckskin, heavily fringed, and the breechcloth, completed ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

... I was astride of Rustum Khan's mare, with a leather thong around my shoulders and the Rajput's to keep me from falling. We were proceeding at an easy walk in front of a squadron of ragged-looking irregulars whom I did not recognize, toward the center of the position ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... once more. How are they whipped? They are tied by the wrists to a beam or the branch of a tree, their feet barely touching the ground, so that they are utterly powerless to resist; their clothes are turned over their heads, and their backs scarred with a leathern thong, either by the driver himself, or by father, brother, husband, or lover, if the driver choose to order it. What a blessing for these poor heathen that they are brought to a Christian land! When a band of pregnant women came to their master to implore relief from overwork, he seemed "positively degraded" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... a bleating, mottled white-and-black goat was led by a thong to the pipal, Nana Sahib came swirling down the road in a brake drawn by a spanking pair of bay Arabs with black points. Beside him sat the Resident's daughter, Elizabeth Hodson, and in the seat behind ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... have no victuals but pipe-clay, the whole country being under water? But, on the other hand, show us the human being, of any period or climate, without his Tools: those very Caledonians, as we saw, had their Flint-ball, and Thong to it, such as no brute has or ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... was applied to Thekelavitaw was scourging with a knout. The knout was a large and strong whip, the lash of which consists of a tough, thick thong of leather, prepared in a particular way, so as greatly to increase the intensity of the agony caused by the blows inflicted with it. Thekelavitaw endured a few strokes from this dreadful instrument, ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... broad felt hat was fastened upward with a thong and exposed her face. Bud watched her idly until she dashed up to the front of the house, fetched her horse back on its haunches with a jerk on the cruel Spanish bridle, and leaped to the ground before he had fairly ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... bit into the girl's blood. She spent much time in the open and became proficient and tireless in the use of snowshoes and skis. Daily her excursions into the surrounding timber grew longer, and she was never so happy as when swinging with strong, wide strides on her fat thong-strung rackets, or sliding with the speed of the wind down some steep slope of the river-bank, on her ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... Mir Saheb," replied I. "The sentry of talk challenges the approaching skirmishers of sleep. The thong of narrative drives off the dogs of tedium. Tell on." And in point of fact I was now too credulous to be anything ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... used by the natives of South America. It is a very strong braided thong, half an inch thick, and forty feet long, made of many strips of rawhide, braided like a whip-thong, and made soft and pliable by ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... obtained a hide to his need, of a wild bull that was wondrously strong. He had a wise man, who well knew of craft, who took this hide, and laid it on a board, and whet his shears, as if he would shear. Of the hide he carved a thong, very small and very long, the thong was not very broad, but as it were a thread of twine; when the thong was all slit, it was wondrously long, about therewith he encompassed a great deal of land. He began to dig a ditch very mickle, there ...
— Brut • Layamon

... were set firmly in the ground on either side, in front of the fire, and a strong stick laid across from fork to fork at about four feet from the ground; then a leg of venison, hung to this cross-piece by a thong of raw deer-skin, was turned around and around until the thong would twist no tighter. When it was let go the weight of the meat kept it from untwisting too fast; but it turned around in the opposite direction for ever so long, and it was roasting ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard

... hand into her pocket, and instantly gave them to him. There were three, one large, two small, and strung together by a leather thong. The former massive gold chain was no longer their link, and the rust from the iron had clouded the setting; but a glance told Sobieski they were his! He pressed them to his heart, whilst with glistening eyes he turned away to conceal his emotion. His sensible landlady comprehended there was something ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... rattlesnake that was to torture him, and prayed that he might have courage to die without disgracing his manhood. Wah Lee, his companion in captivity, had been brought out first, thrown flat on the ground and fastened securely to stakes. Just out of reach, a rattlesnake, with a buckskin thong passed through its tail, was tied to a stake. Tortured by rage and pain, the reptile struck at the Chinaman's face, but couldn't quite make the distance. Then water was poured on the thong and it began to stretch. With each spring ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield

... yourself, or at all events not to obtrude them beneath the perch of the driver, or you will run the chance of having your foot crushed by that gentleman's heel. Sometimes the horse is fresh from the plough, and requires a most vigorous application of the driver's thong to induce him to quit his accustomed pace; but for the most part the animals are willing enough, and as rapid as their masters are skilful. The driver is generally much attached to his horse, whom he affectionately styles his "dove" or his ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... said he at last. And then he added: "I had better go with you, young man." And Tom had no objection, for such company was both respectable and safe; so the truncheon coiled its thong neatly round its handle, to prevent tripping itself up—for the thong had got loose in running—and ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley

... remarkable description. He wore a cloak which was so clouted and patched that the first part of it hung about him in a dozen folds. He had on his head three hats, one rammed tightly over the other, so that he cared neither for wind nor rain. On his back was a bag held by a thong of strong leather about his neck. In his right hand ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... is the second song; When God began to be, And bound you strongly, right or wrong, With his own thong, To me. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... shining days. Their term of servitude varies from three to six weeks: during the first they are fastened to the topmost of their ten holes; the next fortnight, owing to the breaking of the lace, and its frequent knotting, they are shorn of half their glories, and upon the total destruction of the thong (a thing never replaced), it appears a matter of courtesy on their parts to remain on at all. On some occasions various of their wearers have transferred them as a legacy to very considerable mobs, without particularly stating for which especial individual ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... water that trickled through his fingers, "'tis dried rabbit thong! They are ahead of us! They have passed while that Scotch mule was balk! We must catch the Englishman," and he began hitting out with his paddle at a ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... shouted the culprit, thrusting his arms as far from his back as he could, and displaying the thong of bison-skin, which his struggles had almost buried in his flesh. A single touch of the steel, rewarded by such a yell of transport as was never before heard in those savage retreats, sufficed to sever the bond; and Stackpole, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... when the time came for us to leave, AEolus did not try to hold us on the island. And to me, when I was going down to the ships, he gave a bag made from the hide of an ox, and in that bag were all the winds that blow. He made the mouth of the bag fast with a silver thong, so that no wind that might drive us from our course could escape. Then he sent the West Wind to blow on our sails that we might reach our own land as quickly ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum

... whip, without which he seldom went abroad, and struck at Desmond. But the boy's blood was up. He sprang aside as the thong fell; it missed him, and before the whip could be raised again he had leaped towards his brother. Wrenching the stock from his grasp, Desmond flung the whip over the hedge into a green-mantled pool, and stood, his cheeks ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... Kohlhaasenbrueck, in case he should be remiss in carrying out the conditions of the decree. As soon as Herse understood what was meant he shouted joyfully—"Sir, this very day!" and, throwing his hat into the air, he cried that he was going to have a thong with ten knots plaited in order to teach the Squire how to curry-comb. After this Kohlhaas sold the house, packed the children into a wagon, and sent them over the border. When darkness fell he called the other servants together, seven in number, and every one of them ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... had swathed the dead girl in a blanket and had bent the tops of a couple of small spruce, growing close together, almost to the ground, holding them in position with a sled thong. To the trees he had lashed the corpse, and he was standing by with a knife ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... closely. To my horror, I saw that the strap had been nearly cut through in five places. If it had not been of double leather with an inner lining of flexible wire, any one of those cuts would have cut the thong clean in two. Then a brisk twitch would have left the satchel at the cutter's mercy. It gave me a lively sense of the craft of our enemies, to see those cuts in the leather. I had felt nothing. I had suspected nothing. Only once, for that instant on the wharf, ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... from infancy, may cause that total change of complexion, which I know not how otherwise to account for: their hair is black and shining, the women's very long, parted at the top, and combed back, tied behind, and often twisted with a thong of leather, which they think very ornamental: the dress of both sexes is a close jacket, reaching to their knees, with spatterdashes, all of coarse blue cloth, shoes of deer-skin, embroidered with porcupine quills, and sometimes ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... the whip," said the captain, giving the thong a sharp crack, and then another and another in all directions near the black's naked shoulders, with the result that at every crack ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn

... spears are often to be met. I saw some parties coming from Silwa armed with long straight swords, with a cross hilt. Most men are provided with a dagger fastened round their arm above the elbow with a thong; others have clubs heavily loaded, or covered at one end with crocodile scales; and guns are not unfrequent, though powder and shot are exceedingly scarce. Our two guides, Ismaeen and Abd-el-Mahjid, had each a single-barrelled fowling-piece—value ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various

