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Bolt   Listen
noun
Bolt  n.  
1.
A sudden spring or start; a sudden spring aside; as, the horse made a bolt.
2.
A sudden flight, as to escape creditors. "This gentleman was so hopelessly involved that he contemplated a bolt to America or anywhere."
3.
(U. S. Politics) A refusal to support a nomination made by the party with which one has been connected; a breaking away from one's party.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bolt" Quotes from Famous Books



... their heads, and their hair down their backs, waving in the breeze, they looked adorable, suggesting a flight of messenger swallows skimming over the ground and bearing good tidings onward. As for Gregoire the page, restive and always ready to bolt, he did not behave very well; for he actually tried to pass the royal couple at the head of the procession, a proceeding which brought him various severe admonitions until he fell back, as duty demanded, to his deferential and modest post. ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... of a cone, and were all together mortised into a large piece of beechwood, and secured, for the present, with ropes, in a temporary manner. During the short period of one tide all that could further be done for their security was to put a single screw-bolt through the great kneed bats or stanchions on each side of the beams, ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... mighty 'Eavens! escaped from the Crystal Palace, or the Zoo, or a circus or somethink, oh, it ain't safe living in England! Blowed if I don't bolt the kitchen door, and nobody warned me or told me it was in the morning papers. Thank goodness I've taken in the milk, and them three eggs all spoiled. Only nine left now," moaned Cookie, "and cutlets and pancakes for ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... the bolt of a crossbow, an arrow having a square, or four-edged head (from Middle Latin quadrellus, ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... Middelburg. At 9 A.M. he was executed in the presence of the leading residents. Among these was Mr. De Waal, M.L.A., who entered the precincts of the gaol attired in deep mourning. The scene proved too much for him; he broke down completely before the executioner had drawn the bolt. ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald

... their lonely way through mine... stop as at a friendly gate... grow warm... and luminous? ... but I cannot stay... for the smell... I know... how the days pass... The prison squats with granite haunches on the young spring, battened under with its twisting green... and you... socket for every bolt piercing like a driven nail. Eyes stare you through the bars... eyes blank as a graveled yard... and the silence shuffles heavy dice of feet in iron corridors... until the day... that has soiled herself in this black hole ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... these scents, touched his cheek and his hair and he was conscious that that dark traveller who now tenanted his house closed the doors and windows upon that breath. It might waken consciousness, and consciousness memory, and memory pain ... ah! pain!—down with the shutters, bolt the doors—no vision of the ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... work in an instant; and before the bank director had fairly begun to tremble, the rotten mainsail of the Missisque was blown into ribbons, and the "flapping flitters" were streaming in the air. Piece after piece was detached from the bolt-rope, and disappeared in the heavy atmosphere. The sloop, in obedience to her helm, came about, and was now headed down the lake. The rain began to fall in torrents, and Mr. Randall was as uncomfortable as the director of a country ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic

... the bolt and up went the heavy bar, and as the door was opened to the width of a foot, the figure of a tall, heavily bearded frontiersman slipped into the cabin. He helped hold the door while Dan secured ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer

... bank of the creek he suddenly found himself confronted with a new and more formidable enemy: in the path that he was following, sat, bolt upright, with ears erect and paws suspended before it, a rabbit! With a startled cry the child turned and fled, he knew not in what direction, calling with inarticulate cries for his mother, weeping, stumbling, his tender skin cruelly ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... it I marked that she called to Dick and not to me—she unlocked and opened the door to the wine vault, and in a trice we two and the luckless horses were safely jailed in pitchy darkness, with the stout oaken door slammed behind us, the bolt shot in the lock, and the key withdrawn, as we could see by the spot of light which came ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... each other, our love was sudden and resistless as the bolt of heaven: the first glance of those dear speaking eyes gave me a new being, and awaked in me ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... long as a plank can float, or a bolt can hold together, When the sea is smooth as glass, or the waves run mountains high, In the brightest of summer skies, or the blackest of dirty weather, Wherever the ship ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... Oliphant's room on this first night, but, long as her journey had been, and tired as she undoubtedly felt, the events of the evening had excited her, and she did not care to go to bed. Her fire was now burning well, and her room was warm and cozy. She drew the bolt of her door, and, unlocking her trunk, began to unpack. She was a methodical girl and well trained. Miss Rachel Peel had instilled order into Priscilla from her earliest days, and she now quickly disposed of her small but neat wardrobe. Her ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... dignities they secured to themselves the aid which the Church officials had it in their power to render, for not only could bishops bring to the support of their suzerain the physical succour of armies, but they could also launch against his enemies that terrible bolt of mediaeval times, excommunication, which, "rendered formidable by ignorance, struck terror into the boldest and most resolute hearts" (p. 174). In these latter gifts we see the origin of the temporalities and titles attached ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... him, and running to a table where he had laid his sword, she drew it out of the scabbard with so much speed, that he could not prevent her, and making a push at him with one hand, kept him from closing with, or disarming her, till with the other she had plucked back the bolt of the door. ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... I didn't have to bolt it. You're off for Vienna, I see. Sit down, Rox. Won't you have another egg and a cup of ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon

