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Ax   Listen
verb
Ax  v. t. & v. i.  To ask; to inquire or inquire of. Note: This word is from Saxon, and is as old as the English language. Formerly it was in good use, but now is regarded as a vulgarism. It is still dialectic in England, and is sometimes heard among the uneducated in the United States. "And Pilate axide him, Art thou king of Jewis?" "Or if he axea fish." 'bdThe king axed after your Grace's welfare."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ax" Quotes from Famous Books



... till I'm black in the face—well, since you wish it; but, old chap, my name arn't Frank. It happens to be Bill; howsomever, it warn't a bad guess for a Turk; and now I'm here, I'd just like to ax you a question. We had a bit of a hargument the other day, when I was in a frigate up the Dardanelles, as to what your religion might be. Jack Soames said that you warn't Christians, but that if you were, you could only be Catholics; ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Kelly, I'll ax him what it is," said Peter, with a sudden accession of rashness. "He may tell me or not, as he plases, but he ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... found time to act over again the solemn and awful scene of a trial for treason before the House of Peers, the passing of a bill of attainder, and an execution on Tower Hill. Laud was over seventy years of age when the ax fell upon him. He submitted to his fate with a calmness and heroism in keeping with his age and his character. He said, in fact, that none of his enemies could be more desirous to send him out of life than he was ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... so loud and good, In a symphony so clear And pure and sweet that the woodman stood With his ax upraised to hear, And to shape the words of the tongue unknown Into ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... so called on account of its bill, which is red, and formed like the edge of an ax. Its feet are also Of a beautiful red, and it is therefore often called Red-Foot. As {263} it lives upon shell-fish, it never removes from the sea-coast, but upon the approach of a storm, which is always sure to follow its retiring into ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... small one, and the store of honey trifling. In "taking up" a bee-tree it is usual first to kill or stupefy the bees with the fumes of burning sulfur or with tobacco smoke. But this course is impracticable on the present occasion, so we boldly and ruthlessly assault the tree with an ax we have procured. At the first blow the bees set up a loud buzzing, but we have no mercy, and the side of the cavity is soon cut away and the interior with its white-yellow mass of comb-honey is exposed, and not a bee strikes a blow in defense of its ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... by the Great Lakes, from the peace and plenty of the splendid South. Year by year they had pushed the frontier westward, pricked onward by a ceaseless unrest, "the old land hunger" that never was appeased. The forests rang to the stroke of their ax, the slow, untroubled rivers of the wilderness parted to the plowing wheels of their unwieldy wagons, their voices went before them into places where Nature had kept unbroken her vast and pondering ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... one side, he did, an' he say, 'Le's give 'im his chice, wheder he'd er ruther be tho'd in de fire or de brier-patch; an' ef he say de fire, den we'll fling 'im in de briers; an' ef he say de briers, den we'll fling 'im in de fire.' So dey went back ter de Rabbit, an' ax 'im wheder he'd er ruther be tho'd in de ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle

... of Aaron's explanation. They have put into the crucible of life their gold, themselves, God's finest gold intrusted to their hands. And under their manipulation what has come out is as a vealy, callow calf, a bull calf at that too, scrub stock, fit only for the ax. ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon

... was working beside a heavy wooden cask, from which issued the horrible stench. From time to time a sodden thud told that he was hacking something to pieces with an ax. Now and then he would strain mightily at a dark and bulky thing which lay on the floor, a thing that required considerable strength to lift. It seemed to be getting lighter after each spasm of frenzied chopping. For ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... hair. My Lord, old Missus been mighty proud of her black chillun, but she sho been touches bout dat yellow one. I remember, all us chillun was playin round bout de step one day whe' Miss Ross was settin en she ax dat yellow child, say, 'Who your papa?' De child never know no better en she tell her right out exactly de one her mammy had tell her was her papa. Lord, Miss Ross, she say, 'Well, get off my step. Get off en stay off dere cause you don' noways belong to me.' De poor child, she cry ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... the family-tree. But then, who thought of that? Nobody. It was the way of the House never to take count of the morrow. True, any one of them would have died a hundred deaths rather than have had one acre of the beautiful green diadem of woods felled by the ax of the timber contractor, or passed to the hands of a stranger; but no one among them ever thought that this was the inevitable end to which they surely drifted with blind and unthinking improvidence. The old Viscount, haughtiest ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... as thou knows, a year ago," he broke out aggressively, as he gazed past her, "to have me. Thou didn't say much in reply; but what thou did say meant No, and now I ax thee once more, wilt thou have me? I had not meant to ax thee again—though I like thee just the same. A man like me, lass, has got a little pride, and I don't want to thrust myself upon any woman. But I mun say that, when I seed how worked up about ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith

... Yellowstone to be a sanctuary of wild life forever. In the limits of this great Wonderland the ideal of the Royal Singer was to be realized, and none were to harm or make afraid. No violence was to be offered to any bird or beast, no ax was to be carried into its primitive forests, and the streams were to flow on forever unpolluted by mill or mine. All things were to bear witness that such as this was the West before the ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... with. "There was no smith found through all the land of Israel," says the chapter, "for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews (i.e. the Israelites) make them swords or spears. But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his ax, and his mattock." Saul was raised up to throw off this heavy yoke, and to destroy the cruel oppressors of his people. He "chose him three thousand men, and with a third of them Jonathan, his son, smote the garrison of the ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... not leave the ship. 'Oh, bother!' said I to myself, 'this will never do.' So up I walked to the captain, and touching my hat, reminded him that 'I had a father and mother, and a pretty sprinkling of brothers and sisters, who were dying to see me, and that I hoped that he would give me leave.' 'Ax the first lieutenant,' said he, turning away. 'I have, sir,' replied I, 'and he says that the devil a bit shall I put my foot on shore.' 'Then you have misbehaved yourself,' said the captain. 'Not a bit of it, Captain Willis,' ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... enemy below them; and other Quiangan pueblos are similarly built. As will be brought out in succeeding chapters, the social and political institutions of the two peoples differ widely. In Bontoc the head weapon is a battle-ax, in Quiangan it is a long knife. Most of the head-hunting practices of the two peoples are different, especially as to the disposition of the skulls of the victims. Bontoc men wear their hair long, and have developed a small pocket-hat ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... An-ax-ag'o-ras, a philosopher of great renown, was the friend and teacher of Pericles. He, too, won the dislike of the people; and, as they could not accuse him also of stealing, they charged him with publicly teaching that the gods they worshiped were not true gods, and proposed ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber

