Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Breakwater   Listen
noun
Breakwater  n.  Any structure or contrivance, as a mole, or a wall at the mouth of a harbor, to break the force of waves, and afford protection from their violence.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Breakwater" Quotes from Famous Books



... the admission from the Atlantic into the Chagre of a larger class of vessels than those drawing twelve feet might be thus facilitated, according to Mr Lloyd's own avowal a breakwater would still be necessary at the entrance of Limon Bay, which is situated round Point Brujas, about eight geographical miles higher up towards Porto Bello than the mouth of that river, as the heavy sea setting into the bay would render the anchorage of vessels insecure. An immense deal of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... Pacific and Indian Oceans, which goes by the name of an "Atoll." This is, to all intents and purposes, an encircling reef, without anything to encircle; or, in other words, without an island in the middle of its lagoon. The atoll has exactly the appearance of a vast, irregularly oval, or circular, breakwater, enclosing smooth water in its midst. The depth of the water in the lagoon rarely exceeds twenty or thirty fathoms, but, outside the reef, it deepens with great rapidity to 200 or 300 fathoms. The depth immediately outside the barrier, or encircling, reefs, ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley

... There are cornices on all sides, with steps to ascend to the top, where a long inscription proclaims the name, rank, and virtues of the founder, with dates of the commencement of the island and the shrine. The whole of the space, extending to the low stone breakwater that surrounds the island, is paved with the same kind of brick, and encloses, in addition to the P'hra-Cha-dei ("The Lord's Delight"), a smaller temple with a brass image of the sitting Buddha. It also ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... originally sunk. And here two currents meet, forming a very strong one. It was that which threw us off our course. As long as we remain behind the wreck we'll be safe. But beyond her we may be in danger. She's firmly held in the sand, or, at best, is drifting only slightly. She'll be a sort of undersea breakwater for us. And now to see if we can ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton

... Tobermory resembles that of Oban. A quiet bay has its secure island-breakwater in front; a line of tall, well-built houses, not in the least rural in their aspect, but that seem rather as if they had been transported from the centre of some stately city entire and at once, sweeps round its inner inflection, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... the hold; Slack'd the retaining shrouds, and quickly struck And stow'd away the mast; then with their sweeps Pull'd for the beach, and cast their anchors out, And made her fast with cables to the shore. Then on the shingly breakwater themselves They landed, and the sacred hecatomb To great Apollo; and Chryseis last. Her to the altar straight Ulysses led, The wise in counsel; in her father's hand He plac'd the maiden, and address'd him thus: "Chryses, from Agamemnon, King of men, To thee I come, thy daughter to restore; ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... naval career I was a sufferer to sea-sickness, which began on this brig. No sooner had we passed the Plymouth Breakwater Lighthouse, when the brig would begin rolling, and I would repair to the lee-scupper. In connection with this part of my story I must not omit to say a kind word for the captain. When many of us poor boys lay strewn along the deck like ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling

... seen the bows swing westward of Dover Castle and head toward the pier. Would Sylvia be there, he had wondered, as he watched the cluster of atoms on the quay, and in a little while he had seen her, standing quite alone, at the very end of the breakwater that she might catch the first glimpse of her lover. Others had traveled with them in the carriage to London and there had been no opportunity of speech. All that he knew was that she had been alone now for some weeks in the little house ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason

... breakwater the sea was almost as smooth as a mirror. The water was wonderfully transparent, and they could see hundreds of tropical fish swimming lazily at a great depth. On the beach the waves lapped in musical ripples, in striking contrast to the ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes

... defiles of the Alleghanies, would form a permanent bulwark between the young Anglo-Saxon republic and the French possessions on the Mississippi. But the permanent bulwark could no more resist the advancing wave than a lath and plaster breakwater could withstand the seas of the Channel. In a few short years not a vestige of it was to be found, and in less than a quarter of a century both French and Cherokees had disappeared from the scene. Not only were the defiles of the Alleghanies ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... creatur," Samson said; "and now I'm a-takin' you down the Indian River into Rehoboth Bay; and arter dark I'll git you up the beach to Cape Hinlopen, and maybe I kin buy you a passage on some of dem stone boats dat's buildin' de new breakwater dar, and dat goes back to ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... business was with the President. "Mr. MacGentle in?" "That way, sir." You opened a door with "Private" painted in black letters upon its ground-glass panel. Another bald-headed gentleman, with a grim determination about the mouth, rose up from his table and barred your way. This was Mr. Dyke, the breakwater against which the waves of would-be intruders into the inner seclusion often broke themselves in vain; and unless you had a genuine pass, your ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... be seen a remarkable illustration of English interest long ago felt in the people of these valleys. This is the long embankment or breakwater, built by a grant from Oliver Cromwell, for the purpose of protecting the village against the inundations of the Pelice, by one of which it was nearly destroyed in the time of the Protectorate. It seems strange indeed that England ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... changed we can fix it up before we turn her over to you to beat Mascola. If you can spare the time I'll take you back with me to Port Angeles. That will give you a good chance to see her perform in rough water as it's blowing up nasty off the breakwater." ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... either side and set the canoes to rocking madly, while the crowd cheered and shouted. After the launching, the schooners were towed out to sea, and down the coast, to be fitted elsewhere. We boys followed them in canoes as far as the breakwater, and watched them disappear. Soon their sails would be set, and they would join the white adventurers out there on the ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... patent time-clock in the morning and released of an evening with a whistle—and it's one of the things no master can ever understand. So Rooum came and went erratically, showing up maybe in Leeds or Liverpool, perhaps next on Plymouth breakwater, and once he turned up in an out-of-the-way place in Glamorganshire just when I was wondering what had ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... knicknacks and curiosities, which Elizabeth always laughed at, such as a glass ship, which was surrounded with miniature watering-pots, humming-tops, knives and forks, a Tonbridge-ware box, a gold-studded horn bonbonniere, a Breakwater-marble ruler, several varieties of pincushions, a pen-wiper with a doll in the middle of it, a little dish of money-cowries, and another of Indian shot, the seed of the mahogany tree, some sea-eggs, a false book made of the wreck of the Royal ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the new breakwater which government is constructing here at great expense. When finished it is proposed that the Indian steamers shall call here instead of at Galle, the harbor of which is dangerous. This may be a decided improvement upon the whole, but the tourist ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... in Canada being appointed for life has acted as a breakwater of adamant and reinforced concrete against all labor or capital legislation that has arisen from the passions of the moment. More than once when labor or capital, holding the whip handle in the Commons, would have forced through hasty legislation as to compensation, as to liability, as to non-liability—the ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... came into view like a flock of ducks, still so far off that the boys could not hear the sound of paddles. Presently Muata splashed back, and, towing the boat, made across a barrier of reeds that had been banked up, forming a sort of natural breakwater, and most effectually hiding the mouth of the stream he sought. Mr. Hume was awakened, and the entire crew, taking to the water, managed to hoist the boat over the barrier. This done, they climbed on board again, ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... need hardly be said. Yet I cannot leave this beauty of the sea at Capri without touching on a melodrama of light and colour I once saw at Castellammare. It was a festa night, when the people sent up rockets and fireworks of every hue from the harbour-breakwater. The surf rolled shoreward like a bath of molten metals, all confused of blue, and red, and green, and gold—dying dolphin tints that burned strangely beneath the purple skies and tranquil stars. Boats at sea hung out their crimson cressets, flickering ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... stripped, and scratched, veined with shaken trenches and lined with parallel cuttings that vividly reveal the clay and the chalky soil. Nothing is stirring there; and our shells that burst in places with wide spouts of foam like huge billows seem to deliver their resounding blows upon a great breakwater, ruined ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... a modest little affair. The town itself is flung down a steep hill, at the mouth of a verdurous gorge; and lies pitched so far as the very waterside, a picturesque jumble of wall and roof. Its banked edges bristle and stand up in the bight of a vaster bay, with a crooked breakwater, like a bent finger, beckoning passing sails to its harbourage—an invitation which most are coy of accepting. For the attractions of King's Cobb are—comparatively—limited, and its nearest station is a full six miles ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... in the midst of beauty, and, for the first time for many days, I was for a little while really happy. Later on I took a tram back to Genoa, and walked up to the tall lighthouse on the further side of the town, and looked westward at the great curve of the shore, beyond the breakwater and ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton

... and the great boat, spick and span in the glory of new paint, standing ready on its rollers, and the record of splendid rescues in past years inscribed upon the walls. There was the circular basin-harbour, with the workmen slowly repairing the breakwater, and a couple of ancient looking schooners reposing on their sides in the mud at low tide. And there, back on the hill, looking down over the town and far away across the yellow waters of the Bristol Channel, was the high tower of ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... the chord of the arc, formed rather more than a semicircle by the natural formation of the coast, and was further improved by a long reef of hard sandstone, which extended from either point like an artificial breakwater. ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... stooping and the red evening light; I may have only had another of the morbid fancies that seemed to be dancing about me. He merely said gruffly to the man: 'You clear out of this.' And, motioning me to follow, set off wading shoreward without paying further attention to him. He stepped on to a stone breakwater that ran out from among the roots of the sand-hills, and so struck homeward, perhaps thinking our incubus would find it less easy to walk on such rough stones, green and slippery with seaweed, than we, who were young ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... detained. Reached Boulogne in safety, and in high spirits made our way on board the steamer, deposited our traps below, came on deck, and prepared for the ordeal. A high north-wester had been blowing all day, and as we ran along behind the breakwater, I could see over it the white and green waves fiendishly running, and showing their malign eyes sparkling with hungry expectation. "Come out, come out!" they seemed to say; "come out, you little black imp of a steamer; ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... cause any of the trio to blanch. It was not a long run to Big Wreck Cove. Properly manned, the Seamew should make it prettily in three or four hours. In addition, there was little but an open roadstead before the port of Hollis. The breakwater was scarcely strong enough to fend off the waves in a real gale. And they knew ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... admirably sheltered by the land on three sides, while on the North it is sheltered by a large breakwater, which is protected and leaves passage for vessels. The passages are guarded by forts placed on islands intervening between the breakwater and the mainland, and themselves united to the ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman

... how General Dumouriez has quitted Normandy and the Cherbourg Breakwater, to come—whither we may guess. It is his second or even third trial at Paris, since this New Era began; but now it is in right earnest, for he has quitted all else. Wiry, elastic unwearied man; whose life was but a battle and a march! No, not a creature of ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... however, my wonder was soon allayed by discovering that we had made Plymouth during the small hours, and were now anchored in the Sound, midway between Mount Edgecombe and the breakwater. ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... sacredness, its rank as the first necessity of society and the deepest concern of the nation. We shall continue to maintain the White Slave Trade and protect its exploiters by, on the one hand, tolerating the white slave as the necessary breakwater of marriage; and, on the other, trampling on her and degrading her until she has nothing to hope from our Courts; and so, with policemen at every corner, and law triumphant all over Europe, she will still be smuggled ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... of soldiers of the regiment then in garrison went down one sultry afternoon for a swim. It was a lovely spot for bathing; the water was blue, clear and calm, as the reef that stretched far out to sea served as a breakwater to the heavy surf, and preserved the inner water as smooth as a lake. Here were a fine lot of English soldiers stripped to bathe; and although the ruddy hue of British health had long since departed in the languid climate of the East, nevertheless their spirits were as high ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... floating fortresses Villefranche was useful to France. Now it sees only torpedo-boats and destroyers, and the lack of direct communication with the interior has prevented its commercial development. Better an artificial breakwater with no Alps behind than a natural harbor with a ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons

... they had reached the end of the great breakwater, terminating in a lighthouse, the limit, on one side, of the inner harbor. The sun ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... inside me and began, strangely, to howl with all my strength; but a howl, however successful, cannot break down a lump of steel. The pains continued. My mouth filled with bile. Soon, thank heaven, my chest would burst. O—oh—oh.... Then we rowed inside the islands that served as a breakwater, and I ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun

... happened that in 1616 the Eendragt stumbled on Australia opposite Shark's Bay. Her captain, Dirk Hartog, landed on the long island which lies as a natural breakwater between the bay and the ocean, and erected a metal plate to record his visit; and Dirk Hartog Island is the name it bears to this day. The plate remained till 1697, when another Dutchman, Vlaming, substituted a new one for it; and Vlaming's plate, in turn, remained till 1817, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... worked to a merry tune that struck chill to the bereaved; yards were braced for casting, anchor hove, catted, and fished, sail was spread with amazing swiftness, the ship's head dipped, and slowly and gracefully paid off towards the breakwater, and she stood out to sea under swiftly-swelling canvas ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... Norway; coal, iron, manufactured goods and agricultural produce are the chief exports. The harbour, with wet and slip dock, occupies both sides of the river from the New Bridge to the sea, and is protected on the south by a pier projecting some distance into the sea, and on the north by a breakwater with a commodious dry dock. There are esplanades to the south and north of the harbour. The town is governed by a provost and council, and unites with Irvine, Inveraray, Campbeltown and Oban in returning one member ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... what headland this might be; but Thorbeorn knew it was not Ericsfrith, which he had intended to make. They rounded it, however, without mishap, and had a fair wind when they were beyond it. At last they could see a shore with a rough breakwater of stones; and presently upon that shore some men standing together. They cast anchor and let down their sails, and before all was shipshape a boat came rowing out to them, with a man in the stern in a blue ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett

... reached Plymouth Harbour. As they entered the mouth of the breakwater, the tender came alongside to convey them ashore. Guy looked over the bulwarks and saw Cyril waiting for him. In a fervour of delight at the sight of the green fields and the soft hills of old England—the ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... settlement. The prison boats, which had put off every morning at sunrise to the foot of the timbered ranges on the other side of the harbour, had not appeared for some days. The building of a pier, or breakwater, running from the western point of the settlement, was discontinued; and all hands appeared to be occupied with the newly-built Osprey, which was lying on the slips. Parties of soldiers also daily left the ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... This is a serious objection to the port where every ton of freight must be transferred between ship and shore by lighters. Nevertheless, this difficulty might be easily overcome by the construction of a substantial breakwater, such as has lately been successfully built at Colombo, Ceylon, or that which has robbed the roadstead of Madras, India, of its former terrors. To be sure, such a plan requires enterprise and the liberal expenditure of money. Unless the citizens open their ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... two o'clock in the day on our return to Montpelier, not a little envying the horses and mules their cool quarters in the immense remise. Within a mile of Cette lies the breakwater of rough stones, which forms a prominent object in the foreground of Vernet's picture, and serves to ascertain the spot from whence he took his design. At Villeneuve, where we stopped to bait the horses, we were diverted by a scene ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes

... called it was nearly sunrise, and between that time and breakfast, although quite busy on board in getting up water-casks, &c., I had a good view of the objects about me. The harbor was nearly land-locked, and at the head of it was a landing, protected by a small breakwater of stones, upon which two large boats were hauled up, with a sentry standing over them. Near this was a variety of huts or cottages, nearly a hundred in number, the best of them built of mud or unburnt ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... architect, who built Waterloo and Southwark Bridges, Plymouth Breakwater, &c., was for a short time in the employ of Boulton ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... 12-pounder gun, steering wheel, compass, and engine-room telegraphs, was placed on the top of the turtle-back and about 25 feet from the bows. It acted as a most excellent breakwater and took the brunt of the heavier seas, and how often the Rapier came back into harbour with her bridge rails flattened down and her deck fittings washed overboard, I really do not know. It was a fairly frequent occurrence, ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling

... his Diary (Dec. 30th, 1818) a most amusing blunder of a translator who knew nothing of the technical name for a breakwater. He translated the line in Goldsmith's ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley

... border of green reedy marshes, is in striking contrast to the wild waste of sands at Cape Henlopen. Yet in one way the Brandywine Hills are closely connected with those sands, for from these very hills have been quarried the hard rocks for the great breakwater at the Cape, behind which the fleets of merchant ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher

... slipped through the breakwater of Alexandria. Hundreds awaited her coming—nurses, doctors, and friends. Bill and Claud could not get up to view the scene. But Paddy watched it all. His eyes scanned the faces on shore. At last they rested on a familiar figure—a girl with a beautiful form, a charming ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell

... communications between the Russian base in Georgia and the Russian garrisons in Turkestan were firmly established. Thereafter the flood of Russian conquest overflowed irresistibly the plains of Central Asia, until it was arrested by another breakwater, the kingdom of Afghanistan. It is true that the North-western Afghan borderlands were comparatively open and easily penetrable by an invading force; but beyond them lie lofty ranges with passes at high altitudes, guarded by a hard-fighting and intractable people, and on the farther side of these ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... sail acted not only as a floating anchor, but as a breakwater, and the white crested waves, which came on as if they would break upon the boat, seemed robbed of half their violence by the obstruction to their course, and passed under the felucca without breaking. For forty-eight hours the gale continued; at the end of that time it ceased almost as suddenly ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... harbour at distant Salerno, and though this legend sounds foolish enough, it is scarcely less flimsy than the notions already quoted. A certain enchanter, one Pietro Bajalardo, undertook—in modern parlance, contracted—to build in a single night the much needed breakwater at Salerno on the strange condition that all cocks in the neighbourhood should first be killed; for the wizard, so the story runs, had a special aversion to Chanticleer on account of his having caused the repentance of St Peter by his crowing. In any case, the reigning ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... town being at the western end. The new town has risen above the ruins of its wealthy, iniquitous predecessor, suddenly overwhelmed by an earthquake, and in a few seconds sunk many fathoms deep beneath the ocean. The spit forms a natural breakwater to the magnificent harbour of Port Royal, or Kingston, capable of containing in its spacious basin the fleets of all the world. The batteries of Port Royal completely command its entrance, aided by the guns ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... the railway is cut through an extraordinary natural fortification of rocks; and if we ascend the heights of Le Roule, we shall obtain, what a Frenchman calls, a vue feerique du Cherbourg. We shall look down upon the magnificent harbour with its breakwater and surrounding forts, and see a fleet of iron-clads at anchor, surrounded by smaller vessels of all nations; gun-boats, turret-ships and every modern invention in the art of maritime war, but scarcely any ships of commerce. The whole ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... down beside the school-house for Dunure. And so, when I found a lone house among the snow, and heard a babble of childish voices from within, I struck off into a steep road leading downwards to the sea. Dunure lies close under the steep hill: a haven among the rocks, a breakwater in consummate disrepair, much apparatus for drying nets, and a score or so of fishers' houses. Hard by, a few shards of ruined castle overhang the sea, a few vaults, and one tall gable honeycombed with windows. The snow lay on the beach to the tidemark. It was daubed on to ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... diverted from the south at a cost of L. 80,000, and 90 acres of new ground (in addition to 25 acres formerly made up) were provided on the north side of the river for the Albert Basin (with a graving dock), quays and warehouses. A breakwater of concrete, 1050 ft. long, was constructed on the south side of the stream as a protection against south-easterly gales. On Girdleness, the southern point of the bay, a lighthouse was built in 1833. Near the harbour ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... also seen the ship out, and, perched on the extreme end of the breakwater, he remained watching until she was hull down on the horizon. Then he made his way back to the town and the nearest confectioner, and started for home just as Miss Nugent, who was about to pay a call with her aunt, waited, beautifully dressed, in ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... to be understood that the new land was really new, and not the other side of the old one; but this only prompted the adventurers to get past or through it to the first goal of their ambition. They had not yet realized the vastness of the Pacific, and took America to be a mere breakwater protecting the precious shores of Cathay. Later, they found that America repaid looting on her own account; but meanwhile there was set on foot that search for the Northwest Passage which resulted in the discovery of almost everything except the Passage itself. To the craze ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... you never saw Cleveland, Ohio, then," said Fitz, "'n' Euclid Avenue, 'n' Wade Park, 'n' the cannons in the square, 'n' the breakwater, 'n' never eat Silverthorn's potatoes at Rocky River, 'n' never went to a picnic at Tinker's Creek, 'n' never saw Little Mountain 'n' ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... down and dropped anchor inside the Breakwater. Sweeping toward her, pushing the white foam in long lines from her bow, her flag of black smoke trailing behind, came the company's tender—out from Cherbourg ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... "Those girls from the Breakwater seem to have spite against us," remarked Jack. "That is the second time they have stepped ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose

... day witnessed the arrival of the Kearsarge at Dover, England, for dispatches, and the day after (Tuesday) her appearance off Cherbourg Breakwater. At anchor in the harbor was seen the celebrated Alabama—a beautiful specimen of naval architecture, eliciting encomiums for evident neatness, good order, and a well-disciplined crew, indicative of efficiency in any duty required. The surgeon ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne

... not a very good one originally, but they have made it so by extending into the sea a breakwater, which shelters it from the gales that formerly swept it. It is not a large harbor, but an ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox

... de Massas presented a project (the first in order of date), which consisted in constructing upon the Eclat reef a semi-lunate dike, and a breakwater at Cape Heve. Moreover, upon the emergent parts of the Eclat reef and heights of the roadstead he proposed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various

... P.M. I cast anchor at Fayal, exactly eighteen days from Cape Sable. The American consul, in a smart boat, came alongside before the Spray reached the breakwater, and a young naval officer, who feared for the safety of my vessel, boarded, and offered his services as pilot. The youngster, I have no good reason to doubt, could have handled a man-of-war, but the Spray was too small for the amount of uniform he wore. However, after fouling all the ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... over the enclosure which belonged to the lighthouse, out through the little gate in the fence, and now she came in full career down the slope. "Have you been waiting?" she cried, as she came on to the extreme point of the breakwater. He was just going to tell her not to jump, but it was too late; without lessening her speed, she had already sprung from the pier down into the boat. Her feet slipped from her, and she fell in a sitting posture ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... principal quay, which is being constructed of solid concrete, and is connected with the shore by an iron and steel viaduct over 750 ft. in length—which is already completed—will be 19 ft. at low water and 25 ft. at high. This quay and breakwater is shown in perspective, in plan, and in section, and is of a very heavy section, as will be gathered by the scale given immediately below it. Meanwhile the landing of cargo is temporarily carried on at the end ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various

... and eight years' existence the society never paid more than eleven annual dividends, because for many years it saved up its income for building an extension to its harbour, and eventually lost all these savings and L100,000 of Government money besides in a great breakwater, which proved an irremediable engineering failure, and lies now in the ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... of this city is almost closed, on one side, by a bold majestic promontory called Point Loma; and on the other, by a natural breakwater, in the form of a crescent, twelve miles long, upon the outer rim of which the ocean beats a ceaseless monody. At one extremity of this silver strand, directly opposite Point Loma and close to the rhythmic surf, stands ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard

... had fine weather as she ran along the south coast, anchoring under Portland for a day, while the party examined the works of the breakwater and paid a visit to the quarries, where the convicts were at work. She put into Torquay, Dartmouth and Plymouth, spending a day in the two former ports and two at the last named. They looked into Fowey, and stopped two days at Falmouth, and then, rounding the Land's End, made for Kingstown. ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... Newhaven. After many years of neglect and decay this Elizabethan sea-gate is once more of great importance in continental traffic. Much money and skill were expended during the latter half of the nineteenth century in improving the harbour and building a breakwater and new quays. Louis Philippe landed here in 1848, having left Havre in his flight from France in the steamer "Express"; he was received by William Catt, who at one time owned the tide mills at Bishopstone; this ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes

... I still had my husband, who ran off in search of him. And this is the queer part of the story: he brought back the Spaniard's clothes, which he had found under a big stone on a sort of breakwater along the river bank, nearly opposite la Grande Breteche. My husband went so early that no one saw him. After reading the letter, he burnt the clothes, and, in obedience to Count Feredia's wish, we announced ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac

... the sea observes three islets of bare limestone rock that are apparently a prolongation of that rocky promontory now crowned by the fortress of S. Nicolas, and that act as a natural breakwater against wave and storm from the S.E. They go by the names of Pomegue, Ratonneau, and Chateau d'If. But the classic geographers called the group the Little Stoechades, and named these islets Phoenice, Phila, ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... Captain Ole Peterson arrived at Cape Town. As the steamer which bore him slipped up Table Bay to her pier All Hands And Feet saw a big barkentine, flying the American flag, at anchor just inside the breakwater and rightly conjectured she was his future command. Three hours ashore proved ample time to consummate all of the Retriever's neglected business. He discovered that the man to whom he was to administer a good, sound, commercial thrashing, ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... The Teutons were to be compelled to disinterest themselves in the affairs of Russia, with whose destinies their own are so closely bound up. But they soon realized that such a partition is useless as a breakwater against the tidal wave of Teutondom, and Germany is still destined to play the part of Russia's ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... reef and then to the island, sir. There's two islands inside the reef forming the breakwater. More than once the same thing has happened. Men had been there before me, and had been fetched away by passing ships, and men may be there now for ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... lay wrapped in sleep; everything looked so peaceful and lovely all around, with the exception of a little stir of awakening toil on board one single steamer in the harbor. A sleepy fisherman stuck his head up out of the half-deck of his ten-oared boat, and stared at us as we steamed past the breakwater; and on the revenue cutter outside there was a man fishing in ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... morning they found that they had been driven to the landward shore of a long island, which formed a natural breakwater to a spacious bay, with a narrow entrance at either end. The island was thickly covered with woods, giving shelter to a multitude of wild goats, its only inhabitants. For the Cyclopes have no ships, ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell

... south of Venice, except in the form of small islands crowned with towers or gleaming with villages: there is a channel, some three miles wide, between the city and the mainland, and some mile and a half wide between it and the sandy breakwater called the Lido, which divides the lagoon from the Adriatic, but which is so low as hardly to disturb the impression of the city's having been built in the midst of the ocean, although the secret of its true position is partly, yet not painfully, betrayed by the clusters of piles ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... the change of monsoons, the roadstead is unsafe. Larger vessels are then obliged to seek protection in the port of Cavite, seven miles further down the coast; but during the north-east monsoons they can safely anchor half a league from the coast. All ships under three hundred tons burden pass the breakwater and enter the Pasig, where, as far as the bridge, they lie in serried rows, extending from the shore to the middle of the stream, and bear witness by their numbers, as well as by the bustle and stir going on amongst them, to the activity of ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... and the bright harbor, with its docks, breakwaters, and forest of masts in full view of the spectator. From this point we could see better than while in the harbor itself, the advantages of the new breakwater. It seems that the harbor is exposed to southeast winds, which are the prevailing ones here. When the wind freshens into a gale, the position of the ships at anchor in the harbor is a dangerous one, and the breakwaters have been ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox

... into white foam and flung up in clouds of spray. This spray sometimes flew exceedingly high, and, every here and there, a beautiful rainbow was formed for a moment among the falling drops. We afterwards found that this coral reef extended quite round the island, and formed a natural breakwater to it. Beyond this the sea rose and tossed violently from the effects of the storm; but between the reef and the shore it was as calm and as smooth ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... which filled the room with wavy reflections caught from the sea. Fishing-boats were putting off from the beach, three hundred feet below her; she could hear the grating of the keels, the songs of the boatmen. On the little breakwater to the right an artist's white umbrella shone in the sun; and a half-naked boy, poised on the bows of a boat moored beside the painter, stood bent in the eager attitude of one about to drop the bait into the blue wave below. His brown back burnt against the water. Cliff, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... highest part of the Public Gardens take the road to the right. The view is magnificent. In front is the Mediterranean, and behind Lake Thau with its villages. At the base of the mountain is Cette, and beyond Frontignan. The Port of Cette is protected by a breakwater 548 yds. long, which encloses a harbour of 210 acres, furnished with two jetties; the western, constructed by Vauban, is 656 yds. long, and the eastern 548 yds. This busy port, besides having an extensive carrying trade, has a large wine manufactory, where above 100,000 ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... the Normandy coast, about six miles from Arromanches. It is in an extremely exposed position, and many houses have been destroyed by the inroads of the sea. To prevent further damage, Lazare Chanteau constructed a breakwater, which was, however, washed away by the first storm. The inhabitants of the village were mostly engaged in fishing. La ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... Columbia, states in his report for 1903: "The first fish are reported from Otter Point. From Sherringham Point east their movement is clearly defined as they pass close in shore. They come in rapidly with the flood tides, at times close to the surface and breakwater; frequently during the last weeks of July and the first two weeks in August, in years of large runs, they show themselves plainly, a racing, leaping, bluish silver mass in the clear and rapid moving waters." Then they appear to strike ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert

... and what for shouldn't I? Too many of the Manx ones are giving the fishing the goby. There's life in the ould dog yet, though. Would be, anyway, if them rusty Kays would be doing anything for the industry. They're building piers enough for the trippers, but never a breakwater the size of a tooth-brush for the fishermen. That's reminding me, Phil—the boys are at me to get you to petition the Tynwald Court for better harbours. They're losing many a pound by not getting out ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... steered through an opening between them; but in another few minutes she struck heavily, one of her masts went over the side, and she lay fast and immovable. Fortunately, the outside bank of sand acted as a sort of breakwater; had she struck upon this the good ship would have gone to pieces instantly; but although the waves still struck her with considerable force, the captain had good hope that she would not break up. Darkness came on; the tempest seemed ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... this harbour of refuge is one of God's many providential dealings with this Mission. It is defended from the storms and heavy rolling swell of the Pacific Ocean by large and lofty islands, forming a breakwater across its entrance, extending as far out to sea as twenty miles, inside of which smaller islands, numbering nearly a hundred, form channels leading up to the foot of the snow-capped mountains, 15 or 18 miles distant, on many of which are the village gardens where potatoes ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock

... speed and enthusiasm the few miles to the sea. She reached it at a point where the cliff dwindled into flatness, where the gentle tide rattled on pebbles instead of on sand, where the tall breakwaters contradicted the line of the shore. The furthest breakwater had seaweed like hair waving on the water. At intervals it would seem to be thrust up between two glassy waves, like a victim beckoning for deliverance from the grip of some monster. And then the sea's lips would close on it ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson

... as he spoke into the turmoil of roaring spray. In ten seconds she was through the passage, and there was a sudden and almost total cessation of heaving motion. The line of islands formed a perfect breakwater, and not a wave was formed, even by the roaring gale, bigger than those we find on such occasions in an ordinary harbour. As isle after isle was passed the sea became more and more smooth, and, although the surface was torn up and covered with foam, no great rollers ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne

... tea and looked, still frowning, at the river, which began to lose its brown colour slowly, to gleam at first with pallid gold, then with a gold that shone like fire. The eddies beyond the breakwater were a light and delicate mauve and looked nervously alive. A strange radiance that was both ethereal and voluptuous, that seemed to combine elements both spiritual and material, was falling over this world, clothing ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... south-western extremity, forming a lagoon of the same length as the island, and about three-quarters of a mile wide at its widest point. The barrier reef, in fact, constituted a magnificent natural breakwater, upon which the surf eternally broke in a loud, sullen roar of everlasting thunder, while inside it the water was smooth as a mill pond, shoaling very gradually from the reef to the shore of the island, which consisted of a narrow beach of dazzling ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... choose for comfort in such weather. Nor was our feeling of security increased by the knowledge that we were skirting the edges of one of the largest mine-fields in the Adriatic. But the Sirio had scarcely poked her sharp nose around the end of the breakwater which provides the excuse for dignifying the exposed roadstead of Antivari (with the accent on the second syllable, so that it rhymes with "discovery") by the name of harbor before I saw what we had stumbled upon some form of trouble. There were three other Italian ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell

... could not cut the ropes and run away, Tom seriously considered the proposal. The next day a snug little dock was built, in which she seemed quite contented, and from which she could not escape without climbing over a stone breakwater—a feat of which there was no reason to believe ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... awhile, and well-remembered Emily in his prayers, at about eight in the morning he presented himself among his luggage at the Europe in gentlemanly trim, and soon got all on board the pilot boat, to meet the Indiaman just outside the breakwater. We may safely leave him there, happy, hopeful Charles! Sanguine for the future, exulting in the present, and thankful for the past: already has he poured out all his joys before that Friend who loves her too, and invoked His blessing on a scheme so well designed, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... them in going in. The above information is from a plan drawn by Lieutenant Jeffreys, in the Hydrographical Office at the Admiralty: it was drawn in the year 1816; since which a portion of the labour of the convicts has been employed in building a breakwater, or pier, from the south entrance to the Nobby Rock, which will tend to direct the stream of tide through the channel, and also protect it from the surf and swell, which, during a south-east gale, must render the harbour of dangerous access. The town was formerly called King's Town, but ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... world is behind us, and we dream on and on, lost in an infinity of suggestion. This quality, which, for want of a better expression, I call the optimism of painting, is a peculiar characteristic of Mr. Steer's work. We find it again in "Children Paddling". Around the long breakwater the sea winds, filling the estuary, or perchance recedes, for the incoming tide is noisier; a delicious, happy, opium blue, the blue of oblivion.... Paddling in the warm sea-water gives oblivion to those children. They forget their little worries in the sensation of sea and ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... forms a natural breakwater to the coast of Dalmatia is broken into two groups by the Punta Planka, the ancient Promontorium Syrtis, south of Sebenico. To the northern group belong Veglia, Cherso, Ossero, Arbe, Pago, and a number of ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... mooring place in Buffalo Creek, which can be navigated for about one mile, we sailed to the breakwater, a solid wall several feet high, having a length of 4,000 feet, which was erected at the expense of some millions of dollars for the protection of the city from being flooded by the unruly ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... getting into some sort of shelter," guessed Harry. "Probably von Kluck has navigated the schooner behind a breakwater." ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... now nearing the Irish coast and the barometer is as low down as I have seen it for many a year and there is every indication of a gale. The coast you intend to land on acts as a breakwater for all northern Europe and the waves that pile up on it during a storm are something astounding. The cliffs that resist them are from one hundred and eighty to three hundred feet high and they are as straight up and down as a mainmast in a calm. Cape Clear that I expect ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... them are quicksands in that river, and more than one army has perished in the effort to force its way across. The only possible safety lay in keeping to mid-stream and sweeping along with the current until something should turn up—a boat—a log—possibly a backwater, or even the breakwater of a bridge. ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy

... towering up to the summits of the hills, and feathering down to the shingle on the beach. And from this lovely spot you will witness one of the most splendid panoramas in the world. You will see—I hardly know what you will not see—you will see Ram Head, and Cawsand Bay; and then you will see the Breakwater, and Drake's Island, and the Devil's Bridge below you; and the town of Plymouth and its fortifications, and the Hoe; and then you will come to the Devil's Point, round which the tide runs devilish strong; and then you will see the New Victualling Office—about which Sir James ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... a river destined to pass close to two universities. Following then the Larig over rocks and rough stones, among which it chafes and foams, we reach a sort of barrier of stones laid together by the hand of nature with the regularity of an artificial breakwater. As we pass over this barrier, a hollow rumbling is heard beneath; for the stream, at least at ordinary times, finds its way in many rills deep down among the stones. When we reach the top of the bank we are on the edge of a circular basin, abrupt and deep, but full of water so exquisitely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... did these pebbles get three hundred yards across the lake? Hundreds of tons, some of them three feet long: who carried them across? The old Cymry were not likely to amuse themselves by making such a breakwater up here in No-man's-land, two thousand feet above the sea: but somebody or something must have carried them; for stones do ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley

... Ostende—after the great hotels—is its Digue, or Dyke, a great longdrawn-out breakwater against whose cemented walls pound the furies of the North Sea with such a virulence and force as to make one seasick even on land. "See our Digue and die," say the fisherfolk of Ostende,—those that have not been crowded out by the palace ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

... to the breakwater!' exclaimed Father Boyle, as the boat pitched finally outside the harbour fence, where a soft calm swell received them with the greeting of civilised sea-nymphs. 'The captain'll have a quieter passage across. You may spy him on the pier. We'll be meeting ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Leslie judged to be a fairly bold headland. The barrier reef, upon which the brig lay stranded, was visible with startling distinctness throughout its entire length from this point; and Leslie observed that it formed a natural and most efficient breakwater to the lagoon that stretched along the entire south-east shore of the island, curving gradually round in a crescent form until it joined the island itself at its most westerly extremity, while away to the eastward there was a deep-water passage, ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... brilliance of the new star. 'He must increase, but I must decrease,' became Saul's bitter conviction; but instead of meekly accepting the necessity, his gloomy spirit struggled against it, like stormy waves against a breakwater, and, like them, was shivered into foam in the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... vast expanse about seventy miles across from Sivan Island to Roanoke. On the seaward side stretches a chain of long and narrow islands, forming a natural breakwater north and south from Cape Lookout to Cape Hatteras and from the latter to Cape Henry, near ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... were getting very short of water and provisions. And here Augusta bid farewell to her friend the Yankee skipper; for the whaler that had saved her life and Dick's, after refitting once more, set sail upon its almost endless voyage. She stood on the breakwater at Ponta Delgada, and watched the Harpoon drop past. The men recognized her and cheered lustily, and Captain Thomas took off his hat; for the entire ship's company, down to the cabin-boy, were head-over-heels in love with Augusta; and the extraordinary offerings ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard

... after the rescue of the men of the Zeitgeist, the Fledgling, as though sentient with the instinct of self-preservation, was struggling through the riot of wind and waves, seeking the security of the Delaware Breakwater, while ten miles back, somewhere in the wild half gloom off Hog Island, three loaded coal barges which she had been towing from Norfolk were rolling, twisting, careening helplessly to destruction—if, indeed, the seas had not already taken deadly ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry

... not been as yet discovered. Teredon, or Diriaotis, appears to have been first founded by Nebuchadnezzar. It lay on the coast of the Persian Gulf, a little west of the mouth of the Euphrates, and protected by a quay, or a breakwater, from the high tides that rolled in from the Indian Ocean. There is great difficulty in identifying its site, owing to the extreme uncertainty as to the exact position of the coast-line, and the course of the river, in the time ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

... in the harbor channels, blown up, and abandoned by their crews. The ships were loaded with concrete. An old submarine, loaded with explosives, was also run under a bridge connecting the mole, or breakwater, at Zeebrugge with the shore, and there blown up, so as to prevent interruption of the raiders while they were doing their ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... prevailing norte from the Gulf, give place, as we proceed inland, to the foothills of the Eastern Sierra. Here the Cretaceous formation is shown—the hard crystalline limestone—and this, from its durable nature, has furnished material for the new breakwater at Vera Cruz. Again, as we proceed, the lower rocks are sheeted with the lava of former eruptions of volcanoes, worn away at times by the ravines, and showing the points of Cretaceous rocks protruding; and volcanic dust from the same source drifts hither and thither, and ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... circle of hidden stations. The many-colored fan of enormous rays, the Scintillator, which stands against the sky behind the Exposition, is produced by a searchlight battery of thirty-six great projectors mounted on the breakwater of the Yacht Harbor. It is manned nightly by a company of marines, who manipulate the ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... stronghold of those who exchange cash for artists' dreams. He ransacked the studio and set out on his mission in a cab bulging with large, small, and medium-sized canvases. Like a wave receding from a breakwater he returned late in the day, a ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse

... right—from one way of thinking—not to enjoy herself, unless it be that she had no congenial companions. The villa of the Lentuli was one of the newest and finest at Baiae. It rested on a sort of breakwater built out into the sea, so that the waves actually beat against the embankment at the foot of Cornelia's chamber. The building rose in several stories, each smaller than the one below it, an ornamental cupola highest of all. On the successive terraces ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... across the broad estuary drove directly into the bay. Could they once get her safely through the surf, however, they might obtain shelter under the western point, where a reef running out formed a natural breakwater. They ran her down the beach, but when near the water both Harry and the boatswain hesitated about attempting to launch her. Should they not succeed in getting her quickly through the surf, one of the heavy seas which ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston



Words linked to "Breakwater" :   jetty, barrier, groin, bulwark, groyne, mole, seawall



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com