... his watch again.] I've given you a pretty minute account of last night's tragedy, Chick. "I'll do what I can for you"—those were the Fullgarney's words. Good lord, they came at me like a bolt from the blue! Does she intend to act up to them, eh?—that's the question. Surely she'll act ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero

... that no one was following her; then she began to go down the stairs in the darkness. They were so steep and winding that she had to go very slowly, for fear of stumbling. Her one thought was to get the door unbolted, tell Lanrivain to make his escape, and hasten back to her room. She had tried the bolt earlier in the evening, and managed to put a little grease on it; but nevertheless, when she drew it, it gave a squeak... not loud, but it made her heart stop; and the next minute, overhead, she ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... It is out of windows that many fall to their deaths. By windows love often enters. Through a window went the bolt that killed King Richard. King William's father spied Arlette from a window (I have looked through it myself, but not a soul did I see washing below). When a mob would rule England, it breaks windows, and when a patriot ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... Wiggins along the garden path, the Terror, said to Erebus: "You bolt home as hard as you can go. You must be awfully wet and cold; and if you don't want to be laid up, the sooner you take some quinine and get to bed ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... wider sense, anything said or done in return for some word, action, or suggestion of another may be called an answer. The blow of an enraged man, the whinny of a horse, the howling of the wind, the movement of a bolt in a lock, an echo, etc., may each be an answer to some word or movement. A reply is an unfolding, and ordinarily implies thought and intelligence. A rejoinder is strictly an answer to a reply, tho often used in the general sense of answer, but ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... through the panel. There was no reply, and Lou pressed against the door. The worn lock, whose bolt barely engaged its socket, held for a second, then ...
— The Big Trip Up Yonder • Kurt Vonnegut

... marched along the passage, followed by the others, and presently arrived at a door, against which he tapped. A bolt being withdrawn, it was instantly opened to admit the party, after which it was as quickly shut, and secured. In answer to a call from the miller, a light appeared at the top of a steep, ladder-like flight of wooden steps, and up these Paslew, at the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... in a tone that brought him bolt upright, his round face streaked with tears that his dirty little hands had tried to wipe off, the rest of them trailing over his round nose. "O dear me! Now you must go into the 'provision room' and stay. Don't you remember Mamsie said you'd ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney

... brogans, and scare-crow headgear. So we picked out what would answer—here and there a garment which might be altered, the only pair of shoes in the place that came near to fitting one of the ladies, a bolt of unbleached muslin which they, themselves, could fashion into underclothes, and four disreputable old hats. The latter we gave to a local milliner to remodel and trim, simply but respectably. Then we went to the ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton

... waited on the audience, with Mrs. Gilmore peeping through the curtain, whose rise would reveal "Harriet" alone; a terrible risk if the exhorter should get in the bolt he ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... until he heard her bolt both doors. For an hour after that he sat within the door of his tepee with the flap up, watching the road. Nothing stirred ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... and he felt relieved when he reached the heavy door of the jail, amid two files of staring boys, who had ran before him, and arranged themselves by the gate, to watch him as he entered. He was rudely thrust in, the bolt shot back upon the closed door, and he was delivered over to the keeping of the jailer, with the assurance of the policeman, that "he was a sharp miscreant, and ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown

... should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy free. Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell; It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness. Fetch ...
— Shakespeare's Christmas Gift to Queen Bess • Anna Benneson McMahan

... of a rifle that an enlisted man is permitted to take apart are the bolt mechanism and the magazine mechanism. Learn how to do this from your squad leader, for you must know how in order to keep your rifle clean. Never remove the hand guard or the trigger guard, nor take the sights apart unless ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... that her love had been a sham or a fancy. What had he not suffered on her account! even as she had suffered for him. But that he should think so of her was not to be borne; she would write. Might she write? From hiding her head on her pillow, Diana sat bolt upright now and stared at the light as if it could tell her. Might she write to Evan, just once, this once, to tell him how it had been? Would that be any wrong against her husband? Would Basil have any right to forbid her? The uneasy sense of doubt here was met by a furious ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... for ever gone! cold, dead and cold. Am I a father? Fathers love their children—— I murder mine! With impious pride I snatch'd The bolt of vengeance from the hand of Heaven. My punishment is great—but oh! 'tis just. My soul submissive bows. A righteous God Has made my crime ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More