... rush. He saw that an onslaught was meant, though he knew not why, and grabbed at his staff. He forgot to keep hold of the blanket, and it slid to the ground, and left him defenceless. Down came the hissing thong, and wrapped itself right round ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... ladder removed, the two trappers gazed in satisfaction at their handiwork. The stout cache, capable of protecting several tons of meat from the inroads of the forest prowlers, had been constructed without the use of a single nail, or bit of rope, or thong, and with no tool ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx

... silent temple on her homeward way. She paused by the clump of bamboo where so short a time before she had gleefully tied together two boughs in the name of Merrit and herself. Tiptoeing to reach the high boughs which Merrit had held for her to tie, she drew them downward to slip the thong that bound them. After holding them to her soft cheek a moment, she let them fly apart, while she closed ...
— Little Sister Snow • Frances Little

... rage of the old sheik had to some extent subsided, he procured a leathern thong, and declared that his two slaves should be fast bound, and never released as long as they remained ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... A sledge being required to carry a lad to some distance, one of them set to work, and in a short time cut out of ice a serviceable little sledge, hollowed like a bowl, and smoothly rounded at the bottom. The thong to which the dogs were secured was fixed to a groove cut round its upper edge. Among the women was one named Iliglink, the mother of a lad called Toolooak, who had frequently come on board. She was a superior person, of great natural talent. ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... singular and plural); Amnat Charoen, Ang Thong, Buriram, Chachoengsao, Chai Nat, Chaiyaphum, Chanthaburi, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Chon Buri, Chumphon, Kalasin, Kamphaeng Phet, Kanchanaburi, Khon Kaen, Krabi, Krung Thep Mahanakhon (Bangkok), Lampang, Lamphun, Loei, ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... taken the precaution of sucking as many of the wounds as he could reach with his mouth, and then had bound a deerskin thong on his arm above the wound as tightly as he ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... surely three feet in diameter even when turned up sufficient to hold a half gallon of water. That of the peon is of straw; he too wears the skintight trousers, and goes barefoot but for a flat leather sandal held by a thong between the big toe and the rest. In details and color every dress was as varied and individual as the ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... fear, for the Hottentots are very hard to wake at any time; that we knew well. Hastings first took the musket and carried it away out of the reach of the Hottentot, and then he returned to him, cut the leather thong which slung his powder-horn and ammunition, and retreated with all of them without disturbing the man from his sleep. We were quite overjoyed at this piece of good luck, and determined to walk very cautiously some distance from where the Hottentot lay, that in case he awoke he should ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat

... on a nail; as he passed he tore it down, and the leathern thong descended in furious blows on the woman's head, and on her ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... censure which is felt to be unjust;—but the general result of all this injustice is increased efficiency. The coach does go the faster because of the whip in the coachman's hand, though the horses driven may never have deserved the thong. In this matter of the Eustace diamonds the police had been very active; but they had been unsuccessful, and had consequently been abused. The robbery was now more than three weeks old. Property to the amount of ten thousand pounds had been ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... a thong round and round his head. He tried to raise his legs to kick the floor of the verandah, but they were too securely fastened to the sides of the chair. He could move neither hand nor foot. He was as helpless ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott

... no man, Chippewa, unless there is great occasion for it. If there is no other mode of getting you off, I shall choose to cut this last thong, and leave you to ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... their cowls. Now if my words are not obscure, if thy hearing has been attentive, if thou recallest to mind that which I have said, thy wish will be content in part, because thou wilt see the plant wherefrom they are hewn,[3] and thou wilt see how the wearer of the thong reasons—'Where well one fattens if one does ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri

... of the same metal bearing the inscription, "Wamba, the son of Witless, is the thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood." This personage had the same sort of sandals with his companion, but instead of the roll of leather thong, his legs were cased in a sort of gaiters, of which one was red and the other yellow. He was provided also with a cap, having around it more than one bell, about the size of those attached to hawks, which jingled as he turned his head to one side or other; and as he seldom remained a minute ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... there he found The flock he brought as captives tied, And some he slew upon the ground, And some, side smiting, sundered wide Two white foot rams he backward drew, And bound. Of one he shore and threw The tipmost tongue and head away, The other to an upright stay He tied, and with a harness thong Doubled in hand, gave whizzing blows, Echoing his lashes with a song More ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... will go to the bottom like a ton of lead, and our business was to get a harpoon into him before that event took place. The harpoon is fastened to the float by a long thong made of sealskin, and a float is made of the entire skin of a seal filled with air ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... says, "The place of the stagnation of blood:" yet he had translated the word aright in the Introduction (i. 41). I have noticed that the Nat'a is made like the "Sufrah," of well-tanned leather, with rings in the periphery, so that a thong passed through turns it into a bag. The Sufrah used for provisions is usually yellow, with a black border and small pouches for knives or ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... in abundancy— Clashing of manacle, whistling of thong, Tales of terror and tears to redundancy; What is the score of my slavery's wrong? Surely where pleasures so freely throng Some sad fiend of unhappiness lowers; Or is the refrain of Good Fortune's song, "This is no stranger: we ...
— Eyes of Youth - A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. • Various