... my liver gets that hactive lately as I can't set still—Joe knows, ax Joe! All as I ain't got o' human woes is toothache, not 'avin' no teeth to ache, y' see, an' them s' rotten as it 'ud make yer 'eart bleed. An' then I get took short o' breath—look at ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... it that, in the first days of the world, the first men had to their forests on land. Besides, who else could dispute his ownership of this underwater property? What other, bolder pioneer would come, ax in hand, to clear away ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... in their warres swerde, bowe, launce, slinge, and battle ax. The rable of helhoundes (whom we calle Sarasines) that pestilent murreine of mankinde, came of this people. And as it is to be thoughte, at this daye the great parte of Arabia is degenerate into that name. But thei that dwell towarde Egipte, kepe yet their olde name, and lyue by ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... the building, which they set on fire. The poor women, as they fled from the burning pile, were set upon and cruelly assaulted by the rioters. All that day and the next, the Hebrew quarter was at the mercy of the savages. What the ax did not crush, fire destroyed. Five hundred houses and over one hundred stores and shops were ransacked; whole streets were demolished; property to the value of two million roubles was destroyed, and upwards of twenty people lost their lives while defending their possessions ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... Dobson; but I thinks Farmer Dobson's dog 'ud ha' knaw'd better nor to cast her sister's misfortin inter 'er teeth arter she'd been a-readin' me the letter wi' 'er voice a-shaaekin', and the drop in 'er eye. Theer she goaes! Shall I foller 'er and ax 'er to maaeke it up? Noae, not yet. Let 'er cool upon it; I likes 'er all the better fur taaekin' me down, like a laaedy, as she be. Farmer Dobson! I be Farmer Dobson, sewer anew; but if iver I cooms upo' Gentleman Hedgar ageaen, and doaent laaey my cartwhip athurt 'is shou'ders, why ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... I did not suspect the illustrious delinquent; but the Countess V * * * and the Marquis L * * * told me of it directly, and also that it was a way he had, of filching money when he saw it before him; but I did not ax him for the cash, but contented myself with telling him that if he did it again, I should anticipate ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... give the same decision. This happened twelve months before. And, while the last scene was enacting on Tower-Hill, the king, who had walked in this very garden with his arm round the neck, which, by his command, the ax had severed, was playing at Tables in Whitehall, Queen Anne Bullen looking on; and when told that Sir Thomas More was dead, casting his eyes upon the pretty fool that had glittered in his pageants, he said, "Thou art the cause of this man's death." The COWARD! to seek to turn upon a thing ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... many a thrue word said in joke, Captain. And now, if you will go and get the bit of pork that we saved from the rack, I'll go to the house there beyant, and ax some of them to lind me the loan of ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... en sho 'nuff, he fin' Brer Wolf en Brer Fox waitin' fer 'im. Dey'd done settle der 'spute, en dey wuz settin' dar des ez smilin' ez a basket er chips. Dey pass the time er day wid Brer Rabbit, en den dey ax 'im what he got in de jug. Brer Rabbit hummed en haw'd, en ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... and the mosquitoes. We have plenty of room here, and you will have one comfortable night on the Ridge, at any rate. Then in the morning you can find a place in the woods to suit you, and my boy will take an ax and cut stakes for you, and help to put up your precious tent. Only remember that when it rains you are to come to the house, or you will catch your deaths with cold and rheumatism. It will be very nice till the novelty ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... test, sir," rejoined Lambert. "My brother's arm was scarred by a deep cut from shoulder to elbow, caused by the fall of a sharp-bladed ax—'twas the right arm ... will you see, Sir Marmaduke, or will you allow me to lay bare the right arm of this man ... to see if I ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... a look around again," said Ralph, noticing her uneasiness. "Perhaps it was a sneak-thief who has stolen the ax or the saw ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield

... maen kekraxomestha g', oposon hae pharynx an haemon chandanae di' haemeras, brekekekex, koax, koax! D. Touto gar ou nikaesete. CH. Oude men haemas su pantos. D. Oude maen humeis ge dae m' oudepote. Kekraxomai gar, kan me deae, di' haemeras, eos an humon epikrataeso tou koax! CH. Brekekekex, KO'AX, KOAX! ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... hand ax and the pick mattock in organizations equipped with the intrenching tool is authorized for the purpose of driving shelter tent pins. The use of the bayonet ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... nestling among the trees, stands a pretty little village and castle, and as we passed on, St. Bertrand came in view over the crest of a wooded hill; and, arriving at the junction where the roads from Auch, Toulouse, and Ax join in, we ascended the hill on which ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough

... who bares this letter a cockanbull story about bein related to your honered self by witch we know he was an imposture. I write insted of calling at the house as I am laim from cuttin my foot with an ax yesterday and it dont apear quite cuncistunt to send ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... proper time, Joe, in his dazzling white suit, took his place in the silk-curtained enclosure. Helen, in her black dress, was ready to help him. The fireman, with his gleaming ax, ready to chop Joe out of the box in case anything should go wrong, was also on ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum

... their nonsense songs with the ukulele. Nor was it long, catching their spirit, ere she was singing to them and teaching them quaint songs of early days which she had herself learned as a little girl from Cady—Cady, the saloonkeeper, pioneer, and ax-cavalryman, who had been a bull-whacker on the Salt Intake Trail in the days ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... a figure resolute, and grand In arms he leaped upon Virginia's strand; Fitted in many schools his course to steer He knew the ax, the musketoon, and brand, How to obey, and better to command; First of his line he stood—a planted spear The New World saw ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope

... folds its limbs around the trunk of another and hugs it to death, the tree thus killed rotting and leaving a tube of tightly laced branches in which are creatures that bleed through the bark at a sword-thrust or an ax-cut. These creatures are mischievously alleged to be Spaniards. The Tagalogs believe in Tic-Balan, an evil spirit who inhabits fig-trees, but is kept off by wearing a certain herb, and in a female spirit of the woods, Azuan, who is kept away from the house in times ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... nu ou pu qu ru su tu uu vu wu xu yu zu M av bv cv dv ev fv gv hv iv jv kv lv mv nv ov pv qv rv sv tv uv vv wv xv yv zv N aw bw cw dw ew fw gw hw iw jw kw lw mw nw ow pw qw rw sw tw uw vw ww xw yw zw O ax bx cx dx ex fx gx hx ix jx kx lx mx nx ox px qx rx sx tx ux vx wx xx yx zx P ay by cy dy ey fy gy hy iy jy ky ly my ny oy py qy ry sy ty uy vy wy xy yy zy Q az bz cz dz ez fz gz hz iz jz kz lz mz nz oz pz qz rz sz tz uz vz wz xz ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve

... the sled most of the way, while the doctor walked. It was a slow and tiresome trip, along the dreary shores of Behring Sea, over timberless tundras, across inlets where the new ice bent beneath their weight and where the mail-carrier cautiously tested the footing with the head of his ax. Sometimes they slept in their tent, or again in ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... Larry struck at the crystal cylinder, swinging the stool like an ax. A slender, metallic green tentacle whipped out, tore the stool from his hands, and sent it crashing across the room, to splinter into fragments on ...
— The Pygmy Planet • John Stewart Williamson

... to the Tower, and feel the ax, if you like," said Mrs. Westgate. "I consent to your going with Mr. Woodley; but I should not let ...
— An International Episode • Henry James

... but running his hand into his pocket, he drew out his knife and with one thrust, cut a deep gash in my neck. A terrible fight followed. I remember being knocked over and my head stricking something. I reached out my hand and discovered it was the ax. With this awful weapon I struck my friend, my more than brother. The thud of the ax brought me to my senses as our blood mingled. We were both almost mortally wounded. The boss came in and tried to do something for our relief but John said, 'Oh, George? what an awful thing we have done? ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... I sees a goggle-capped tiger throw open the door of one of them plate-glass benzine broughams at the curb, and bend over like he has a pain under his vest. I was just side-steppin' to make room for some upholstered old battle-ax that I supposed owned the rig, when I feels a hand on my elbow and hear some one say: "Why, Shorty ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... from the Galaxy On the pinions of Abstraction, I did quite forget to ax 'e, Whether you have an objaction, With us to swill 'e and to swell 'e And make a pig-stie of your belly. A lovely limb most dainty Of a ci-devant Mud-raker, I makes bold to acquaint 'e We've trusted to the Baker: And underneath ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Cuculain spoke to chide him: "Woe for thee, whom the warrior thus casts aside as an evil mother casts away her offspring. He throws thee as foam is thrown by the river. He grinds thee as a mill would grind fresh grain. He pierces thee as the ax of the woodman cleaves the oak. He binds thee as the woodbine binds the tree. He darts on thee as the hawk darts on finches, so that henceforth thou hast no claim or name or fame for valor, until thy life's end, ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... and a bystander is conscious that he has that within him by which he could have taken the same step, although he did not. Some one steps forward and practically opposes a social custom that is admitted to be evil, yet maintained, and by his influence lays the ax to its root and commences its destruction; while many, commending his courage, wonder why they had not taken the same course long ago. In numberless instances we are conscious of having had the same perceptions, the same ideas, the same powers, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... Baonet of any Man I noticed in the Carcases of the Savages. John Hamelton I cant say too much in praise of who was along with the army a packhorse master he picked up the dead mens guns and used them freely when he found them Loaded and when the Indians entered the Camp he took up an ax and at them with it. I am Intirely at a loss to Give you any idea what General St. Clair intends to do. I well know what I would do if I was in his place and would venture to forfet my Life if the Indians have not moved the Cannon farther than the Meamme Towns ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt

... Dinah asked herself, after peering about in the gloom for a full minute; "I wonder wheder he hasn't got 'shamed ob hisself, and hab slunk off and is gwine down to knock at my door and ax my pardon—Lor' a massy!" ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis

... you say; but I should be wrong. If I have an ax to grind, so has the other fellow. Kosnovia is in the East, and the East loves deceit. Alec has dazzled the people for a few days. Wait till he begins to sweep the bureaus free of well paid sinecurists. Wait till ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... be a funeral. I can't jestly tell ye abeout it neow. Ye can ax yer sir, when he comes in", said Micah, reluctant to go into particulars which ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... snarled Phineas through set teeth, as he sawed at the reins. "I ax yer pardon, I'm sure, Dianthy," he added shamefacedly, when the mare had dropped to a position more nearly normal; "but I hain't no use fur ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter

... workmen were employed, Gideon Emmons and Henry Nichols; Mr. Newell being engaged meanwhile in drawing stone with which to line the well. At the depth of about three feet one of the workmen struck a stone, as he at first supposed. A moment later he thought it a water lime pipe, and asked for an ax with which to break it. Before the ax arrived the foot was partially uncovered, with the exclamation, "I declare, some old Indian has been buried here!" Farther excavation disclosed the entire foot, and a part of the leg. One of ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.

... it as a convenient and pleasant practice among Christians also; and insisted that it was decorous and proper even among respectable merchants. In the view of the Christian Church of their day, they might more reasonably have set themselves to defend adultery.[AX] However, they appointed Dr. John Eck, of Ingoldstadt, to hold debates in all possible universities, at their expense, on the allowing of interest; and as these Augsburgers had in Venice their special mart, Fondaco, called of the Germans, their new notions came into direct ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin

... aroun', seein' as how I done raise nine of my own, right heah under ma kitchen stove, like so many little puppy-dawgs. But dey wuz cullud chillun, an' dat's diffunt. Is dishyer hot kitchen any place to raise up a w'ite chile in? Now I ax you! 'Pears to me like dat gal don' keer for nothin' no mo' but traipsin' down to de sto' an' gallivantin' roun' de roads wid her fine clo'es on. She ain't no better'n ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... constantly affirmed by prostitutes, that amongst married men are found their chief supporters. Evidence from such a quarter must be received with considerable caution. Nevertheless, we believe that there is much truth in this statement. Here, again, we lay {434} the ax to the root of the tree; the married man who dares affirm that there is a particle of physical necessity for this sin, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. Whether these men be princes, peers, legislators, professional men, mechanics, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... rather to work upon the stone and iron of the one, than upon the inflexible nature of the other. The same prisoner, when conducted to the scaffold, foresees his death as certainly from the constancy and fidelity of his guards as from the operation of the ax or wheel. His mind runs along a certain train of ideas: The refusal of the soldiers to consent to his escape, the action of the executioner; the separation of the head and body; bleeding, convulsive ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... "you've a mighty fine faste to place before your dad; and, faith, if he's a sinsible man, he'll ax no questions how you came by it." Such were my companion's notions of morality; and in this instance he spoke what he thought was the truth, for he had been taught no better, and he knew that thus his ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... he said. "I've trusted you. I'll trust you with all.... But let me have my own time. This is so strange a thing, my wanting to confide in you. It's selfish, perhaps. I have my own ax to grind. I hope I won't wrong you. That's why I'm going to be perfectly frank. I might wait for days to get better acquainted. But the impulse is on me. I've been so interested in all you Mormon women. The fact—the meaning of this hidden village is so—so ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... They had been taught to believe that the whole object of life was to reach out to beauty and love, and that mankind, in its progress to perfection, had killed the beast instinct, cruelty, blood-lust, the primitive, savage law of survival by tooth and claw and club and ax. All poetry, all art, all religion had preached this ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... &c. 508; snatch a verdict; waylay, undermine, introduce the thin end of the wedge; play a deep game, play tricks with; ambiguas in vulgum spargere voces[Lat]; flatter, make things pleasant; have an ax to grind. dodge, sidestep, bob and weave. Adj. cunning, crafty, artful; skillful &c. 698; subtle, feline, vulpine; cunning as a fox, cunning as a serpent; deep, deep laid; profound; designing, contriving; intriguing &c.v.; strategic, diplomatic, politic, Machiavelian, timeserving[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Having begot me his next duty was to name me, and O pal, name me he did! A name as no raskell lad might live up to, a name as brought me into such troublous faction ashore that he packed me off to sea. And if you ax me what name 'twas, I'll answer ye bold and true—'God-be-here Jenkins,' at your service, though Godby ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... you'd hold all their lives in your wan hand. Only ax yourself the question, Where's either one of 'em you'd like to see take hisself off ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... around my limbs, and scorched the sight from my eyes; as though my ashes had been scattered to the four winds by the hands of hatred; as though I had stood upon the scaffold and felt the glittering ax fall upon me. And while I feel and see all this, I swear that while I live I will do what little I can to augment the liberty ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... precisely, where he first seed the light, but it must have been somewhere round about this part of the world. Why did you ax?" ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... "I ax yer pardon, Liftinant. I don't mane no harrum by blatherin'. It's a way we have in th' ould counthry. Mebbe it's no good in ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... came to a small outhouse, long and low. On the sheltered side of it they paused to take breath, and Feather Victor explained: "This is his hour in the gymnasium. To make the body strong required thought and care. Mere riding and running and swinging of the ax will not develop every muscle. So I made this gymnasium, and here Pierre works every day. His teachers of boxing and ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... me these words in hewing the handle of his ax; anciently my mother taught me these words as she turned her spindle. In that time I was only a child, a little child at the breast,—a useless little being creeping upon the floor at the feet of its nurse, its cheek bedaubed with milk. And there are other words which ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... my own eyes, has not been exaggerated. There was practically nothing left but the structure itself and that was far from intact, for nearly all the great plate glass windows were broken by some devot of vandalism who had taken the trouble and an ax to split up the jambs of the doors so that they never could ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow

... which he had offended. By this ingenious turn, society was naturally made to look out sharp how it permitted any one to offend it. This excellent idea is like that of certain Dutchmen, who, when they cut themselves with an ax, always apply salve and lint to the cruel steel, and leave the wound to ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... it all with the dexterity and cheerfulness of a young strong man. He tells of his accident. "I was young fellow, me, when a fish-stage fell on me. I didn't pay no notice to my leg until it began to go bad, den I take it to the English Church to Bishop Bompas. He tole me de leg must come off, an' ax me to get a letter from de priest (I'm Cat-o-lic, me) telling it was all right to cut him. I get de letter and bring my leg to Bompas. He cut 'im off wid meat-saw. No, I tak' not'in', me. I chew tobacco and tak' ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... any horses upon my expence;" "visited my quarters & ye Mill, according to custom found young Stephens absent;" "visited my Plantation and found to my great surprise Stephens constantly at work;" "rid out to my Plantn. and to my Carpenters. Found Richard Stephens hard at work with an ax—Very extraordinary this!" ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... it to you what he signs?" said Handy. "I suppose if we all wants to ax for our own, we needn't ax leave of you first, Mr Bunce, big a man as you are; and as to your sneaking in here, into Job's room when he's busy, and where ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... Getting a hand-ax from the tool box, Gerald took Jim and marched off into the woods, while Ephraim was delegated to stay behind and "tote" things ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond

... behynd. {with} my bytte cold shall shew hy{m} harde grace well sayd Mercuryus yf I may se his face. For euer of his spech I shall hym depryue Original has So that hym were better dede than alyue depryur instead of Ye quod Othea yet may he well be depryue In the eyr where he wyll & ax you no leue wherfore my counseyl is that all we May entrete Neptun{us} his rancour foryeue. Original has And than I dout not Colus wyl hy{m} myscheue rahcour So may ye be sure he soal you not escape instead of & ellis ...
— The Assemble of Goddes • Anonymous

... me if you loike, for ye ar'n't dumb, me bhoy, an' ye can spake English fast enough. Now. I'll ax ye for the last toime—whare d'ye ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... they seem to have felt, it was another matter. There was a monarch who feared nothing and nobody, who once spat at a courtier whose costume misliked her, who as a girl had experienced no resentment when the Lord High Admiral, who was courting her, sent a messenger to "ax hir whether hir great buttocks were grown any less or no," a monarch who was not afraid of any word in the English language, and loved the most expressive words best. Under such a monarch, the Victorian writers felt they ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... these effusions he looked on it as an answer of prayer." But perhaps the bishop was much a stranger both to high degrees of piety and lengthened devotions, and also to such returns of prayer, for these two gallant noblemen faced the bloody ax and gibbet rather than forgo their profession, with more courage, and (I may say) upon better principles or grounds of suffering than what any diocesan bishop in Scotland at least, or even the doctor himself ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... dmasqus ou des iniquits du clerg chrtien. Londres, 1768. Translation of four discourses published under the title The Ax laid to the root of Christian Priestcraft by a layman, London, T. Cooper, ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing

... learn what I could about the structure of this curious hill I often approached it in calm weather and tried to climb it, carrying an ax to cut steps. Once I nearly succeeded in gaining the summit. At the base I was met by a current of spray and wind that made seeing and breathing difficult. I pushed on backward however, and soon gained the slope of the hill, where by creeping close to the surface most of the choking ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir

... mell vpon them ronne, If you will proue the Masters of the day, Ferrers and Greystock haue so brauely done, That I enuie their glory, and dare say, From all the English, they the Gole haue woone; Either let's share, or they'll beare all away. This spoke, his Ax about his head he flings, And hasts away, as though his heeles ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton

... of bricks and reeds has already been described. Bitumen was more valuable. In the fourteenth year of Nabonidos a contract was made to supply five hundred loads of it for 50 shekels, while at the same time the wooden handle of an ax was estimated at one shekel. Five years previously only 2 shekels had been given for three hundred wooden handles, but they were doubtless intended for knives. In the sixth year of Nabonidos the grandson ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce

... showed them with a great deal of pride his little fields and his system of irrigation, and the rough mill which he had made with no tools but a saw and an ax. "I used to pack in flour from Edmonton, three hundred and fifty miles," said he, "and it wasn't any fun, I can tell you. So I said, what's the use—why not make a mill for myself and ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough

... ribber'; an' massa say, 'I'se a great mind to sell you down de ribber, too'—but he nebber sol' nuffin'—gib us all our freedom. Now, no nigger want' to be sol' down de ribber, an' Sambo say, 'Oh, Miss Jessamine, dere's f'ree I didn' sell, an' I'll gib 'em back to dat he-bird, an' ax his pardin.' Massa he laff and say, 'If dat he-bird will 'scuse you, I will.' So Sambo put 'em back an' de he-bird act' s'if he know'd an' talk' a lot o' good advice to Sambo, but I'se shore 't war anoder nigger w'at ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues

... was full of morning sounds as the lads trudged along the Warwick road together. An ax rang somewhere deep in the woods of Arden; cart-wheels ruttled on the stony road; a blackbird whistled shrilly in the hedge, and they heard the deep-tongued belling of hounds far off in ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... desert spaces, or skim the surface of the seas. The same insight that could read the inmost thoughts of others, could apprehend at a glance the nature of any material object, just as he caught as it were all flavors at once upon his tongue. He took his pleasure like a despot; a blow of the ax felled the tree that he might eat its fruits. The transitions, the alternations that measure joy and pain, and diversify human happiness, no longer existed for him. He had so completely glutted his appetites that pleasure must overpass the limits ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... buttresses, offering no hope to the climber. The head of the glacier sends up a few finger-like branches through narrow couloirs; but these seemed too steep and short to be available, especially as I had no ax with which to cut steps, and the numerous narrow-throated gullies down which stones and snow are avalanched seemed hopelessly steep, besides being interrupted by vertical cliffs; while the whole front was rendered still more ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... should the train fail to move before his return from the summit, had influenced the little man's decision. A few spikes in his shoes, some hardtack and cheese with an emergency flask in his pockets, a coil of rope and a small hatchet that might serve equally well as an ice-ax or to clear undergrowth on the lower slopes, was ample equipment, and he was off to reconnoiter the mountainside fully an hour in advance of the packer whom Morganstein engaged for the ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... lost his ax. He hunted all day, but he could not find it. He was very sad, for how could he make a living for his family without an ax? Besides he had no money with which to buy a new one. As night came on, he sank down by the roadside and buried his ...
— Fifty Fabulous Fables • Lida Brown McMurry

... sir, I never was good at knowin' right from wrong like. I never was good, that is, at tellin' exactly what I ought to do. So when anything comes up, I just says to myself, 'Now, Old Rogers, what do you think the Lord would best like you to do?' And as soon as I ax myself that, I know directly what I've got to do; and then my old woman can't turn me no more than a bull. And she don't like my obstinate fits. But, you see, I daren't sir, once ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... King in Ireland, an' sorra a beggar 'ud come an the dure, but the King 'ud come out in his gown an' shlippers an' ax him how he come to be poor, an' sind him 'round to the kitchen to be warrumed wid a dhrop av whishkey an' fed wid all the cold pitaties that was in the panthry. All the people riz up whin he was a-walkin' down the shtrate wid a big goold-top shtick in his hand, an' ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.

... of putting it. I was told that he had, on a former occasion, dealt with the question in a more summary way, by taking his ax and splitting ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... his way back into the main cabin his hands came in contact with the inside of the lazaret door. In leather loops on the door he found saw, ax, chisel, and hammer. He was unable to keep back a few ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... a pause. "I feel a bit mixed. This gentleman 'ere 'as acted as square as ever man did. 'E comes of a good stock, 'e does, an' yet—I 'umbly ax yer pawdon, sir—but the feller who tried to kill you an' me might ha' ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy

... and with 'em I'll die, and be put thar—thar, to rest in that little mound with the rest. But I must bide my time, stranger—we must all bide our time. Now, stranger, I've told you my sad story, I must ax a favor. Seeing as you are a town-bred person, perhaps a preacher, I want you to kneel down by that grave and make a prayer. I feel that it is a good thing to pray, though we woods people know but ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... Kyarter's Mills, 'bout ten year' ago. One ob de preachers was a-tellin' about ole mudder Ebe a-eatin' de apple, and says he: De sarpint fus' come along wid a red apple, an' says he: You gib dis yer to your husban', an' he think it so mighty good dat when he done eat it he gib you anything you ax him fur, ef you tell him whar de tree is. Ebe, she took one bite, an' den she frew dat apple away. 'Wot you mean, you triflin' sarpint,' says she, 'a fotchin' me dat apple wot ain't good fur nuffin but ter make cider wid.' ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton

... to keep on talking till to-morrow morning?" growled a deep voice. "Zum on us want a bit o' sleep. Look here, mates; I'm going to speak to the gaffer to-morrow, to ax if them two chatterin' old women ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn

... erratically and without apparent provocation! Mr. Talmage should advise the government to cease expending money for ironclads and coast fortifications. In case of a foreign complication it were "all day with us" if the Autocrat of the Universe were swinging a battle-ax against us; while if we chanced to have him with us, we could send Baby McKee out with the jawbone of a hen, and put the armies of the ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... 550 Stratius and brave Echephron introduced The victim by his horns; Aretus brought A laver in one hand, with flow'rs emboss'd, And in his other hand a basket stored With cakes, while warlike Thrasymedes, arm'd With his long-hafted ax, prepared to smite The ox, and Perseus to receive the blood. The hoary Nestor consecrated first Both cakes and water, and with earnest pray'r To Pallas, gave the forelock to the flames. 560 When all had worshipp'd, and the ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... fleet, including the two new vessels, and all others to be built, at the disposal of the Government, the latter being at liberty to charter or purchase any or all at agreed rates. They were not to raise freights unduly nor to give any preferential rates to foreigners.[AX] The subsidy is equivalent to about twenty thousand dollars for an outward ...
— Manual of Ship Subsidies • Edwin M. Bacon

... collusive Achitophel), what does he other than exceed Malice it self? or that the more prudent deserts of that Peer were to be so impeach'd before hand by his impious Poem, as that he might be granted more emphatically condign of the Hangman's Ax; And which his Muse does in effect take ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.

... was raised in a perpendicular position. The farmer was no sooner on his legs, than clapping his hand with anxious concern into an immense large pocket, he discovered that a bottle of brandy it contained was crack'd, and the contents beginning to escape: "I ax pardon, young gentleman," says he, seizing a hat that the latter held with great care in his hand, and applying it to catch the liquor—"I ax pardon for making so free, but I see the hat is a little out of order, and can't be much hurt; and its a ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... "I want to ax ye jes one thing more, Uncl' Gabe," he said, slowly. "S'posin' Steve had a-killed Jass to keep him from killin' Rome, hev he got to be damned fer it jes the same? Hev he got to give up eternal life anyways? Hain't thar no way out'n ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.