... works of the hand are forty save one:—To sow, to plow, to reap, to bind in sheaves, to thrash, to winnow, to sift corn, to grind, to bolt meal, to knead, to bake, to shear, to wash wool, to comb wool, to dye it, to spin, to warp, to shoot two threads, to weave two threads, to cut and tie two threads, to tie, to untie, to sew two stitches, to tear ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... requested to be permitted to pay homage to the heroine that had rescued her townsmen from death; and Frau Wengelin ventured to knock at the door of her daughter's chamber. She was so earnest in her pleadings, that at last the bolt was withdrawn, and Marie, with bloodshot eyes, and mouth ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... how she was, brought back word that Fleda was not asleep, but was too ill to speak to her. Mr. Carleton went immediately into the little crib of a state-room. There he found his little charge, sitting bolt upright, her feet on the rung of a chair, and her hands grasping the top to support herself. Her eyes were closed, her face without a particle of colour, except the dark shade round the eyes which bespoke illness and pain. She made no attempt to answer his shocked questions and words ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... meeting, and the fond intermingling of embraces, that was too great a reward for all our sufferings;—for now I approach the memorials of those things, by which the terrible Heavens have manifested that I was ordained from the beginning to launch the bolt that was chosen from the quiver in the armoury of the Almighty avenger, to overthrow the oppressor and oppression of my native land. It is therefore enough to state that, upon my return home, where I expected to find my lands waste and my fences ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... It was just eight o'clock, and he knew that the land office did not open until nine. He wondered who this industrious individual might be and what reason he had for getting down to work an hour beforehand; and then; like a bolt from the blue, The Big Idea flashed ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... sitting bolt upright as if ready for action. Indeed there was no suggestion of repose in the attitudes of either of ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... themselves about the salvaged wreckage. Familiar with space-wrecks as were they all, none of them had ever seen anything like the material before them. For every part and instrument was weirdly and meaninglessly disintegrated. There were no breaks, no marks of violence, and yet nothing was intact. Bolt-holes stared empty, cores, shielding cases and needles had disappeared, the vital parts of every instrument hung awry, disorganization reigned rampant ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... in the driveway while Beryl was still at the telephone. Stern went to the front door, closed it and put the chain bolt in place. The back door would still be locked and they would hardly try ...
— Martians Never Die • Lucius Daniel

... till 1825, when a thunder-bolt fell and shook it severely on Whit Monday while the Magnificat ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... opened the door, whispered "good-night," and started down the path. About a hundred feet away I heard Dave calling me back; I turned; he was standing in the doorway, with the candle light gleaming behind him. He called out, "Grant, I don't quite get this safety catch and bolt; would you mind showing it to ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... violent thunderstorm and our house was struck by lightning. The only damage done was to one corner in which was located Uncle Pierre's writing desk. The desk was ripped apart by the lightning bolt and some of his ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill

... and sniffed on this occasion so often that Miss Jones told him to blow his nose. As to the noise, who is there who does not remember that rattle and clatter, that sudden, deafening report as of the firing of a hundred firearms, the sudden pause when every bolt and bar and hinge sighs and moans like the wind or a stormy sea, and then that sudden scream of the clattering windows, when it is as though a frenzied cook, having received notice to leave, was ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole

... the biggest chaps rushed into the schoolroom, and seizing each an arm, run me into the playground—bolt up against the shoemaker. ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray

... "Jennie Gerhardt" is suave, persuasive, well-ordered, solid in structure, instinct with life. "The Financier," for all its merits in detail, is loose, tedious, vapid, exasperating. But had any critic, in the autumn of 1912, argued thereby that Dreiser was finished, that he had shot his bolt, his discomfiture would have come swiftly, for "The Titan," which followed in 1914, was almost as well done as "The Financier" had been ill done, and there are parts of it which remain, to this day, the very best ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... framework of the door we had broken in, assuring himself that the bolt had really been shot. Then he went to the door opposite leading into Cynthia's room. That door was also bolted, as I had stated. However, he went to the length of unbolting it, and opening and shutting it several times; this he did with the utmost precaution ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie

... and sheer courage Enniskilleners and Scots were winning their desperate way right through the enemy's squadron, and already grey horses and redcoats had appeared right at the rear of the second mass, when, with irresistible force, like one bolt from a bow, the 4th Dragoon Guards, riding straight at the right flank of the Russians, and the 5th Dragoon Guards, following close upon the Enniskilleners, rushed at the remnant of the first line of the enemy, went through it as though it were made of pasteboard, and ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... experiment. He obtained three American automobiles, all of the same "standardized" make, and gave them a long and racking tour over English highways. Workmen then took apart the three cars and threw the disjointed remains into a promiscuous heap. Every bolt, bar, gas tank, motor, wheel, and tire was taken from its accustomed place and piled up, a hideous mass of rubbish. Workmen then painstakingly put together three cars from these disordered elements. Three chauffeurs jumped on these cars, and they immediately started down the road and made ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick

... the lower edge of the desk just under the molding. A flat piece of iron is forged on to the bar near the centre. This iron is pierced near the key-hole with an oblong slit through which passes a moveable piece of iron, here shewn in outline of its actual size (fig. 108). The bolt of the lock passes through a hole in this piece, and holds the bar firmly ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... have been to the men of sufficient means more largely supplied with the elements of excitement, but for the poorer students there was little romance in it. Now and then a demonstration against an unpopular professor, a "bolt," i.e. abstention en masse from a recitation; or a rarer invasion of the town and hostile demonstration gave us a fillip, but the doctor had so well policed the college and so completely brought under his moral influence ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... The sudden lightning bolt of war produced as one of its first economic effects a general dislocation of credit machinery in Europe and to some extent in this country. We heard at once that letters of credit of travelers in Europe were uncashable. Gold ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... God by insulting and imprisoning His representative on earth. The Holy Father has excommunicated you for this, and you are accursed, delivered over to the tortures of hell, and every honest Christian turns away from the wretch against whom the bolt of excommunication has been hurled. You must die without confession and absolution—in the midst of your sins." She discharged the arrow, but, like those of her little brother and sister, it glanced from the figure and dropped ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... to proclaim my new ally. "You heed experience; hear Captain Handy." And I launched his bolt at the head of Censure, and saw it duck, if ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... flung himself on the cot in a wild passion of tears and rebellious scorn. But his humiliation was not yet ended; while he sat with his face covered by his bands, he felt hands upon his legs, and the sharp click of a lock. He moved his left leg. Great God! it was chained to an enormous iron bolt. He started to rise; the sharp links of the chain cut his ankle as the great ball rolled away from him. With a cry of madness he flung himself on the harsh pine pallet, groaning his heart out in bitter anguish and maledictions. In time food was brought him, but he sat ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... smote the older man's senses like a bolt from a clear sky, and they reeled, although he managed, somehow, to ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... of stone rested on four large blocks of the same material. It had evidently once done duty as a table for at one side of it was a bench of stone, and upon the bench sat, or rather lolled, four white, ghastly, grinning skeletons. Death had evidently come to the sitters like a bolt from the sky. One rested, leaning forward, with the bony claws clinching the table, while yet another held a pewter mug as if about to raise it to his grinning jaws. They had evidently been feasting when the grim visitor ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... street" (p. 40), we must not seize upon the letter of a similitude, and talk about inconsistency. You must go out to meet even the Salvation Army. It offers you salvation in vain if you obstinately bolt your door, and insist that an Englishman's ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer

... it might be wanted. See here, Paul. We can tie one end to this heavy bedstead, knotting it also around the bolt of the door, and we can glide down like two veritable shadows, and drop silently into the river: Then we must swim to one of those small wherries which lie at anchor beside the sleeping barges. I know exactly what course to steer for that; and once aboard, we cut her loose, and row for ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green

... does not ordinarily try whether a door that he has just bolted is fast; but the one-year-old child tests carefully the edge of the door he has shut, to see whether it is really closed, because he does not understand the effect of lock and bolt. For even in the eighteenth month he goes back and forth with a key, to the writing-desk, with the evident purpose of opening it. But at twelve months, when he tries whether it is fast, he does not think of the key at all, and does not yet possess a ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer

... and the interference of the other young man in her behalf, so that swords were drawn before the appearance of the reverend gentleman her uncle. Still, he said, there was further venom to be added to the bolt, and he showed that the two had parted after the rejoicings on Portsdown Hill with a challenge all but uttered between them, the Whig upholding religious liberty, the Tory hotly defending such honour as the King possessed, and both parting ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... things,—strange to say, now they were all of them yellow, and had stumpy tails,—but animals and reptiles of the most delightful variety, never seen in any other show on earth; when a noise, that at once suggested a boy screaming "Ow!" struck upon his ear, and brought him bolt upright in his bed. He pawed wildly around, but Sinbad ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... were set to work to reopen and repack, which latter task is performed in the following manner:—We cut a doti, or four yards of Merikani, ordinarily sold at Zanzibar for $2.75 the piece of thirty yards, and spread out. We take a piece or bolt of good Merikani, and instead of the double fold given it by the Nashua and Salem mills, we fold it into three parts, by which the folds have a breadth of a foot; this piece forms the first layer, and will weigh nine pounds; the second ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... slid the bolt and turned the handle. Her head hurt for an instant; and she was inside, a blue and silver shadow in the dim anteroom, with the tray in her hand and the books under her ...
— The Passenger • Kenneth Harmon

... Kathleen in this house. It makes me want to bolt for home. Not that she'd look at me if I did. But the contrast between her and Ena Rolls—good Lord, it doesn't bear thinking of! Nothing doing about the Lady in the Moon so far as I'm concerned. It's Rolls who got moonstruck—according ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... went back and got the cart and drove to a nearer kopje, but just as we reached it the Boers abandoned it. Roberts's column was now much nearer. We then drove on still further in the direction of the bridge. I kept telling Cecil that the firing was all from the Boers as I did not want Christian to bolt and run away with the cart and mules. But Cecil remembered the pictures in Harper's Weekly showing the shrapnel smoke making rings in the air and as she saw these floating over our head, she knew the English were firing on us, but said nothing for fear of scaring Christian. ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis

... determining the value of tree and locality and the influence on the mechanical properties of distance from the pith, a 4-foot bolt will be cut from the top end of each ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record

... tolling for midnight. Somebody was at the door of his cell with a key. The lock grated, the door swung, the turnkey looked in and stepped back, and a ray of moonlight fell upon M. Jules St.-Ange. The prisoner sat upon the empty shackles and ring-bolt in the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... that. A woman is a good deal like a spirited horse; let her have her head, and, though she may for a time make the pace pretty fast, she will go straight, and settle down to her collar in time, whereas if you keep a tight curb she will fret and fidget, and as likely as not make a bolt for it. I can assure you that my duties were of The most nominal description. There were the usual number of hollow pated lads on board, who buzzed in their usual feeble way round Miss Hannay, and were one after another duly snubbed. Miss Hannay has plenty ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty

... silence that could be felt. The social temperature fell rapidly—people visibly stiffened and became constrained. The two ladies appeared to feel afraid to speak lest they should say anything that might be used by the mediums, and spoke in monosyllables. Sitting bolt upright, grim and silent, they drew up to the table, and when the phenomena began they displayed no signs of interest. Their 'detective' attitude was so objectionable that even those who had endeavored to thaw out these self-constituted Sherlock Holmeses, gave up the attempt, and, ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita

... sure. Once across the wide Atlantic, or wider Pacific, their passage paid (not sneaking in among the ballast like the more fortunate weeds), some are doomed to stay in prim, rigidly cultivated flower beds forever; others, only until a chance to bolt for freedom presents itself, and away they go. Lucky are they if every flower they produce is not picked before a single seed can ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... "Good-night!" He drives down the street in his old rattletrap of a coupe. I am so glad he is gone! And yet I am always afraid of burglars—or—something dreadful, whenever I go into the house alone so late at night. I bolt the inside door. I mount the hall-chair, left waiting by papa, and, trembling with a nameless fear, turn out the gas and leave myself in darkness. I make two vain dashes for the stair; a third, and ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.

... campaign. The departments of government issued the most fulsome addresses; subsidiary and vassal kings crowded to offer their congratulations; there were the ordinary manifestations of popular joy, and no one seemed to remember that the Emperor had been smitten by the papal bolt. But men remarked a great change in his bearing and expression. Cambaceres said that he seemed to be walking in the midst of his glory. Moreover, he withdrew from the capital, and held his court in Fontainebleau. The air was all surcharged. The Duc ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... word "home" a thrill passed through the child's frame, but he continued silent. A few moments brought them to the cottage door, at which the owner knocked; for at that early period, when savages were wandering everywhere among the settlers, bolt and bar were indispensable to the security of a dwelling. The summons was answered by a bond-servant, a coarse-clad and dull-featured piece of humanity, who, after ascertaining that his master was the applicant, ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... or why they began shooting. Realizing that these two had me at their mercy, that they could make me do chores for them, fetch water, cook, feed and attend to the horses till nightfall, when with my own two fresh mounts they might possibly make a bolt for it, I got a bit anxious, and determined to find out who the larger party were. So walking out and waving my hat I caught their attention and, on advancing further, one of the party came out and met ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... was—blew with appalling violence for exactly twelve hours, during which the Nonsuch scudded dead before it under close-reefed topsails, with the canvas straining and tugging until opinion became divided as to whether the cloth would part company with the bolt-ropes, or whether, being new and strong, it would uproot the masts and drag them bodily out of the ship, especially when the crest of a sea swept roaring and foaming away ahead of her, and her way was checked as she settled back into the trough. Luckily, neither of ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... time MISS Williams, as she was then called, though she did not reside with him in the Temple under his roof, but had lodgings in Bolt-court, Fleet-street, had so much of his attention, that he every night drank tea with her before he went home, however late it might be, and she always sat up for him. This, it may be fairly conjectured, was not alone ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... to the cook, gaily took her by the shoulders, and pushed her to the door. Closing it behind her, he shot the bolt and ran back to the window. As he did so, a hand appeared on the windowsill, and a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... fore-braces and hauled in upon the larboard until they had braced the topsail as sharp up as it was possible for two men to get it. The result of this manoeuvre was that, when the gale struck the Aurora, her main-topsail, which was a-shiver, was blown clean out of the bolt-ropes in an instant, as also was the foresail and the partially-stowed main-sail; whilst the fore-topsail was strongly filled at once, and being luckily a new sail, and standing the strain upon it bravely, it quickly began to ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... take up a paper without having the question put, "Do you bruise your oats?" Well, that depends on circumstances: a fresh young horse can bruise its own oats when it can get them; but aged horses, after a time, lose the power of masticating and bruising them, and bolt them whole; thus much impeding the work of digestion. For an old horse, then, bruise the oats; for a young one it does no harm and little good. Oats should be bright and dry, and not too new. Where they are new, sprinkle them with salt and water; otherwise, they overload the horse's ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... there were signs of there having been a second, doubtless still stronger, flush with the external surface, for the great hooks of the hinges remained, with the deep hole in the stone on the opposite side for the bolt. The key was in the lock, for, except to open the windows, and do other necessary pieces of occasional tendance, it was seldom anybody entered the place, and Grizzie generally turned the key, and left it ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... had just traversed, he saw three warriors approaching on foot at a run. Leaping from his thoat Gahan sprang into the chamber where Tara was struggling to free herself from the grasp of her captor, slammed the door behind him, shot the great bolt into its seat, and drawing his sword crossed the room at a run to engage the Manatorian. The fellow, thus menaced, called aloud to Gahan to halt, at the same time thrusting Tara at arm's length and threatening her heart with the point of ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... below the door a letter of recommendation from a Silesian correspondent, describing him as an excellent and steady workman. Wanting such a man, and satisfied by the answers returned that he was what he represented himself, Mr. Heinberg unbolted his door and admitted him. Then, after slipping the bolt into its place, he bade him sit to the fire, brought him a glass of beer, conversed with him for ten minutes, and said: "You had better stay here to-night; I'll tell you why afterwards; but now I'll step upstairs, and ask my wife ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... pressed a switch that released the ship's end of the safety line so that it now floated free. Harry pulled it towards himself and attached the free end to the eye of the anchor bolt, on a loop of nickel-steel that had been placed there for that purpose. "Safety line secured," he reported. ...
— Thin Edge • Gordon Randall Garrett