... Ferguson, hissing its malevolence almost in his very face. This movement decided its fate, for with a motion as quick as thought he gave another cut with his whip; which, with a whiz that discomposed the nerves of his horse, encircled with its supple thong the extended neck of the reptile, and terminated its existence by dislocation. He then effected another fulfilment of the prognosticated command of an inscrutable divinity, by crushing its head under his heel; when he was joined by his companion, who had been searching ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro

... wilted with the heat of the man's body and came easily off in her fingers, disclosing a small square box cunningly made from birchbark and stained after the Indian fashion in brilliant colours. A tiny lid was fastened with a thong ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... better than a skirt, and left her almost as absolute a freedom as that enjoyed by the opposite sex. Her hands were covered by well-worn gauntlets, and she held a stout and workman-like crop with a long huntsman's thong. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... of great width with hats enough of the sombrero type to thatch a rick. This mild and gentle savage also sold Moncrieff some dozen of excellent lassoes and bolas as well. From the way our friend examined the former, and tried the thong-strength of the latter, it was evident he was an expert in the use of both. Bolas may be briefly described as three long leather thongs tied together at one end, and having a ball at the free end ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... name of himantopus is taken from Pliny; and, by an awkward metaphor, implies that the legs are as slender and pliant as if cut out of a thong of leather. Neither Willughby nor Ray, in all their curious researches either at home or abroad, ever saw this bird. Mr. Pennant never met with it in all Great Britain, but observed it often in the cabinets of the curious at Paris. Hasselquist says that ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... them alive, and without wounding them. This is performed with a most wonderful and most incredible dexterity, chiefly by means of an implement or contrivance which the English who have resided at Buenos Ayres usually denominate a lash. This consists of a very strong thong of raw hide, several fathoms in length, with a running noose at one end. This the hunter, who is on horseback, takes in his right hand, being properly coiled up, and the other end fastened to the saddle: Thus prepared, the hunters ride at a ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... did that bounding, lurching, stumbling run along the dark, uneven lane punish this crime-steeped George. Well he realised, before he had sped a hundred yards, that guilt lashes with a double thong. She had scourged him mentally; now with scorpions she physically lashed him. As it had been racked throbbed that left arm encircling the basket wherein in wild fear the Rose clung to ease the dreadful bruisings that each oscillation gave her; as it were a ton-weight ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... whirls the thong, With bone for goad to hurry it, Follows the plowman's way along, And guides the furrows to ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier

... side, his little sunburned fist clasped in the man's great hand. He, too, was armed. He carried the old spo'tin' rifle he had brought from the Barony, and suspended from his shoulder by a leather thong was the big horn flask with its hickory stopper his Uncle Bob had fashioned for him, while a deerskin pouch held his bullets and an extra flint or two. He understood that beyond those smacks he had seen his Uncle Bob fetch Mr. Blount, he himself was the real cause of this excitement, that ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... my leg; I stooped swiftly and grasped the spear-thong before there was time for the Inca to recover and jerk it out of my reach. The other end was fastened about his waist; I had him, and giving an instant for a glance at Harry, saw that he had adopted ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... in their hands—to where, unseen myself, and secured by rock fragment and rawhide thong, I could see far up the trail to the eastward. But I could give no signal of distress, save for the feeble call of my swollen, thirst-parched throat. Then the six bronze sons of the plains sat down before me, and looked at me. ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter

... it; and hurriedly tore off the sleeves. He then drew it upon the dog; and having passed the animal's fore-feet through the arm-holes, tied the collar securely around his throat with a piece of thong, and knotted the skirts over the flanks behind. Thus arrayed, Marengo looked like a street monkey; and was rendered quite visible in the ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... a litter could be brought, they set me on my feet again, my arms still bound by the noose that these Indians call laso, which they know so well how to throw, the red sword Wave-Flame still hanging by its thong from my right wrist. Whilst I stood thus, like a bull in a net, they gathered round, staring at me, not with hate as it seemed to me, but in fear and with reverence. When at length the litter came they aided me ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... coil of leather thong, Sahib. I thought that it might be useful, if we wanted to bind a prisoner, or for any other purpose, so I stuffed ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... he threw on the table on which the other was reclining with one elbow a sort of miniature fagot, composed of a dozen sticks bound tightly together with a deer-skin thong. March seized it eagerly, and holding it close to a blazing knot of pine that lay on the hearth, and which gave out all the light there was in the room, ascertained that the ends of the several sticks had been dipped ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... the average bondwoman was of startling simplicity. It consisted of two pieces of stuff little wider than the greatest width of the wearer's body, tied by the corners over each shoulder, belted at the waist with a thong and laced together with fiber at the sides, from the hips to a point just above the knee. It was open above and below this simple seam and interfered not at all with the freedom of the wearer's movements. But Rachel's habit was a voluminous ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... with his thong Struck, and exclaim'd, "Away! corrupter! here Women are none for sale." Forthwith I join'd My escort, and few paces thence we came To where a rock forth issued from the bank. That easily ascended, to the right Upon its splinter turning, we depart From those eternal barriers. When arriv'd, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... charms of solitude by ingeniously tricking eels, Nature presenting them with an efficient engine of deceit and destruction, so designed that neither the agitations of art nor the invention of science could much improve it. About two feet of the thong or lorum of one of the creeping palms (CALAMUS OBSTRUENS) is all that is necessary. These lora are armed with definitely spaced whorls of recurved hooks, keen as needles, true as steel, about one-eighth of an inch long. Three or four of the whorls are removed ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... Tie him to a tree and put this blinder over his eyes." He kicked toward Rob a heavy piece of leather semicircular in form and with a thong tied at the corners. Rob picked it up, and after studying it for a moment dropped the blinder over the claybank's face. To his surprise the horse now stood ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough

... aged eyes The waning fire rekindled: little Maeon, That mischievous satyr with his tipsy wreath, Who kept us laughing at his pranks, and made Old Pyrrho angry. Him too sleep hath bound Upon his rough-hewn couch with subtle thong, Crowding his brain with odd fantastic shapes. Even in sleep his little limbs, I think, Twitch restlessly, and still his tongue gibes on With inarticulate murmur. Ah, quaint Maeon! And Manto, poor old Manto, what dim dreams Of darkly-moving chaos and slow shapes ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman

... connection with the Acetylene Gas Company's plant, soon to be shattered by one of Meisje's shells. There was no answer. Saxham took the worn hunting-crop from under his arm, and with an easy movement shook out the twisted thong. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... of his fellows, laughing and shouting, were on the top behind him. It may have been that the bulk of the smith caught his eye, and that he acted in pure wantonness, or it may possibly have been an accident, but, as he swung past, the twenty-foot thong of the driver's whip hissed round, and we heard the sharp snap of it ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... ends, which he dips first on one side, then on the other, and rows along with incredible swiftness over the roughest seas. He carries with him a harpoon, which is a kind of lance or javelin, tied to a long thong, at the end of which is fixed a bladder, or some other light thing that sinks with difficulty. When the fisherman is thus prepared, he skims lightly along the waters, till he perceives at a distance one of these animals floating upon the ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... beside the unconscious guard, splicing a thong. An instant Wilson hesitated, then springing erect, pointed the pipe-stem, and in a voice he scarcely knew, a voice sharp as the crack of a ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs

... faddle. These shoes upon the holy feet that we dug up were as round at the toe as at the heel, and the latchets were all of one piece with the uppers. No rosettes in those days, if you please! They fastened their shoes with a thong, and they wound that thong around their blessed ankles, and they cared not in those holy days whether their shoes were a pair. Left foot and right foot each was as the other: and we, when we gazed at ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... instep in a seam concealed by the same ornamental quill-work that decorated the garters: a sort of flap, fringed like the leggings, was folded back from the ankle, upon the sides of the foot, and the whole was confined by a strong though neat leathern thong, made of smoked deer-skin also, which, after passing once or twice under the foot, was then tightly drawn several times round the ankle, where it was finally secured. Two strips of leather, about an inch and a half in width, attached to the outer side ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... manages on horseback, his long and heavy coach whip; with this commanding instrument, he can reanimate by a touch, each halting muscle of his lagging animals, can cut off an annoying fly, and with the loud cracking of its thong, he announces, upon his entrance into a town, the approach of his heavy, and clattering cavalcade. Each of these diligences is provided with a conducteur, who rides upon the imperial, and is responsible throughout the journey, for the comfort of the passengers and ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... foot, covered deep with the stained quills of the porcupine, and dotted here and there with the precious beads which, to the maker, had more worth than any gold. A little flap came up for cover to the ankle, and a thong fell from its upper edge. It was the ancient foot-covering of the red race of America, made for the slight but effectual protection of the foot, while giving perfect freedom to the tread of the wearer. Light, dainty and graceful, its size was much less ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... color red and white; dressed leather chaps, a pair of boots that had cost him two-thirds of a month's pay. His hat was like forty others in the crowd, doe-colored, worn with the high crown full-standing, a leather thong at the back of the head, the brim drooping a bit from the weather, so broad that his face looked narrower and sharper in ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... that knew no tremor and a just eye had given her a skill in marksmanship much beyond the average, even in this region where firearms were forever in the hands of the men, and familiar to the women. Once, her moving fingers felt the little bag hanging from its leathern thong about her neck, in which was the fairy crystal. The hardness of her expression vanished on the instant, and in its stead was a wonderful tenderness. A world of yearning shone in the dark lustres of the eyes, and the curving lips drooped in pathetic wistfulness. Her soul went out toward the ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... as his own eyes were. He saw that her skin was a golden brown from life in the open outdoors, that she had upon the heels of her boots a pair of tiny, sharp rowelled spurs, that a riding quirt hung from her right wrist by its rawhide thong, that her cheeks were a little flushed as though from excitement but that she knew the trick of forbidding her eyes to tell what her excitement was. He saw that her throat, where her neck scarf fell loosely away from it, was very round and white. He saw that while her grey ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... Just." Towards freemen his life was a model of every thing just and noble: but to his slaves he was a monster. At his meals, when the dishes were not done to his liking, or when his slaves were careless or inattentive in serving, he would seize a thong and violently beat them, in presence of his guests.—When they grew old or diseased, and were no longer serviceable, however long and faithfully they might have served him, he either turned them adrift and left them to perish, or starved them to death in his own ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... opposite the Church of Saint George in Velabro, across the Via di San Teodoro; and all that remains of the great festival in which Mark Antony and the rest ran like wild men through the streets of Rome, smiting men and women with the purifying leathern thong, and offering at last that crown which Caesar thrice refused, is merged and forgotten, with the Saturnalia, in the ten days' feasting and rioting that change to the ashes and sadness of Lent, as the darkest night follows the brightest day. For the ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... ground and the quiet of the camp proclaimed them all asleep I got up and crawling on my hands and knees, using the greatest caution for fear of making a noise, I crawled about 250 yards to where the horses were picketed, and going to the Indian pony I had already picked out I slipped the skin thong in his mouth which the Indians use for a bridle, one which I had secured and carried in my shirt for some time for this particular purpose, then springing to his back I made for the open prairie in the direction of the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love

... monk of any kind) being a rare sight to-day in France. This young man, indeed, was mitigatedly monastic. He had a big brown frock and cowl, but he had also a shirt and a pair of shoes; he had, instead of a hempen scourge round his waist, a stout leather thong, and he carried with him a very profane little valise. He also read, from beginning to end, the "Figaro" which the old priest, who had done the same, presented to him; and he looked altogether as if, had he not ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... It went to the bottom of her soul, like a whirlwind in an abyss, and carried her away into the distances of a boundless melancholy. But Hivert, noticing a weight behind, gave the blind man sharp cuts with his whip. The thong lashed his wounds, and he fell back into the mud with a yell. Then the passengers in the "Hirondelle" ended by falling asleep, some with open mouths, others with lowered chins, leaning against their neighbour's shoulder, or with ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... on her angrily, and saw her staring back at Joe's ighloo. There, sauntering calmly past the abhorred trap, was the story-teller's daughter. Past it? No. She actually halted and busied herself with her legging thong. ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... in a low tune, and a lad, half-dressed in tartan, half naked, having only his own shaggy hair, tied with a thong of leather, to protect his head and face from sun and weather, lean, and half-starved in aspect, his wild grey eyes appearing to fill up ten times the proportion usually allotted to them in the human face, crept out, as a wild ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... fail, and sounding-boards reflect Most part an empty ineffectual sound, What chance that I, to fame so little known, Nor conversant with men or manners much, Should speak to purpose, or with better hope Crack the satiric thong? 'Twere wiser far For me, enamoured of sequestered scenes, And charmed with rural beauty, to repose, Where chance may throw me, beneath elm or vine My languid limbs, when summer sears the plains; Or when rough winter rages, on the soft And sheltered Sofa, while the ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... call indeed a Brahmana who has cut the strap and the thong, the chain with all that pertains to it, who has burst the ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown

... Heavenly o'er the startled Hell, Holy, where the Accursed dwell, O Thracian, went thy silver song! Grim Minos, with unconscious tears, Melts into mercy as he hears— The serpents in Megara's hair, Kiss, as they wreathe enamour'd there; All harmless rests the madding thong;— From the torn breast the Vulture mute Flies, scared before the charmed lute— Lull'd into sighing from their roar The dark waves woo the listening shore— Listening the Thracian's silver song!— Love was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... quiverful of arrows. From a sheath hanging about his neck on a thong, projected the battered handle of a hunting knife. He was as brown as a berry, and walked softly, with almost a catlike tread. In marked contrast with his sunburned skin were his eyes—blue, deep blue, but keen and sharp as a pair of gimlets. ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London

... champions Dubh and Donn, sons of Eirrge, determined to go on with the battle, and it is how they fought, Dubh in the front of the whole army, and Donn behind all, guarding the rear. But Derg saw that, and he put his finger into the thong of his spear and made a cast at the one that was nearest him, and it broke his back and went on into the body of the other, so that the one cast made an end of the two. And that ended the battle, and all that was left of the ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... givers distributing them for the ladies, who assume a bashful air. During the distribution the n['ae]skut maintain their deprecatory attitude and pass disparaging remarks on their gifts. Sometimes the presents are attached to a long line of oklinok (seal thong) which the n['ae]skut haul down through the smokehole, making the line appear as long as possible. At the same time they sing in a mournful key bewailing ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes

... John ransacks the barn, Hunts up the harness old— Nigh twenty years since it was new— Puts in an extra thong or two, And hopes the thing will hold Without that missing martingale That bothered Dobbin, head and tail, He, gentle equine, safe controlled But by a ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard

... wrought for to be brought To claspe him with they; Quoth Vane and Scot, I'le tell you what, Wee'l have a plot and he shall not, Wee'l carry the sway: Let's vote him a thousand pound a yeare, And Hampton Court for him and his Heire. Indeed, quoth George, ye're Free Parliament men To cut a thong out of another man's skin. The ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... impossible for the mules to keep up their gallop. The savages seemed to realize this; for one huge old fellow kept riding alongside the off mule, throwing his spear at him and then jerking it back with the thong, one end of which was fastened to his wrist. The near mule was constantly pushed further and further from the Trail by his mate, which was jumping frantically, scared out of his senses by ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... glass-studded Amritsar phulkaris draped on nails driven into the flaking whitewash of the walls; the usual half-dozen chairs that did not match, picked up at sales of dead men's effects; and the usual streaks of black grease where the leather punka-thong ran through the wall. It was as though everything had been unpacked the night before to be repacked next morning. Not a door in the house was true on its hinges. The little windows, fifteen feet up, were darkened with wasp-nests, ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... dreamily upon her. In his delight at her beauty, the delicate poise of body with its long, gray drifting sleeves, he did not realize the meaning of her words. One little foot in its lacquered shoe and rose-velvet thong, crushed the grasses at the very edge of the bank. Suddenly the earth beneath her shivered. It parted in a long black fissure, and then sank, with sob and splash, into the hurrying water. Ume tottered and clung to the tree. Tatsu, springing up at a single bound, caught her back into safety. ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... out, loudly, "If you do not stop that, I will come in with the thong, and whip you." And he slammed the ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri

... seemed as if it could not be very deep or guileful, it was so frankly expressed. It was suggestive of the roguish machinations of a child. He had twinkling brown eyes, and reddish hair, plaited in a club and tied with a thong of leather. His features were blunt, but his red, well-shaped lips parted in a ready, reassuring smile, and showed teeth as even and white as the early corn. Both men were arrayed in the buckskin shirt and leggings ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... that the missive might go astray even more urgent. We should have noted that, while he was just as fearful to be reminded of the galley and the tall dark ganger with the red, red mouth and the merciless thong, he also viewed with alarm the possibility of any distraction from his work. The ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... street before the palace, and Ulysses, taking no notice of his fallen foe, flung his tattered scrip across his shoulder, knotted the thong around his waist, and returned to the palace, where the nobles joined in sarcastic ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... he had sat for ages rose the Thirst Spirit and stepped softly. Toward the closed door he moved as moves one who is pulled at the end of a thong, for the fear of the unknown was upon him. But stronger than his fear was his desire to know what lay behind the door, stronger even than his fear of those strange animals that were drawn in the dust, dust pictures ...
— In the Time That Was • James Frederic Thorne

... vile intentions; he was to be interrogated with a vengeance, and George eyed the cruel thong as it lay idly resting on the ground beside the great Arab. The horrors it conjured up in his mind were too appalling for words. Already in fancy he could feel its relentless blows on his bared back, and he shuddered again and again. ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld

... assured one that it was not a dog, but a full-grown wolf. From the days of its puppyhood Wabi had taught it in the ways of dogdom, yet had the animal perversely clung to its wild instincts. A weakness in that thong, a slip of the collar, and Wolf would have bounded joyously into the forests to seek for ever the packs of his fathers. Now the babeesh rope was taut, Wolf's muzzle was turned half to the sky, his ears were alert, half-sounding notes rattled ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... obtained, but the evidences of smelting are not convincing. Engineering devices were almost wanting. The Eskimo lifted his weighted boat with sheer-legs made of two paddles; he also had a tackle without sheaves, formed by reaving a greased thong through slits cut in the hide of a walrus. The north- west coast Indians hoisted the logs that formed the plates of their house frames into position with skids and parbuckles of rope. The architectural Mexicans, Central Americans, and especially the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... bow; a bent stick with a stout leather thong fastened at each end. It is about 27 inches long and 5/8 ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... the bodies of men— The agonists! Their hearts beat deep as a brazen gong For their strength's behests. Their arms are lithe as a seasoned thong In games or tests When they run or box or swim the long Sea-waves crests With their slender legs, and their hips so strong, And ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... so, and cutting the carefully knotted thong of a leather bag which had been concealed in the leg of his stocking, poured out a handful of small coin and ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... mirth? Will cannot wake the sleeping song! Yea, Love itself in vain may long To sing with them that have a song, Or, mirthless, laugh with Mirth! He who would sing but hath no song Must speak the right, denounce the wrong, Must humbly front the indignant throng, Must yield his back to Satire's thong, Nor shield his face from liar's prong, Must say and do and be the truth, And fearless wait for what ensueth, Wait, wait, with patience sweet and strong, Until God's glory fill the earth; Then shall he sing who had no song, He laugh who had ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... mocked his scruples, and softly she him beguiled: "You, who are verily man among men, speak with the tongue of a child. We have outlived the old standards; we have burst, like an over-tight thong, The ancient, outworn, Puritanic ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service

... with such a slight ripple that not an Indian sentinel had yet heard, but when it was within ten yards of its destination one happened to look over the river and see it moving. There would have been nothing curious in a canoe breaking its slender thong and floating with the current, but this one was floating against it. The Indian uttered a surprised exclamation and instantly called the attention ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... place and takes the whole of the people under his command. He remains at a distance for several years, during which time he wears the sign of mourning, i.e., a dark-colored conical cap, and round the neck a thong, to the ends of which are hung two small pieces of ostrich-shell. When the season of mourning is over, the tribe return, headed by the chief, who goes to the grave of his father, kneels over it, and whispers that he has returned, together with the cattle and wives which his ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow

... pursuing them they have now adopted the European boat in preference to their own, and those most frequently employed are six oared, rowed by twelve men. The harpooner stands in the bow with his harpoon, or iron spear, which is stuck on a shaft one or two fathoms long, and is provided with a leathern thong of considerable length, to which are attached from five to ten bladders of seal skin. If the whale be struck he immediately dives to the bottom of the sea, where he remains till he is quite exhausted, when he again comes to the surface of the water to breathe; ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous



Words linked to "Thong" :   G-string, leather strip, underpants, whip, woman's clothing, flip-flop, lash, sandal



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