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Diagonal   Listen
noun
Diagonal  n.  
1.
A right line drawn from one angle to another not adjacent, of a figure of four or more sides, and dividing it into two parts.
2.
(Engin.) A member, in a framed structure, running obliquely across a panel.
3.
A diagonal cloth; a kind of cloth having diagonal stripes, ridges, or welts made in the weaving.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Diagonal" Quotes from Famous Books



... whereas the bull galloped from the apex, and since his breakfast was getting hot behind him, he wished to make that triangle an isosceles. So he jammed his heels into his horse's ribs, and was fast drawing within easy range, when the buffalo got his wind and swerved on the instant into a diagonal course due southwest. ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... case, there is a compound of two forces, and a consequent loss of power: for the forces are proportioned to the two sides of a parallelogram, but the effects produced are proportioned only to the diagonal. ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... driven with some difficulty, and diagonal struts were fastened from the top of the front row to the base of the rear. Horizontal beams then secured the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... sorted one out. It was pink and glossy, with a diagonal water-stripe. Lindsay drew out the single sheet it contained, and she could see that every line was ruled and faintly pencilled. "Let me see," said he. "To begin at the beginning. 'We arrived home on the third,'—you ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... which it is manifested, and not imparted, as by history, association, etc. The decline began when this lofty isolation was felt as negative, needing to have interest and expression added to it. But whatever was added only emphasized without curing the defect. Even the "awful diagonal" of the Laocooen and the godlike triumph of the Belvedere Apollo show a lower age. Why triumph, if he was supreme before? These are casual incidents only, examples of what might happen as well to anybody, not the adequate conclusive embodiment of an idea. The more ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... From Ziscaberg top to Weissenberg top may be about five English miles; from the Hradschin to the foot of Ziscaberg, northwest to southeast, will be half that distance, the greatest length of Prag City. Which is rather rhomboidal in shape, its longer diagonal this that we mention. The shorter diagonal, from northmost base of Ziscaberg to southmost of Hradschin, is perhaps a couple of miles. Prag stands nestled in the lap of mountains; and is not in itself a strong place in war: but the country round ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... of another. Perhaps the most regal of these floral screens was one formed of costly orchids, each worth a fortune. One of the most beautiful of the spring wedding dresses was made of cream-white satin over a tulle petticoat, the tulle being held down by a long diagonal band of broad pearl embroidery, the satin train trimmed with bows of ribbon in true-lovers' knots embroidered in seed-pearls; a shower of white lilacs trimmed ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... account given by you of Mr. Wilkinson's ingenious mode of levelling the cameras for stereoscopic pictures, it is said the plumb-line should be three feet long, and that the diagonal lines drawn on the ground glass should be made to cut the principal object focussed on the glass; and "when you have moved it, the camera, 8 or 10 feet, make it cut the same object again." At what distance is ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853 • Various

... in command. The Ohio regiments were to be moved forward so that the Eleventh, Forty-fourth, and Forty-seventh could be quickly concentrated on the Lewisburg turnpike in front of Gauley Bridge, where Colonel Crook could join them with the Thirty-sixth by a diagonal road and take command of this column. I assigned to him a mixed battery of field-pieces and mountain howitzers. Colonel Scammon's brigade was to advance from Fayette C. H. to Flat-top Mountain as soon as the weather would permit, and thus secure the barrier covering our further movement southward. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... taking place, consequences incalculably distressing would arise, so much so, indeed, as to increase nervous irritation, and prevent me from attending to matters of overwhelming importance, if you do not remember to cut the mutton in a diagonal, rather than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... A broad diagonal section of this ensign would now mark the farthest goal of earth—the place where I and my ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... cardboard draw in heavy black lines a diamond with the longer diagonal three inches and the shorter diagonal an inch and a half. The specially prepared record booklet contains the diamond as well ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman

... from the No. 2 (or left) court is identically the same for the straight shot down your opponent's forehand. For the cross drive to his backhand, you must conceive of a diagonal line from your backhand corner to his, and thus make your stroke with the footwork as if this imaginary line were the side-line. In other words, line up your body along your shot and make your regular drive. Do not try to "spoon" the ball over with a delayed wrist motion, as it tends to ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D

... two diagonal bands of white (top, almost double width) and black starting from the upper hoist side; the national emblem in red is superimposed at the center; the emblem includes a swallow-tailed flag on top of a winged column within an upturned crescent above a scroll and flanked ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... of RAPHAEL, we often see the actors grouped into a pyramidal form. In this of MURILLO, they present a diagonal line; extending from the head of the Saint to that of the mother, and down to a pannier in the corner of the picture, which contains her needle-work attached to a cushion in the Spanish fashion. At her feet a small dog is seated, of the Mexican race, which ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... stone, worn by the constant dripping, had, in some places, given way. In shape, the vault was circular. The integral between each massive pillar formed a pointed arch. Again, from each pillar sprang other arches, which, crossed by diagonal, ogive branches, weaving one into the other, and radiating from the centre, formed those beautifully intricate combinations upon which the eye of the architectural enthusiast loves to linger. Within the ring formed by these triple columns, in which again the pillars had their own web of arches, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... wearing something black and satiny, cut in the newest Dallas-approved style, with long, tantalizing diagonal slashes across the breast and hips. Her hair was strikingly two-toned, black and blonde. Her teeth were a blinding white, and had been filed ...
— Get Out of Our Skies! • E. K. Jarvis