... stirred restlessly in his sleep vaguely aware of an unfamiliar sound, a faint tapping, insistent, disturbing. He wakened sharply and sat bolt upright, conscious of the fact that he was fully dressed. Then ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... part I saw nothing of this disgusting scene. I heard the bolt grate stealthily against the door of the little temple in which I was imprisoned, and was minded to give these brutish rebels somewhat of a surprise. I had rid myself of my bonds handily enough; ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... Roy," she said gravely. "And we may not even see the Pater. He's taken up his abode in the Telegraph Office. Mother will want to bolt. I can see it ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... sitting by a table, and leaning on his left arm. He held a truncheon in his right hand, and had a lamp burning before him. The man had no sooner set one foot within the vault, than the statue, erecting itself from its leaning posture, stood bolt upright; and, upon the fellow's advancing another step, lifted up the truncheon in his right hand. The man still ventured a third step; when the statue, with a furious blow, broke the lamp into a thousand pieces, and left his guest in sudden ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... into the water, like a big fish jumping. Chance sat bolt upright, staring at the dark shadows under the bridge. There it was again! And this time he saw it was no fish, but a second brick which had rotted away from the bridge supports underneath ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey

... right counter, the man delivered his sample and gave his order. But, after some searching, the clerk said, "The exact thing that you want has all been sold; but I have here just the right piece," throwing down a bolt, "except that it is slightly coarser. Could you take that?" Recalling his wife's instructions, the man ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry

... the birds with surprise and pleasure, they returning our gaze with interest. We now saw that their soldier-like appearance was owing to the stiff, erect manner in which they sat on their short legs,—"Bolt-up-right," as Peterkin expressed it. They had black heads, long sharp beaks, white breasts, and bluish backs. Their wings were so short that they looked more like the fins of a fish, and, indeed, we soon saw that they used them for the purpose of swimming under water. There were no ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... inserted the umbrella steel through the keyhole, and bent it by the string as he fished about with it on the other side to find the bolt. Meanwhile the butler telephoned frantically ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... been turned in the lock, but the bolt of the lock had failed to catch in the socket. It was plain that the negro thought he had locked the door, but it was quite as plain that he had been careless, and I made a resolution then and there to look after the safety of the horses myself. I swallowed more than half ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris

... would not be prudent for him to approach a bear without assistants, who, by surrounding the animal, should cut off its retreat. Were he to go forward direct to the bear's hiding-place, Bruin would, in all probability, discover him before he could approach within shot; and, making a bolt, might carry him a chase of ten or twelve miles before stopping. The brown bear often ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... than its own length. When it had recoiled it was in the position for sponging and loading, being kept from running out again, with the roll of the ship, by a train, or preventer tackle, hooked to a ring-bolt in amidships. In action, particularly in violent action, the guns became very hot, and "kicked" dangerously. Often they recoiled with such force as to overturn, or to snap the breeching, or to leap up to strike the ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield

... a bolt from the blue When, collecting his due, The conductor remarked, "Though I thank That young cake-eating gent For the penny he's sent, It's a tuppenny ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various