... steady chap," said Sally; "an' them in his awn station sez he's reg'lar at church-goin' an' well thot 'pon by everybody. 'Tedn' all young pairs as parson'll ax out, I can tell 'e. He wants to knaw a bit 'fore 'e'll marry bwoys an' gals; but theer weren't no trouble ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... improbability. Three of the tales are agonizingly tragic, the "Abbot" scarcely less so in its main event, and "Ivanhoe" deeply wounded through all its bright panoply; while even in that most powerful of the series the impossible archeries and ax-strokes, the incredibly opportune appearances of Locksley, the death of Ulrica, and the resuscitation of Athelstane, are partly boyish, partly feverish. Caleb in the "Bride," Triptolemus and Halcro in the "Pirate," are all laborious, and the first incongruous; half a volume of the "Abbot" is spent ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... Faith, honey. Jes' look at her! She used to be de shyest, mos' ladylake cow awn de place. She always seemed to 'member dat she'd had a calf en was a lady ob quality. Now look at her! She don' keer! She'd jes' as soon lean her head on de Boss's shoulder en ax him fer a drink er de loan ob his cee-gyar. She's done forgot dat she's a mudder. She feels lake she don' know which is de odder side ob de street en she don' want to be tol'! Dat's what drink does for ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... happened to commend A certain mansion that we saw To Let. "Ay," cried our coachman, with our talk to grapple "You're right! no house along the road comes nigh it! 'Twas built by the same man as built yon chapel And master wanted once to buy it,— But t'other driv the bargain much too hard— He ax'd sure-ly a sum purdigious! But being so particular religious, Why, that, you see, put master on his guard!" Church is "a little heav'n below, I have been there and still would go,"— Yet I am none ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... the adjectives in the following: "When I was a little boy, I remember that one cold winter's morning I was accosted by a smiling man with an ax on his shoulder. 'My pretty boy,' said he, 'has your father a grindstone?' 'Yes, sir,' said I. 'You are a fine little fellow,' said he. 'Will you let me grind ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge

... this removal, standing on the deck by the hatchway and scanning everything that was handed up. The character of this junk has already been described. Every barrel or cask that was placed upon the deck was stove in with an ax before Cleggett's eyes; he satisfied himself that every bottle was empty; he turned over the broken boxes and beer cases with his foot to ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... caught to objects, the terrible thunder of the explosion, this is what the second which followed the two seconds we have described, disclosed in that cavern, equal in horrors to a cavern of demons. The rock split like planks of deal under the ax. A jet of fire, smoke, and debris sprang up from the middle of the grotto, enlarging as it mounted. The large walls of silex tottered and fell upon the sand, and the sand itself, an instrument of pain when launched from its hardened bed, riddled the face ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... matter of fact, it lends a kind of delusive importance to social intercourse. It is also injurious in that it opposes the acquirement of solid knowledge and the intention to win the respect of men in an honest way. Finally, it is the ax which is laid at the root of a delicate sense of language in our mother tongue, which thereby is incurably injured and destroyed. The two nations which have produced the greatest stylists, the Greeks and the French, learned no foreign languages; but as human intercourse ...
— Esperanto: Hearings before the Committee on Education • Richard Bartholdt and A. Christen

... with a chopping ax, and what cannot a Yankee do with it? Who ever saw a Scotchman or an Irishman who could not cut a straight ditch with a spade, and who ever saw a Yankee who could or would cut a ditch straight with any tool? One man works best with a long-handled ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French

... dining-room first and split its side-board open with axes—fine old carved mahogany pieces so hardened with age, the ax blades chipped from the blows as if striking marble. The china was smashed chests were laid open with axes, and their contents of ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... out the old boy who had previously superinduced a diversion: 'he's going to ax if he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... I can do dat!" shouted one of the hostlers, and caught up an ax-handle which stood in one corner. As he approached the bear, the beast uttered a roar of commingled rage and fear, and this was so terrorizing to the colored man that he dropped the ax-handle and ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)

... then she'd unbethink hersel' again. An' Sir Thomas, he'd say, 'Do now, my dear,' an' then when she'd look at him that pitiful, he'd out wi' 's red 'andkercher an' frown over at Mester Adrian, an', says he, 'I wonder ye can ax her!' Well, all of a sudden off went th' big gun in th' ship—that was to let 'em know, miss, do ye see—an' up went Madam's head, an' then th' wind fetched th' salt spray to her face, an' a kind o' change came over her. She looked at ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... walked through deep leaves and snow covering the road that only a forester could have distinguished. Over his shoulder he carried a mattock, and in the wagon were his clippers and an ax. Behind him came Betsy drawing the sap buckets and big evaporating kettles. Through the wood ranged Belshazzar, the craziest dog in all creation. He always went wild at sap time. Here was none of the monotony ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... beheading was executed thus:—They sometimes cut off the criminal's head with a sword, as is done among the Romans. But Rabbi Yehudah says this was degrading, and in some cases they placed the culprit's head upon the block and struck it off with an ax. Some one remarked to him that such a death is ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... that mighty body, the outward thrust of the jaws, the ring of the voice, was like the crashing of an ax when armoured men meet in battle. The flicker in the eyes of Anthony was the rapier which swerves from the ax and then leaps at the heart. For a critical second their glances crossed and then the habit of ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... successor! It is a conspiracy which extends throughout the whole army. I know it. I was warned in Spain against the plots of the Carbonari, and the caution has been repeated here. And I must keep silence. I cannot punish the traitors, for that would consign the majority of my generals to the ax of the executioner. But I will give them all a warning example. I will intimidate them, let them have an intimation that I am aware of their ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach

... known to be masquerading as a SADHU in order to rob pilgrims. A short way before us, we spied a figure which resembled the description of the criminal. He ignored our command to stop; we ran to overpower him. Approaching his back, I wielded my ax with tremendous force; the man's right arm was severed almost completely from ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... is the Woodman sober and staid who slung the Ax with a shining blade that chopped the Tree of a dusky shade that gave the Wood that heated the Oven that baked the Cake that fed the Doll that lived in the House ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... I repeated. "Get an ax and chop out the roof of this beastly thing so that we can climb ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin

... ax than the rest of us, broke open the lid of the chest. A piece of coarse sacking covered the contents. Blythe lifted this—and disclosed to our astonished eyes a jumble of stones ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... minister's seven-year-old son Hughie, who always rode down, standing on the hind axle of the buggy, to open it for his father. It was a great relief to him when Long John Cameron, who had the knack of doing things for people's comfort, brought his ax and big auger one day and made a kind of cradle on the projecting end of the top bar, which he then weighted with heavy stones, so that the gate, when once the pin was pulled out of the post, would swing back itself with Hughie straddled on ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... no business, but we take the marriage seriously. If a man makes up his mind that he likes a woman, he must marry her, and once he has married her, no ax or pike shall separate them. No monkeying with married men or women thereafter," ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... slackened their hateful designs against my life, however calmed or baffled for the moment. Within a few days of the above events, when Natives in large numbers were assembled at my house, a man furiously rushed on me with his ax; but a Kaserumini Chief snatched a spade with which I had been working, and dexterously defended me from instant death. Life in such circumstances led me to cling very near to the Lord Jesus; I knew not, for one brief hour, when ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton

... manner, correspond to the forces indicated by arrows in fig. 66, and lettered according to Bow's method. When all the forces are vertical, as will be the case in girders, the polygon of external forces will be reduced to two straight lines, fig. 67 b, superimposed and divided so that the length AX represents the load AX, the length AB the load AB, the length YX the reaction YX, and so forth. The line XZ consists of a series of lengths, as XA, AB ... DZ, representing the loads taken in their order. In subsequent diagrams ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... be managed did not seem to strike Bryda as puzzling. She and Maurice had so often acted the execution of Mary of Scotland, with an armchair for the block, and an umbrella for an ax, that they were quite used to the queen having her head cut off very often without minding it in the least, or being any ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... away are the great vaults known as Solomon's Quarries. Here is where the massive stones were "made ready" and the master builder's plans were so perfect that, "there was neither hammer nor ax nor any tool of iron heard in the temple while it was in building." The marks of the mason's tools and the niches where their lamps were placed can be seen to this day. It is a remarkable fact that in sinking shafts ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols

... was hot. The wind blew dust into their faces and made their eyes sore, and yet they were happy. Every day they found some little thing that excited them,—a terra cotta goblet, a broken piece of a bone lyre, a bronze ax, the ashes of an ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall

... revered by the people and held inviolably sacred. St. Boniface cut it down in token of the triumph of Christ. When it fell with a mighty crash, and Thor gave no sign, the {81} heathen folk, who stood about in awe, accepted the token and were converted. The stroke of St. Boniface's ax overthrew Thor, but could not altogether destroy the associations of the ancient belief. The reverence for the oak long survived; and the veneration for it, Christianized in meaning, led to its reproduction, with symbolic reference to the power of the God of gods, in many beautiful ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester

... Millie, me darlin', you couldn't be so cruel as to break hour 'earts by dying for sich a man. You vould make the vorld black for us hall, yer know. Come, dear, come vith me. I'll take care hof yer. I'm not fine like 'im that's gone, thank the Lord, but I'll never ax ye to do haught that Mr. Ventvorth vouldn't bless," and she half supported the exhausted, trembling girl to her room, and there was tender and tireless in her ministrations. In the early dawn, when at last Mildred slept for an hour or two, she wrote, in a half-eligible ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... putty, dat I tole him to git in my skiff, an' I wud carry him to de Lake. I notice' dat he kep' writin' all de way. When I got to de horse camps I stopped to get somfin to eat. He cum outen de skiff an' ax me what I stop for. I tole him I stop to eat some meat an' bread. He ax me if I wud hav' a drink. I tuk off my hat an' tole him dat I wud be much obleged to him for it. He foched a silber jug, wid a silber cup for a stopper, and said: 'My man, dis is Irish whiskey. I brung ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold

... 'Gib me my haid; I gwine put hit on myse'f.' De Lord argufied wid him but de crab wouldn' listen, en he say he gwine put hit on. So de Lord gin him his haid en 'course he put hit on back'ards. Den he went ter de Lord en ax' Him ter put hit straight, but de Lord wouldn' do hit, en He tole him he mus' go back'ards all his life fer his obstinacy. En so 'tis wid ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... don't know why that's true, but it is. Well, we're not reaching them. Our goods are unattractive. They're packed and shipped unattractively. Why, all this department needs is a little psychology—and some lace that doesn't look as if it had been chopped out with an ax. It's the little, silly, intimate things that will reach these women. No, not silly, either. Quite understandable. She wants fine things for her baby, just as the silver-spoon mother does. The thing we'll have to do is to give her silver-spoon ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... desperate fighters were pitiful compared to our own war weapons. With no need in the city for fighting engines, none had ever been developed. Now the best that could be had was a sort of ax, used for dissecting the mound-fish, and various ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... "An ax! Quickly—cut the hawser! Caliban, get a jib loosed! Hanglip, open the companionway, and bring up my prisoners. I would have ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... got the ax. As soon as Old Benzine had run in all the goods he could, he did the shipping act. He left a lot of empty boxes on his shelves but shipped nearly all of his stock to some of his relatives, and then in came ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson

... the real ranch world. There was the pile of sagebrush fuel, all twisted and gray, pungent as a bottle of spilled liniment, where braided, blanketed bucks were sometimes prevailed upon to labor desultorily with an ax in hope of being rewarded with fruit new-gathered from the orchard or a place at Phoebe's long table in ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower

... Bunyan,) stired up the animils & ground the organ while he tended door. Occashunally Mr. Bunyan sung a comic song. The Circus was doin middlin well. Bill Shakspeer had made a grate hit with old Bob Ridley, and Ben Jonson was delitin the peple with his trooly grate ax of hossmanship without saddul or bridal. Thay was rehersin Dixey's Land & expected it would ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... the shade trees beside the pleasant roads had been scored with the ax and now stood gaunt and dead. Some were splintered freshly by German shells. As the light faded and the road grew dim, Ruth Fielding saw many ugly objects which marked the "frightfulness" of the usurpers. It all had a depressing ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson

... dead horses—a big gray and a roan—with their stark legs sticking out across the road. The gray was shot through and through in three places. The right fore hoof of the roan had been cut smack off, as smoothly as though done with an ax; and the stiffened leg had a curiously unfinished look about it, suggesting a natural malformation. Dead only a few hours, their carcasses already had begun to swell. The skin on their bellies was ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... lands awaiting the capitalist. Tropical fruits flourish in abundance, and the sugar-pine is well known in our market, where it brings a higher price than any other pine imported. Hardwood and fancy cabinet wood trees fill the forests, and await the woodman's ax. Among these are some specimens of unexampled beauty, notably a tree, the wood of which, when polished, resembles veined marble, and another, rivaling in beauty the feathers in a peacock's tail. Precious ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... her rich custard guarded by spikes and by an awful odor," remarked Fil's father, as he broke open the thick skin with an ax. ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson

... the story are transcribed from the Boston News-Letter of Apr. 16, May 7, and May 21. Cheesman threw John Nutt, the master of the pirate ship, overboard; "Harradine struck down [John] Phillips the Captain with an Adds, and another man struck Burrell the Boatswain with a Broad Ax; and the rest fell upon James [or Joseph] Sparks the Gunner, and having in a few Minutes dispatched the said Four Officers, the rest of the Pirates immediately surrendered themselves Prisoners". The result of the trials here recorded was ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... do with her, eh? You'd a-hardly need to ax, But I sold my barrer a Monday, and paid the ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... serve for more than four years; and another provided, that, when a redemptioner's time of service had expired, his master should give him "two good suits of clothing, suitable for a servant, one good ax, one good hoe, and seven bushels ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton

... to disappointment, for it was not Gad, with the much-desired fruit. It was a stranger, who threw himself off his horse and hurried up to Mr. Bassett in the yard, with some brief message that made the farmer drop his ax and look so sober that his wife guessed at once some bad news had come; and crying, "Mother's wuss! I know she is!" out ran the good woman, forgetful of the flour on her arms and the oven waiting for its most ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... answered Frank. "Well, we will have a chunk of salt beef, coffee without any milk, butter strong enough to go alone, and crackers so hard that you couldn't break them with an ax. I tell you, the navy is ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon

... was no longer the proudly aggressive wild beast he had been. He had reached his limit. The terrible ordeal he had been through; the struggle incident to his capture; the rough, hot ride to the corral, hog-tied, on the hard floor of the dead-ax wagon; the outbursts of passion in the corral; the fighting and second roping in connection with the sawing off of his horns; the battle with the big horse; the ceaseless violence of his destructive assaults, first in ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... surrounded the burying ground and separated it from the space immediately about the little stone church. It was a beautiful spot, here where the sun came through the great oaks that had never known an ax, resting upon blue grass that had never known a plow—a spot virgin as it was before old Lord Fairfax ever claimed it hi his loose ownership. Everything about it ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... the Amazonian, &c.] Penthesile, Queen of the Amazons, succeeded Orythia. She carried succours to the Trojans, and after having given noble proofs of her bravery, was killed by Achilles. Pliny saith, it was she that invented the battle-ax. If any one desire to know more of the Amazons, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... "I ax your Honour's pardon; perhaps I am making too bold, but it's nateral for a man that has seed so much of the world as I have to talk a bit, especially as my tongue is absent on furlough more nor half the year, and then the ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... hoist anchor against the wishes of the crew a great wave broke directly over the bow, breaking upon the deck with such force that all the men were swept from their feet and several were injured. The anchor was lost and only the quickness of the carpenter saved the cable, which he cut with an ax as it was running over the side. Staggering in the heavy sea the Discovery sailed northward, for Hudson had at last become convinced that no passage led to the ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... man came with ax and arrow the wilderness of the Blue Ridge teemed with wild animal life. The bones of mastodon and mammoth remained to attest their supremacy over an uninhabited land thousands upon thousands of years ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... shore; not that they were such arrant cowards but what they would have been willing to do almost anything to help Joel; but unfortunately they had lost their heads in the sudden shock; and as Toby afterwards contemptuously said, "acted like so many chickens after the ax ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton

... "I ax pardon," said Solomon, sulkily, withdrawing himself from the doorway. "I did not know I was hindering custom.—Who is this young spark, Harry?" added he, in a low tone, as the other entered ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... and seeing what was poking about in the tower, ran for an ax; nor did he hesitate a moment when he returned with one, but sprang up the ladder and commenced chopping away at that hideous face. The thing didn't have sufficient brainpan to entertain more than a single idea at once. Though chopped and hacked, ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the steps, circled around the place to see whether anyone was yet astir. The door slammed at the green house on the farm adjoining, from the little red cottage across the fields came the sound of a busy ax, and down by the creek some early riser whistled merrily as he went about his morning work. All this old Towzer heard, and strolling back to his place on the porch, he looked up at the chamber window above him and barked sharply. The drawn curtain flew up with a flirt, ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown

... sir.' Holmes stripped and was tied up. 'Give him a dozen,' said the captain; when out steps M'Alpine, and swore it was him, and not Holmes; and ax'd leave to be flogged in his stead. At which the captain bit his lips to prevent laughing, and then they knew all was right. So another came forward, and says it was him, and not M'Alpine; and another contradicts him again, and so on. At last the captain says, 'One would think flogging was a very ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... made of ironwood about three feet long, and with tufts of brilliant feathers at either end. Inserted at one end was a deer's horn, about five inches in length, and as sharp as a razor. While it was called a war club, it was thus more of a battle ax, and at close range and wielded by a powerful arm it was a deadly weapon. It had been made at Albany, and in order to render it more attractive three silver bands had been placed ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... in the colliery of New Aberfoyle, work was going on in the usual regular way. In the distance could be heard the crash of great charges of dynamite, by which the carboniferous rocks were blasted. Here masses of coal were loosened by pick-ax and crowbar; there the perforating machines, with their harsh grating, bored through the masses of ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne

... Nikobob carried an ax and a bundle of torches over his shoulder and he walked with his eyes to the ground, being deep in thought as to the strange manner in which the powerful King Gos and his city had been conquered by a boy Prince ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum

... crossed the doorstep, both hands full, trotted down the road—straight on as if there was nothing behind her, and with drooping head—was altogether irresistible. Then Maren would slink out round the corner and beckon to Soeren to make haste and come, and Soeren would throw down his ax and come racing over the grass of the downs with his tongue between his lips. "Heaven only knows what she is up to now," said he, and the two crept after her down the road. When she had wandered a little distance, in deep thought, she would ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... the trooper, as a body of English appeared on the rock, and threw in a close fire. "Come on!" he repeated, and brandished his saber fiercely. Then his gigantic form fell backward, like a majestic pine yielding to the ax; but still, as he slowly fell, he continued to wield his saber, and once more the deep tones of his voice were heard ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... Quashy, with a beaming countenance, as he led forward his horse. "Quiet as a lamb, 'cept when you aggrawates him. Nebber goes no faster dan you wants him to,—sometimes not so fast! an' wouldn't run away even if you was to ax ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... waiting for the massacre like chickens waiting for the ax delay the massacres a day? But now it is 'Come and lead us, Kagig!' How many of you are there ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... always? Ain't I come upstairs to quiet you when yo' mammy ain't had no power ovah yo'? Ain't I cooked fo' yo', and ain't I followed you everywheres since I quit ridin' yo' pa's bosses to vict'ry? Ain't I one of de fambly? An' yit yo' ax me to call yo' ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill



Words linked to "Ax" :   edge tool, terminate, chop, haft, axe, double-bitted ax, hatchet, piolet, blade, ax handle, Western ax, hand ax, Lochaber ax, end, Dayton ax, ice ax, hack



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