... a lawless enemy, and accordingly he was induced to retire a little to the rear. It soon appeared, however, to 10 those who watched the vapory shroud in the desert, that its motion was not such as would argue the direction of the march to be exactly upon the pavilion, but rather in a diagonal line, making an angle of full 45 degrees with that line in which the imperial cortege had been standing, 15 and therefore with a distance continually increasing. Those who knew the country judged that the Kalmucks were making for a large fresh-water lake about seven ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... and speed of his body behind them. Away went the gate into the field, and away went Simpson and the bull with it, the latter nearly breaking his neck, for his horns were entangled in the bars, one of them by the diagonal bar. Simpson's right leg was jammed betwixt the gate and the head and horns of the bull. He roared, and his roars maddened Nimrod, furious already that he could not get his horns clear. Shake and pull as he might, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... a yellow sailing ship facing the hoist side rides on a dark blue background with yellow wavy lines under the ship; on the hoist side, a vertical band is divided into three parts: the top part (called ikkurina) is red with a green diagonal cross extending to the corners overlaid by a white cross dividing the rectangle into four sections; the middle part has a white background with an ermine pattern; the third part has a red background with two stylized ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... ensign-staff, from which the banner of England was wont to float. It was gone, with all its rich emblazonry, its gorgeous quarterings, and splendid embroidery; and in its room waved that of the Commonwealth, the cross of Saint George, in its colours of blue and red, not yet intersected by the diagonal cross of Scotland, which was soon after assumed, as if in evidence of England's conquest over her ancient enemy. This change of ensigns increased the train of his gloomy reflections, in which, although contrary to his wont, he became so deeply wrapped, that the first thing which ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... steam pipes, as a means of heating buildings, cuts off one avenue of danger from fire. This is an error. Iron pipes, often heated up to 400°, are placed in close contact with floors and skirting-boards, supported by slight diagonal props of wood, which a much lower degree of heat will suffice to ignite. The circular rim supporting a still at the Apothecaries' Hall, which was used in the preparation of some medicament that required a temperature of 300°, was found not long ago to have charred ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.

... current is swift, and the swirling eddies are strong and constantly changing their position. On leaving the American shore, they were obliged to pull up stream as far as possible. But when caught by the resistless sweep of the current, they were borne rapidly down, their track being an acute diagonal across the stream. To reach the only available landing- place, they must again row up stream in the slack water on the Canadian side, their whole course being thus like the outline of the letter 'N'. [Footnote: The present writer has a vivid remembrance ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... of houses hemmed three sides of the yard; a high, board fence, surrounded by cats, the other. A wash of clothes was suspended high upon a line stretched from diagonal corners. Those were property clothes, and were never taken in by 'Tonio. They were there that wits with defective pronunciation might make puns in connection ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... watch with some faint pulse of interest the changing hues of light, and the clouds that shifted lazily aside, or heaped themselves up into rounded battlements of snow. Quite close to the window a single cherry branch, sweeping downward, cut space with a thick, diagonal line. Silvery lichens frilled the upper surface of the bark, and at the tip of each leafless twig, brown buds—small armored magazines of beauty—hinted already of the spring's rebirth. Life was all about ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... man, clad in a sober uniform of gray cloth, with silver buttons and silver braid. A Sam Browne belt of wide blue leather marched across his extensive diagonal in a gentle curve. The band of his vizored military cap showed the initials C.P.H. in silver embroidery. His face, broad and clean-shaven, shone with a lustre which was partly warmth and partly simple friendliness. Save for a certain ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley

... all its angles are right angles, and its sides are equal. Q. How many angles has it? A. Four angles. Q. What would it make if we draw a line from one angle to the opposite one? A. Two right-angled isoceles triangles. Q. What would you call the line that we drew from one angle to the other? A. A diagonal. Q. Suppose we draw another line from the other two angles. A. Then it would make ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... the other white or red; or one with round, the other with flat heads, standing on opposite sides; and each player, raising it with the finger and thumb, advanced his piece towards those of his opponent; but though we are unable to say if this was done in a direct or a diagonal line, there is reason to believe they could not take backwards as in the Polish game of chess, the men being mixed together ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... youth said no more and quickly disappeared in the bushes which overhung the creek. The ranger hesitated a moment, appeared to think of following him, and then turned abruptly and plunged into the forest on a course diagonal from the river. Therefore, when Nuck and Bryce were fighting the bears in the swamp he did not hear their guns, being by that time some miles away and striding rapidly toward Arlington. He had suspected the truth and instead of wasting time observing the party of which Crow Wing was a member, ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster

... the road-menders build as a shelter against the rain. He had gone down the ditch and crossed the road. His trail, lost for a moment in the centre of the road, was visible on the snow at either side. This trail formed a diagonal line, making straight for the hut. It was evidently in the hut that Jacques had passed the night. But when had he left it? And why had he left it? The first question was unanswerable. But to the most inexperienced scout the second was plain enough. He had left it ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... broad-banded harness, soft with oil and glittering with brasses, was shambling indolently down the hill, resisting her own momentum by the diagonal motion the old man had likened to a dog's sidewise trot. The looped trace-chains were jingling a merry dithyramb, her head was nodding, her tail swaying, and Seffy, propped by his elbow on her broad back, one leg swung between the hames, the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various