... arrows to the strings, began to shoot from their bows into the crowd of beasts. That was a new spectacle truly. Their bodies, shapely as if cut from dark marble, bent backward, stretched the flexible bows, and sent bolt after bolt. The whizzing of the strings and the whistling of the feathered missiles were mingled with the howling of beasts and cries of wonder from the audience. Wolves, bears, panthers, and people yet alive fell side by side. Here and there a lion, feeling a shaft in his ribs, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... with tempests lye? Then bow To th' rougher furrows of her brow, Or make a thunder-bolt thy choyce? Then catch at her more fatal voyce; Or 'gender with the lightning? trye The subtler flashes of her eye: Poore SEMELE wel knew the same, Who both imbrac't her God and flame; And not alone in soule did burne, But in ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... tread across the porch to the cabin door, at which he softly knocked with his knuckles, but holding it fast by the latch-handle, lest it should be too suddenly opened. Straightway a quick step was heard approaching the door from within. The wooden bolt slid back with a thump, the wooden latch went up with a click, but the ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... mercy now. I faint, I fall. Men say that thou Didst die for me, for such as me, Patient of ill, and death, and scorn, And that my sin was as a thorn Among the thorns that girt thy brow, Wounding thy soul.—That even now, In this extremest misery Of ignorance, I should require A sign! and if a bolt of fire Would rive the slumbrous summernoon While I do pray to thee alone, Think my belief would stronger grow! Is not my human pride brought low? The boastings of my spirit still? The joy I had in my freewill All cold, and dead, and corpse-like grown? And what is left to me, but thou, ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... After a week of negotiation, Roosevelt and his followers left the Republican party. Most of his supporters withdrew from the convention and the few who remained behind refused to answer the roll call. Undisturbed by this formidable bolt, the regular Republicans went on with their work. They renominated Mr. Taft and put forth a platform roundly condemning such Progressive doctrines as the recall ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... wished to consult with her as to the means. Hastily wrapping a mantilla about her, she followed the messenger to the street; then, as acting under sudden impulse, left him waiting for a moment, while she returned to bolt a door. In that moment, unseen by the messenger, she slipped a sheathed stiletto into the ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... beaming with fresh confidence, the full power of his compound being incontestably shown. Rising with the emergency, he tells them grandly, that, as he once had in his house a magnet which the thunder changed instantly from north to south, so it were well if the next bolt could change their stubborn souls from Satan to God. But afterward he is compelled to own that Satan also is sometimes permitted to have a hand in the thunder, which is the reason why it breaks oftener on churches than on any other buildings; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... King of heav'n Bar'd his red arm, and launching from the sky His writhen bolt, not shaking empty smoke, Down to the deep abyss the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... was pouring out tea in the drawing-room at a little table set almost beneath the shadow of Pam's branching palm. Miss Beveridge was sitting bolt upright in an easy-chair, looking as if she were accustomed to be uncomfortable, and uncomfortable she was determined to be, in spite of all conspiracies to the contrary. She wore a severe black dress, and her iron-grey hair was brushed back from her face with almost painful neatness. ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... would have been a most injudicious selection as commander-in-chief. Historians are agreed, I believe, that if the advice of this classic "Micawber," to the consuls Livius and Nero, had been followed by them, the battle of "The Metaurus" would not have been fought, the two sons of the "Thunder-bolt" would have effected their junction, and would, in all probability, have forced the legions to another and final "change ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... A bolt is fallen from the blue. A wakened realm full circle swings Where Dothan's dreamer dreams anew Of vast and farborne harvestings; And unto him an Empire clings That grips the purpose of his plan. My Lords, how think you of these things? Once—in ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling

... it was a Statue of a Man in Armour sitting by a Table, and leaning on his Left Arm. He held a Truncheon in his right Hand, and had a Lamp burning before him. The Man had no sooner set one Foot within the Vault, than the Statue erecting it self from its leaning Posture, stood bolt upright; and upon the Fellow's advancing another Step, lifted up the Truncheon in his Right Hand. The Man still ventur'd a third Step, when the Statue with a furious Blow broke the Lamp into a thousand Pieces, and left his ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... chopping it, but you could more easily chop a bolt of linen sheeting. The axe laboriously chewed out little ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... itself, some guarantee of its duration in pleasures which, on the contrary, would have no existence apart from love and must cease with its passing, that when he left her, at seven o'clock, to go and dress for the evening, all the way home, sitting bolt upright in his brougham, unable to repress the happiness with which the afternoon's adventure had filled him, he kept on repeating to himself: "What fun it would be to have a little woman like that in a place where one could always be certain of finding, what one never can be certain of ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... when it comes to the rig, or trim, or cut of a sail, how should a l'Orient or a Brest man understand what is comely? There is no equalling, after all, a good, wholesome, honest English top-sail; which is neither too narrow in the head, nor too deep in the hoist; with a bolt-rope of exactly the true size, robands and earings and bowlines that look as if they grew there, and sheets that neither nature nor art could alter to advantage. Here are these Americans, now, making innovations in ship-building, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... appearance, as they did at another Briton who had acquired the chewing-gum habit, and came up for his medal as if he had been called suddenly in the middle of his dinner, which he was still endeavouring to bolt. Then came the end, with the National Anthem. The British regiment formed fours and went past. To me that was the most impressive sight of any. They were the Queen's West Surreys, a veteran regiment of the great Ypres battle. What grand fellows! As ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle

... wouldn't mind walking in, I'll find him directly.' They walked in; and Sissy, having set two chairs for them, sped away with a quick light step. It was a mean, shabbily furnished room, with a bed in it. The white night-cap, embellished with two peacock's feathers and a pigtail bolt upright, in which Signor Jupe had that very afternoon enlivened the varied performances with his chaste Shaksperean quips and retorts, hung upon a nail; but no other portion of his wardrobe, or other token of himself or his pursuits, was to be seen ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... ship then lying off the coast, he heard a noise in their room. He jumped down among them with the lanthorn in his hand. Two of those who had been ill-used by him, forced themselves out of their irons, and, seizing him, struck him with the bolt of them, and it was with some difficulty that he was extricated from ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... No, to sit bolt upright, as I will if I can," said old Mr. Palmer, entering into the pleasantry of the young people as readily as if he had been the youngest man in the company. As he looked round, his good countenance beamed ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... door slid shut. A bolt shot home. All the Legion was now aboard, and communication with the ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... the river. In the morning every part of our sleigh except at the points of friction, was white with frost. Each little fibre projecting from our cover of canvas and matting became a miniature stalactite, and the head of every nail, bolt, and screw, buried itself beneath a mass like oxydised silver. Everything had seized upon and congealed some of the moisture floating in the atmosphere. Our horses were of the color, or no color, of rabbits in January; it was ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... from Sary, and the mistress turned to see why she did not come to assist. The ludicrous expression on the widow's face, as she sat bolt upright with her blackened hands raised heavenward in silent protest, made ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... circumstances, or something approximating them, such as pajama trousers, or the neglect to conceal that portion of a shirt not intended for the public eye, almost any man of my acquaintance would have made a wild bolt for the nearest bar, hissing like a teakettle. Note: This was written when the word bar did not mean to forbid or to prohibit. The gingham-apron lady merely stood up smilingly, took it off and gave it to the waiter, who being a man returned it ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... were already going to work. For he saw a long line, fifty men at the least count, filing out toward the spot where the water-barrels stood in the long-bodied wagons, while other crowds of men were grouped about one of the wagons. And then suddenly he sat bolt upright, strangely uneasy. It was still long ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... "Thou, because I am wroth, be not dismayed, for I shall win the strife, whoever circle round within for the defence. This their insolence is not new, for of old they used it at a less secret gate, which still is found without a bolt. Above it thou didst see the dead inscription; and already on this side of it descends the steep, passing without escort through the circles, One such that by him the city shall be ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... one save Piggy had tried to take a chair by his Heart's Desire when the plates came around, there would have been a fight. Mealy Jones knew this, and he knew what Piggy did not know, that it would have been a fight of two against one. So Piggy sat bolt upright in his chair beside the black-and-red checked dress, and talked to the room at large; but he spoke no word to the maiden at his side. She noticed that Piggy kept dropping his knife, and the solicitude of her sex prompted her to ask: "Are ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White

... family—they are all a bad lot—a witch's brood! faugh! but to Mademoiselle Daniels whom she feared would secure the prize. Madame carried on dreadful! When she went away last time, it is true she had a telegram from her uncle—but that was a happy accident. She was going to bolt anyway, and that came in so nicely! She was planning to elope with one of ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... nostrils drank in the smell of fresh blood—sprang into their collars as if they would bolt in fright. The two syces, squatting on their heels at the horses' heads, had sprung to their feet, and now were caressing the necks of the Arabs as they held them each with a hand ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... a bolt o' moleskin and a bolt o' kersey cloth," said Mrs. Twig. "I'll make the adikeys from that, and a pair o' moleskin trousers. We're a bit short o' underclothes. We gets Toby new ones this year, and I can mend up his old ones to do he for a bit until ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace

... the second great error of his life when he consented to bolt the caucus nominee of his party. It was an act of conscious baseness. He had not manfully put forward his strength. Instead of managing, he temporised; instead of meeting his adversaries with a will, he did nothing, while they ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... heart and unfaltering step upon the exultant foe. This was during a most fearful thunder-storm, so furious that with difficulty could ammunition be kept at all serviceable, and the roar of cannon could scarcely be heard a half dozen miles away. The Rebel ranks recoiled and broke before this terrible bolt of war. Just before dark, while riding too carelessly over the field and very near the rebel lines, Kearny was shot dead by one of the enemy's sharpshooters. His command devolved upon General Birney, who ordered another charge, which was executed with great gallantry, driving ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... his vigilance long enough to nod assent; whereupon his horse took instant advantage of the slackened rein to bolt off homeward, despite all the swaying and ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... and rude language, he will stand at your door and will not leave you. Then his wings drop from him, and he grows strong and fierce, and deadly and beautiful, as the fallen archangel of heaven, crying aloud bitter things to you by day and night; till at the last he will break down bolt and bar and panel, and enter your chamber, and drag you out with him to your death ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford

... affected donkeys (or thought she did, till she tried to drive one), and usually went first in a small vehicle like a chair on wheels, drawn by an animal who looked about the size of a mouse, when the stately Mat in full array, yellow parasol, long whip, camp-stool, and sketch-book, sat bolt upright on her perch, driving in ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... worked in a pattern of roses. All about the walls were cupboards, locked and padlocked, and concealed from view by hangings of dark-coloured arras. Dick made the round, lifting the arras, sounding the panels, seeking vainly to open the cupboards. He assured himself that the door was strong, and the bolt solid; then he set down his lamp upon a bracket, and once ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... get back sooner," he said; "the case was desperate, and I was afraid to leave it. You will find a key on the chimney-piece—throw it out to me, and I can let myself in; I told them not to bolt the door before ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... quequer Roben went, A god bolt owthe he toke; So ney on to the marke he went, He ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang

... carts from that B.P.P. truck, and be off as soon as you can. The Eurasian in the pink shirt is your interpreter and guide. You'll find an apothecary of sorts tied to the yoke of the second wagon. He's been trying to bolt; you'll have to look after him. Lizzie, drive Miss Martyn to camp, and tell them to send the red horse ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling



Words linked to "Bolt" :   roll, bang, abandonment, gobble, kingpin, rush, eat, flee, bar, unbolt, safety bolt, lock, bolt out, deadbolt, political science, swivel pin, go forth, slap, nut and bolt, safety lock, colloquialism, furl, kingbolt, lightning, bolt cutter, rifle, screw, slapdash, swallow, rigidly, stove bolt, run off, desertion, take flight, head, politics, thunderbolt, rushing, abscond, fly, machine bolt, hurry, decamp, levant, stiffly, bolt of lightning, clinch, forsaking, beetle off, go off, run out, absquatulate, expansion bolt



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