... among the top branches, reached the ground in a diagonal direction; and up this Don Rafael was ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... his harpooneer stand up for the stroke, than all three tigers—Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo—instinctively sprang to their feet, and standing in a diagonal row, simultaneously pointed their barbs; and darted over the head of the German harpooneer, their three Nantucket irons entered the whale. Blinding vapours of foam and white-fire! The three boats, in the first fury of the whale's headlong rush, bumped ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... several diagonal turns across the room. At length he opened a window, and looked out upon the stormy night. "What confounded weather!" he muttered to himself, "it makes a man feel like blowing his brains out! There are no two ways about it, I'm tired of life. ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... medicine, as Mrs. Ripley commanded, because he had determined to sell it. The next Sunday morning, after his chores were done, he put on his best coat of faded diagonal, and was brushing his hair into a ridge across the center of his high, narrow head when Mrs. Ripley carne in ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... diagonal twill which some canvases have has always been a favorite surface with painters, particularly the portrait painters. This grain is a sympathetic one to work on, takes paint well, and is not in any way ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... detail as follows: The sticks should be made of straight grained wood, which may be either spruce, basswood or white pine. The longitudinal corner spines, A A, should be 3/8 in. square by 42 in. long, and the four diagonal struts, B, should be 1/4 in. by 1/2 in., and about 26 in. long. Two cloth bands should be made to the exact dimensions given in the sketch and fastened to the four longitudinal sticks with 1 oz. tacks. It is well to mark the positions of the sticks on the cloth bands, either with a soft ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... filled and began to sink and their occupants had to be rescued. The utmost confusion and consternation reigned in the savage fleet, and the distance between it and "The Galleon" widened rapidly as the latter bore in a diagonal ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler

... dark hair was dry and harsh, lacking the silken gloss that belongs to childhood, and the complexion a sickly yellowish pallor. Her brilliant eyes were black, large and prominent, and across her upper lip ran a diagonal scar, occasionally seen in those so afflicted as to require the merciful knife of a skilful surgeon to ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... powerful levers. If these fins stay parallel with the boat, the latter moves horizontally. If they slant, the Nautilus follows the angle of that slant and, under its propeller's thrust, either sinks on a diagonal as steep as it suits me, or rises on that diagonal. And similarly, if I want to return more swiftly to the surface, I throw the propeller in gear, and the water's pressure makes the Nautilus rise vertically, as an air balloon inflated with hydrogen ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... to a position where it would pull the forward tip of the delicately adjusted gas bag toward the earth. If only a gentle inclination was desired the bag was not allowed to hang directly under the bow, but was held at a point somewhere between the car and the bow so that the pull would be diagonal and the great cylinder would be diverted but little from the horizontal. If it were desired to ascend, a like manipulation of the ballast on the stern rope would depress the stern and point the bow upwards. ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... inches wide and four feet long, or upon the floor or a table, draw three equal squares A, B, C, fig. 12. of about 12 or 14 inches each side, placed in a strait line, and touching each other.—From the back corner c of the center square B, draw a diagonal line across the square A, to its outward front corner f, and the adjoining angle formed by the lines d c and c f will be equal to 135 degrees,—the angle which the plane of the back of a Chimney Fire-place ought to make with the plane of its covings.—And a bevel m, n, ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford

... Drummond, towards Lundy's Lane, whither Riall had preceded them with reinforcements for the advanced guard under Colonel Pearson. In the meantime Brown had heard about the taking of Lewiston, and, fearing that the British might take Fort Schlosser too, had at once given up all idea of his diagonal march on Burlington and had decided to advance straight against Queenston instead. Thus both the American and the British main bodies were marching on Lundy's Lane from opposite sides and in successive detachments throughout that long, intensely ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood

... slept much, arose and prepared breakfast, making the coffee extra strong. Montoya liked strong coffee. After breakfast Pete made a diagonal approach to the subject of leaving. Could he go to Concho? Montoya nodded. Would it be all right if he made a visit to the Concho outfit over on the mesa? It would be all right. This was too easy. Pete squirmed internally. If Montoya would only ask why he wanted to go. Did Montoya think ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... no mood for disputes of any sort, and so, though exceedingly weary now, he made a wide detour to satisfy the nervousness of the flea-bitten grey stallion, and began a diagonal descent upon the south side of Tinnaburra. Just as the sun cleared the horizon over his right shoulder, Finn dropped wearily down from a clump of wattle upon a broad, flat ledge of many-coloured rock which caught the sun's first glinting rays upon its queer ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... thing to do, Elmer. You see that diagonal mark across the toe of this impression—well, that's caused by a patch on the left shoe. All right, Hen Condit had just such a patch put on his shoe a week ago ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas

... in the diagram below. But, in the diagram, each row of four half-dominoes contains a different number of spots from any of the other rows. Thus the topmost row, counting horizontally, contains eighteen spots; the one below it only four; the first row to the left, counting vertically, ten; the diagonal row, downward from left to right, eight, etc. It is required to make a square of eight dominoes of the same set, in which each vertical, horizontal, and diagonal row of half dominoes shall contain exactly sixteen ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various

... imprint of a foot in a wet spot on the ground. As Jack bent over it he saw the marks of diagonal criss-crossing such as is found in ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham

... one and the same straight line—the tension on the beam would be 2000 lbs. But, if the beam were inclined, and the force acted in a vertical direction, then the strain would be increased in the ratio of the increase of the diagonal of inclination over the vertical;—suppose the beam is 20 ft. long and inclined at an angle of 45 deg.—and let 2000 lbs., as before, be suspended from its lower end. Now the diagonal being 20 deg.,—the vertical will be 14.014 ft.—and the strain ...
— Instructions on Modern American Bridge Building • G. B. N. Tower

... out her mastheads rising above the horizon. Now, did number two fire that gun; and, if so, why? I must get my glasses; this promises to be interesting. And we shall see more of it presently; they are crossing our hawse in a diagonal direction, and ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... extinct lantern, lit it, replaced it, and closed it in, put on his jacket, and then, taking a couple of steps to the left, he stood there holding the second lantern breast high, making a signal that he knew would be understood on board if the diagonal lights were seen by anyone of ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn

... strange, for, the mirror being now exactly diagonal to the two closets they appeared to be a single, continuous passage, with a door at either end. On going up to the mirror, we found that the opening which it had occupied was filled by a sheet of plain glass, evidently placed there as a precaution to prevent any person ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman

... It steadily pursued a diagonal course, veering constantly nearer to the left shore. Occasionally a swirl of the current pitched it toward midstream, but a little ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon

... Santos, where the voyagers celebrated New Year's Day, and they made the mouth of the Rio Plata on the 11th of January. In these latitudes the Southern Cross is the most conspicuous object in the heavens. It consists of five shining stars, arranged in two diagonal rows. Towards the end of the month Madame Pfeiffer gazed upon the sterile cliffs and barren mountains of Patagonia, and next upon the volcanic rocks, wave-worn and wind-beaten, of Fire-Land, or Tierra del Fuego. Through the Strait of Le Main, which separates the latter ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... then a man exquisitely made can live alone and must; but coop up most men and you undo them.—Here again, as so often, Nature delights to put us between extreme antagonisms, and our safety is in the skill with which we keep the diagonal line.—The conditions are met, if we keep our independence yet do not ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... in any direction square or diagonal, whether forward or backward. There is no limit to her range over vacant squares; an opponent she may take; a piece of her own colour stops her. She is the most powerful piece on the board, for her action is a union of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... plain, strong, and without doors. The central ones on the ground-floor are very uniform in design; those at the sides are, of various shapes, and are whimsically disposed—seem to be up and down, straight, diagonal, and semi-circular. The first pew on the right side was occupied, when we last saw it, with three brushes, an elderly shovel, and two gas-meters, one of them being a very full-grown fatherly affair—a sort of deacon amongst ordinary meters, and looking very ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... Mlle. de Launay, who computed the decline in her lover's affection by his abbreviation of their evening walk in the public square, preferring to cross it rather than take the circuit,—"From which I inferred," she says, "that his passion had diminished in the ratio between the diagonal of a rectangular parallelogram and the sum of two adjacent sides." And their conception, even of Art, has been too often on the scale of Properzia de Rossi, who carved sixty-five heads on a walnut, the smallest of all recorded symbols of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... card pointed with his arrow to a number, and the person who took from Mrs. Watkins's hand the envelope marked with the number indicated was instructed where to look for his valentine. Helen found hers inside of the piano. The Ethels turned up diagonal corners of the rug in the northwest corner of the library and discovered two flat packages. Margaret sought out a small bundle tied to the electrolier on the right hand side of ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... move opposite to the sun but with equal swiftness—this being the reason why they overtake and are overtaken by one another. All these bodies became living creatures, and learnt their appointed tasks, and began to move, the nearer more swiftly, the remoter more slowly, according to the diagonal movement of the other. And since this was controlled by the movement of the same, the seven planets in their courses appeared to describe spirals; and that appeared fastest which was slowest, and that which overtook others appeared to be overtaken by them. And God lighted a fire ...
— Timaeus • Plato

... a case the thrust along the diagonal line E would be 900 pounds, being the composition of the two forces pulling along the lines ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***

... begins, "Sketch for yourself, first, a map of France" there are images in the paragraph. I have represented back-slanting diagonal shading with "" and forward-slanting diagonal shading with "///" and ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... They moved in a diagonal line across the plateau toward the mountains of Erkoweet, a silent company on a plain still more silent. It was eleven o'clock. The sun rose toward the centre of a colourless, cloudless sky, the shadows of the camels shortened upon the sand, and the sand itself ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... the bare slopes that lead down to the water-springs. A hundred or more Arabs were engaged, under the supervision of a keen-eyed young Frenchman, in digging a multitude of curved concentric ditches across the hollow of the catchment area, intersected by diagonal ones here and there; the general appearance of the work—the bright yellow of the newly excavated part set against the dark ground of the old—was as if some gigantic fishing-net had been carelessly ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... simultaneously and variously directed forces act on a given body, the direction of its motion cannot coincide with any one of those forces, but will always be a mean—what in mechanics is represented by the diagonal of a ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... corner of this is a niche for a statue, the original decorations therein still remaining. It is weather-stained, and the rain has washed the adobe in streaks over some of it; yet it is interesting. It consists of a rude checkerboard design, or, rather, of a diagonal lozenge pattern ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James

... and the one before you is Sixth Avenue. The station we just left faces on Seventh Avenue. The cross streets are numbered, and the one we are on is Thirty-fourth Street. Broadway comes up the island on a long diagonal. Right here where Broadway, Thirty-fourth Street, and Sixth Avenue intersect, is one of the busiest corners in the city. Overhead are two elevated railway tracks. On the ground are six street-car tracks, crossing one another. Under the ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... buttresses (at right angles to them, and therefore parallel to the walls that fell) were in many cases cut clean off, as if by a chisel, and hurled to the ground. Some square ornaments on the coping of these same walls, were moved by the earthquake into a diagonal position. A similar circumstance was observed after an earthquake at Valparaiso, Calabria, and other places, including some of the ancient Greek temples. [1] This twisting displacement, at first appears to indicate a vorticose movement beneath each point thus affected; ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... complicated Greek columnar buildings known, the Erechtheum and the Propylaea of the Athenian Acropolis, are simplicity itself when compared to a Gothic cathedral, with its irregular plan, its towers, its wheel windows, its multitudinous diagonal lines. ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... remaining busied themselves over their mess fires. Jacques looked down a cove not quite as steep as the rest of the cliff, yet as nearly perpendicular as any surface on which trees and bushes can take hold. It was clothed with a thick growth of sere weeds, cut by one hint of a diagonal line. Perhaps laborers at a fulling mill now rotting below had once climbed this rock. Rain had carried the earth from above in small cataracts down its face, making a thin alluvial coating. A strip of land separated the ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... remembered how unfit I was to follow up the search, as tables, chairs, lights, and people seemed all rocking and waving before me. However, I succeeded in making my way, through one room into another, sometimes guiding my steps along the walls; and once, as I recollect, seeking the diagonal of a room, I bisected a quadrille with such ill-directed speed, as to run foul of a Cork dandy and his partner who were just performing the "en avant:" but though I saw them lie tumbled in the dust by the shock of my encounter—for I had upset them—I still held on the even tenor of my way. In ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever

... miraculously grown to greater size. The dwellings were sprinkled far into the distance across the landscape. Beyond them was the base of the mountain, magnificent and glorious in its crystal purity of white, and the striations, vertical and diagonal, that flashed brilliantly with black jet ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin

... a shapely jar and does credit to the insect's art of pottery. It is firm to the touch, of earthy appearance and smooth as stucco inside, while the outside is relieved by delicate diagonal, symmetrical ribs, which are the traces of successive enlargements. The back part is slightly dilated and is rounded off at the end with two slight bumps. These two terminal projections, with the central furrow ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... may be obtained by permuting in every possible manner the columns (or the lines) of the determinant, and then taking for the factors the n elements in the dexter diagonal. And we thence derive the rule for the signs, viz. considering the primitive arrangement of the columns as positive, then an arrangement obtained therefrom by a single interchange (inversion, or derangement) ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various

... work, sloping it to suit the different angles at the bottom of the holes. Each chip should come out with a clean cut, but to insure this the downward cuts should be done first, forming the raised diagonal lines. ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack

... Alpaca, Corded Alpaca, Angora, Astrakhan, Bandanna, Beaver (Fur Beaver), Bedford Cord, Beige, Bindings, Bombazine, Bottany, Boucle, Broadcloth, Bunting, Caniche, Cashmere, Cashmere Double, Cassimere, Castor, Challis, Cheviot (Diagonal or Chevron), Chinchilla, Chudah, Corduroy, Cote Cheval, Coupure, Covert, Delaine, Doeskin, Drap d'Ete, Empress Cloth, Epingline, Etamine, Felt, Flannel, Dress Flannel, French Flannel, Shaker Flannel, Indigo Blue, Mackinaw, Navy Twilled Flannel, Silk Warp, Baby Flannel. ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... time there was not the sign of a habitation there or thereabouts, except the fort, and an old adobe-house, east of the fort, known as the hospital. The fort itself was one of adobe-walls, about twenty feet high, rectangular in form, with two-story block houses at diagonal corners. The entrance was by a large gate, open by day and closed at night, with two iron ship's guns near at hand. Inside there was a large house, with a good shingle-roof, used as a storehouse, and all round ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... bond which make it decidedly preferable, and it is now coming back into very general use. There are some odd varieties of bond, such as garden bond and chimney bond. But of these I only wish to draw your attention to what is called cross bond. The name is not quite a happy one. Diagonal bond is hardly better. The thing itself is to be often met with on the Continent, and it is almost unknown here. But it would be worth introducing, as the effect ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various

... parallel, as if she were praying, with the strand of blue wool and silver cord criss-cross and diagonal betwixt her fingers. The old lady bent above them, silent and puzzled, to get the key to the strings. Twice she protruded her gouty fingers, with swollen ends; and twice she drew them back to ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... was still made round in form, but those on either side of it were each pointed, and all were more finely moulded than before. Above this point rises the new stone vault, which is carried upon a framework of strong transverse and diagonal ribs. Between these the shell, or filling, which formed the surface of the vault, is of chalk, roughly cut and irregularly laid; above this was placed a ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette

... as to divide the upper capsular attachments in front and behind. (4.) A pair of bone-forceps to be next employed to cut off the entire inner condyle and trochlea of the humerus, and then introduced in the opposite diagonal direction so as to detach the external condyle and capitulum of the humerus from the shaft. (5.) The truncated and angular end of the humerus to be divided, turned out through the incision, and smoothed across at right angles to the line ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... tucked under his arm. Twisting, dodging, ducking, he threaded his way through the field, bowling over Caldwell, eluding Axtell's outstretched arms and bearing down upon the Blue goal. As he neared Bert, who was running in a diagonal line to head him off, he swerved sharply to the right in an attempt to pass this last obstacle between him and a touchdown. But in a twinkling Bert had launched himself against him, gauging the distance unerringly, and they both came heavily to the ground on ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield

... aerial grace of its domes, rising like marble bubbles into the clear sky. The Taj represents the most highly elaborated stage of ornamentation reached by the Indo-Mohammedan builders, the stage in which the architect ends and the jeweler begins. In its magnificent gateway the diagonal ornamentation at the corners, which satisfied the designers of the gateways of Itimad-ud-doulah and Sikandra mausoleums is superseded by fine marble cables, in bold twists, strong and handsome. The triangular insertions of white marble and large flowers have in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... to the next cross, and repeat. Do this until the whole space is filled, as seen in the engraving, where the distance between the threads is sufficiently accurately represented. This lace always looks best, however, when the lines are diagonal. English lace is often radiated; that is, the lines are more distant from each other at one edge than at the other, and the spots proportionably larger, presenting ...
— The Ladies' Work-Book - Containing Instructions In Knitting, Crochet, Point-Lace, etc. • Unknown

... breadth. But Turner knew better than any man the value of echo, as well as of contrast,—of repetition, as well as of opposition. The round pier repeats the line of the main cliff, and then the sail repeats the diagonal shadow which crosses it, and emerges above it just as the embankment does above the cliff brow. Lower, come the opposing curves in the two boats, the whole forming one group of sequent lines up the whole side of the picture. The ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin

... horizontal, or diagonal lines are referred to, it must not be assumed that one means in all cases naked lines. There is no pure vertical line in a stone pine or cypress tree, nor pure horizontal line in a stretch of country, but the whole ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed

... are recognized by the Tinguian, but they are really variations of two—checkerwork and the diagonal ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole

... and conjures up from the walls around strange shapes and countenances bathed in the indistinct and lurid light. And now the flame grows brighter, and the heavy furniture in the apartment flings strange shadows, horizontal, diagonal, and perpendicular; and the pictures on the wall (for we are in a painter's studio) looked quite as vague and vapory as the projected shadows. It is not difficult to imagine some of these faces endowed with vitality, and so wild and startling are many of them that the wavering shadows ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... the full height of the building. Their arches are naturally very much stilted, and with the main vault rest on piers of quite unusual size and strength. The transverse arches are so large as almost to hide the diagonal ribs and to give the impression that the nave has, after all, a pointed barrel vault. The piers are throughout cross-shaped with a half-shaft on each cardinal face: at the crossing there is also a shaft in the angle, but elsewhere this shaft is replaced by a kind ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... preferred to leave untouched what he could not do well. Now in this case, lacking the experience to draw a sky as finished in workmanship as his landscape, he suggested in a few lines the effect which he wished to produce. At the left a few diagonal strokes show a smart shower just at hand. A whirl of dark-colored clouds comes next, and in the upper air beyond, a stratum of clouds is indicated by a mass of lines crossing and ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... moment the invaders had been creeping like cats up to the house, and Mr. Gracewood and Ella had no suspicion of their presence. In coming up the river I had crossed to the opposite side by a diagonal course, partly to shorten the distance, and partly to avoid a strong current, which swept in close to the shore above the mouth of Fish Creek. The Indians must have been making the passage at the same time; but the island was ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic

... themselves acquainted with the principles of this science, will, on all suitable occasions, with proper and correct instruments, be enabled to acquire a knowledge of their situation in the Atlantic, Indian or Pacific Oceans, with a degree of accuracy sufficient to steer on a meridianal or diagonal line, to any known spot, provided it be sufficiently conspicuous to be visible at any distance from ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... opportunity I had gained to inspect carefully any of the rooms in the abode of the Three. It was octagonal, carpeted with the thick rugs that seemed almost as though woven of soft mineral wool, faintly shimmering, palest blue. I paced its diagonal; it was fifty yards; the ceiling was arched, and either of pale rose metal or metallic covering; it collected the light from the high, slitted windows, and shed it, diffused, ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... amongst the trees, but was hopelessly outdistanced on the fallow field adjoining, across which the mare tore with a fine disregard for heavy ground and gopher-holes. When she turned at a sharp angle into the thicket-land beyond, Lute took the long diagonal, skirted the ticket, and reined in Ban at the other side. She had arrived first. From within the thicket she could hear a tremendous crashing of brush and branches. Then the mare burst through and into the open, falling to her knees, exhausted, on the soft ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... veils—veils were not then in fashion, and Lady Anne of course pronounced them to be hideous. It was at this time, in England, the reign of high heads: a sort of triangular cushion or edifice of horsehair, suppose nine inches diagonal, three inches thick, by seven in height, called I believe a toque or a system, was fastened on the female head, I do not well know how, with black pins a quarter of a yard long; and upon and over this system, the ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... Simon's and the Church of the Epistles. Even far off in the Hudson and the East River the sounds of the commotion were heard, and the ferry-boats and tugs and ocean liners set up sirens and whistles that sailed in melancholy cadence, now varied, now reiterated, across the whole diagonal width of the city from Riverside Drive to the gray water-fronts of ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... Dutch gentlewoman had seen much of the world; having traveled from Fort Orange to New Amsterdam, from New Amsterdam to Boston, and from Boston with Madame La Tour to Fort St. John in Acadia. The three figures ascended in a line the narrow stairway which made a diagonal band from lower to upper corner of the remote hall end. Zelie walked last, carrying her lady's cloak. At the top a little light fell on them through ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... us try it; go on." Fanferlot obeyed; and the key held by M. Lecoq, pulled aside from the lock, slipped along the door, and traced upon it a diagonal scratch, from top to bottom, the exact reproduction of the ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... floor, formed of split palm-stems. Along the walls were arranged clay jars of various sizes, very neatly made. Some, indeed, were large enough to hold twenty or more gallons; others were much smaller; and some were evidently used as cooking-pots. They were ornamented on the outside with crossed diagonal lines of various colours. There were also blow-pipes hung up, and quivers and bags made of the bromelia, very elaborately worked. In addition, there were baskets formed of the same material of a coarser description, ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... wild ducks rises in diagonal flight. ... Purple radiance pours through the twigs of trees.... From nocturnal heavens the first stars ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann

... Egypt to express going up or down the river. This first Syrian campaign became the model for most of those subsequently undertaken by the Pharaohs. It took the form of a bold advance of troops, directed from Zalu towards the north-east, in a diagonal line through the country, who routed on the way any armies which might be opposed to them, carrying by assault such towns as were easy of capture, while passing by others which seemed strongly defended—pillaging, burning, and slaying on every side. There was no suspension of hostilities, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... viz.:—Present yourself before your brother with your sword advanced, and your left hand resting on your hip, as if to commence a combat. He will answer the sign by extending his arm at the height of the shoulder, the right foot forming a square with the toe of the left. THE MARCH.—Five steps on the diagonal of the square towards the throne. AGE.—The age of a Prince of Jerusalem, ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan

... water. A sea of waving grass rose above the liquid plain, and extended as far as the eye could reach. About twelve or fourteen inches depth of water spread over the land. A light-house of brick or stone, formerly built on this mud plain, east of the main pass, had partially sunk, and hung in a diagonal line to the horizon, reminding the spectator of the insecurity of all solid structures on such a nascent basis. The present light-house was of wood. It was evident, however, that here were deposited millions of acres of the richest ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... "Quality Street". It runs on a diagonal from Malvern Avenue, a one-time first class residential thorofare to the Missouri Pacific Tracks. Time was when Gaines led almost to the gates of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... separated; one moved quickly off the screen, the other held stationary for several minutes, then contracted and began a steady, jagged advance toward the center of the grid. One inch down, half an inch over, two inches down, then four inches on a diagonal line. ...
— The Circuit Riders • R. C. FitzPatrick

... packed up in a box. If required to do so, he will supply them to that extent,—or to any further extent. A long row of figures in trade is but an elegant use of the superlative. If a tradesman can induce a lady to buy a diagonal Osnabruck cashmere shawl by telling her that he has 1,200 of them, who is injured? And if the shawl is not exactly a real diagonal Osnabruck cashmere, what harm is done as long as the lady gets ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope

... know, but Mrs. Helders was going to have a new diagonal and she wanted the number of Ellen's pattern. Ben would stop for ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale

... food, washing his own clothes, and no man in the valley wore a whiter shirt. As to the food, perhaps there was not too much of it, or it may have been badly cooked; for Tomaso had a lean and hungry look, and his tanned cheek had diagonal lines drawn from the cheek- bone to the corner of the clean-shaven mouth. The lips were firm, the chin was long. It was a solemn face that looked out from beneath the shadow of the great fig-tree. ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman

... they pressed their horses, and he saw them swallowed by the trees as darkness gathered. Changing his course, he entered the familiar hills, which he knew better than any Pioneer of Jansen, and rode a diagonal course over the trail they would take. But night fell suddenly, and there was nothing to do but to wait till morning. There was comfort in this—the others must also wait, and the refugee could not go far. In any case, he must make for settlement or perish, since ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... very little done in the way of modernising details; and, perhaps, it was better so; for there was something queer and by-gone in the very walls and ceilings—in the shape of doors and windows—in the odd diagonal site of the chimney-pieces—in the beams and ponderous cornices—not to mention the singular solidity of all the woodwork, from the banisters to the window-frames, which hopelessly defied disguise, and would have emphatically proclaimed their antiquity through any conceivable ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... ship designed also to float on water. Then Mr. Buchanan followed with a fish-shaped vessel, one of the most important specialities of which consisted in side propellers, the surfaces of which were roughened with minute diagonal grooves to effect a greater grip on ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon

... screw, while the Polynesia was equally prompt in her backward movement. They escaped by a chance so narrow that it was terrifying. The bow of the Polynesia grazed the side of the stranger as they passed upon their diagonal courses, and every one on the two ships who understood the dreadful peril drew a deep breath and uttered a prayer of thankfulness when it swept by, and the two steamers vanished from each other's sight ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis

... of Pansy Potts, proceeded to lay the table. Elaborate decoration was her keynote and she kept well in tune. Along the centre of the table over the damask cloth, she spread a rich lace "runner" and over this, crossed bands of wide, pink, satin ribbon ran the entire diagonal length of the table. In the centre was a large cut-glass bowl of pink roses, and at each corner slender vases of a single rose in each. Also single roses with long stems and leaves were laid at intervals on the cloth. Asparagus fern was lavishly used, and pink-shaded candles in silver ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells

... here, where it bears westward, is a very respectable stream in size, and not to be trifled with after a shower. It gradually turns northward, and, joining the Nollechucky, becomes part of the Tennessee system. We crossed it by a long, diagonal ford, slipping and sliding about on the round stones, and began the ascent of a steep hill. The sun beat down unmercifully, the way was stony, and the horses did not relish the weary climbing. The Professor, who led the way, not for the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... made for his late majesty George III. as a challenge against the late Dr. Herschel's; but was prevented from being completed till some time after. The metals, 9-1/4 inches in diameter, having a diagonal eye-piece, four eye tubes of different magnifying powers, and three small specula of various radii, were made by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various

... and perfection in the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries, again began to decline. With this decline the Equilateral Triangle was almost lost sight of, and then a mode of setting out work by diagonal squares was taken up, for such is the basis found exactly applicable to the work of the fifteenth century, since which time mathematical proportions have been generally employed." And after referring to numerous scale ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein

... another, curiously striped with diagonal dirt-bands, whose fellowship, however, the greens and purples did ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... frock coat of minstrel-like cut and plum-colored trousers of shiny diagonal cloth, claimed his share of public attention. For the sake of that peace which he had come to prize highly, Mr. Tutts had consented to make ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... loss of energy attending the reflection of the rays by the diagonal mirrors, I have constructed a special apparatus, which, by means of a parallactic mechanism, faces the sun at right angles during observations. It consists principally of two small mirrors, manufactured of the same materials as the reflector, placed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various

... were leading the army. Harry saw Jackson whispering something to a staff officer. The officer galloped forward and spoke to Taylor, the commander of the Louisiana troops. Instantly the Acadians turned sharply from the turnpike and walked in a diagonal line through the fields. The whole army followed and they ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler

... filth into the sea. Here, again, they are in advance of many civilised people. Some of the best houses are built of stone, but they are usually constructed of a framework of bamboo and laths, which is covered with plaster painted black and white in diagonal lines. The roofs are composed of black and white tiles; the eaves extending low down to protect the interior from the sun, and the oiled-paper windows from the rain. They are, generally, of but one story. Some of the residences stand back from the street with a court-yard before them, and have ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... branches projecting upward at an angle of forty-five degrees. These twigs must be as much alike in shape as possible. Place them six inches apart; lay two cross-twigs across, as you see them in the picture, and tie the corners with fine wire, or fasten them with tiny pins. Two diagonal braces will add to the strength of the rack. Hang it to the wall above the wash-stand by a wire or ribbon. The tooth-brushes rest ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various

... reasoning man, is easier to be conceived by reflecting on what passes in us when we affirm or deny, than to be explained by words. When a man has in his head the idea of two lines, viz. the side and diagonal of a square, whereof the diagonal is an inch long, he may have the idea also of the division of that line into a certain number of equal parts; v.g. into five, ten, a hundred, a thousand, or any other number, and may have the idea of that inch line ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke

... valley, but as I could not see the summit from this point, I ascended a low mountain on the opposite side, and took its bearing with my compass. I at once entered the woods, and began to climb the steep side of the mountain in a diagonal direction, taking the bearing of a tree every dozen rods. The ascent was by no means difficult or unpleasant, and occupied much less time than it would have taken to follow the path. Even country people, I have observed, magnify the difficulty ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... could chase only one bunch at a time; and, while we were after one, a half dozen others would be taking advantage of our preoccupation. We could not hold our own. Each run after an escaping bunch had to be on a longer diagonal. Gradually we were forced back, and back, and back; but still we managed to hold the line unbroken. Never shall I forget the dash and clatter of that morning. Neither Brown Jug nor I thought for a moment of sparing horseflesh, nor of picking ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White

... buildings surrounded an open court. All of the buildings were timbered, the diagonal beams of oak so old they were black in the sun, and the snowy whiteness of fresh plaster made them seem blacker still. The gabled roofs were of varying tones and tints; some were red, some mossy green, some as gray as the skin of a mouse; all were deeply, plentifully furrowed with the washings ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... interesting to observe both the growth and the decay of this polarization. For ten or fifteen minutes after its first appearance, the light from a vividly illuminated incipient cloud, looked at horizontally, is absolutely quenched by a Nicol prism with its longer diagonal vertical. But as the sky-blue is gradually rendered impure by the introduction of particles of too large a size, in other words, as real clouds begin to be formed, the polarization begins to deteriorate, a portion of the light passing through the prism in all its positions, as it does ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... go out he noticed a man drinking alone at a table in the darkest corner. His eyes were fixed moodily on his glass and he did not look up. Jeremy shivered, took a step nearer, and almost cried out, for he had caught a glimpse of a livid, diagonal scar cutting across the nose from eyebrow to chin. It was such a scar as could belong to only one man on earth. Jeremy retreated to a darker part of the room and watched till the man lifted his head. It was Pharaoh Daggs ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... the pursuing boat crept alongside the stern of the one pursued, and the oars rested in obedience to a whispered order. The diagonal current which moved out from the Arabian shore, and the backward wash of water from the oars of the forward boat, heaved the head of the nobles' barge toward its object. The robust courtier leaned forward and made fast to ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... on it; all his thoughts becoming engrossed, all his energies bent, upon taking part in the pursuit, and still more in the fight he hopes will follow. He presses on in a diagonal line between pursued and pursuers. His splendid steed now shows its good qualities, and gladly he sees he is gaining upon both. With like gladness that they are nearing one another, the short-striding mustangs being no match for the long legged American horses. As yet not ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... before he had done. Nearly everything was glass in the frontage of this fairy mart, and its contents glittered like the hammochrysos stone. The panes being of plate-glass, and the shop having two fronts, a diagonal view could be had through it from one to the other of the streets to ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... figure, with a face livid with agitation. This was Mr. Marcy, who had noticed the foreigner's excitement and had been watching him. Like a stone from a catapult, Mr. Marcy rushed towards Rovinski, taking a course diagonal to that of the latter, and, striking him with tremendous force just before he reached the ring, he threw him against the rail with such violence that the momentum given to his head and body carried them completely over it, and his legs following, the man went headlong ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton

... the method of sexual propagation itself; for, inasmuch as the thing propagated proceeds from two organisms of different sexes and different makes and temperaments, and as the offspring is to be either of one sex or the other, it is quite clear that it cannot be an exact diagonal of the two, or it would be of no sex at all; it cannot be an exact intermediate form between that of each of its parents—it must deviate to one side or the other. You do not find that the male follows ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... for two brief hours. The protean shape, seen in profile and foreshortened from the north or south, appears a block bristling with "Pins" and points, horns and beaks. Viewed from the east the range splits into a double line, whose ranks have never been "dressed" nor sized; whilst a diagonal prospect so alters their forms and relations that they apparently belong to ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... keep wide intervals, to extend down the face of the hill, so that within fifteen minutes we were in wide-spaced skirmishing order. Then, instead of keeping along the hills, as I had intended, until we were well to the rear of the Kurdish firing-line, they turned half-left too soon, and headed in diagonal bee line toward the horses, those who had begun by leading being last now, and the last men first. Being shorter-winded than the rest of them and more tired to begin with, that arrangement soon left me a long ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... a large blue shield; the shield contains white Roman crosses with a white diagonal band running from the upper hoist corner ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... seat, but you must excuse me. If you have no objection I will walk," he said, putting his hands in the pockets of his jacket, and treading lightly up and down the diagonal of the large cabinet, furnished in an austere style. "Very glad to make your acquaintance, and, of course, to please the Count Ivan Michaelovitch," emitting the fragrant, blue smoke, and carefully removing the cigar from his mouth so as ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... tail are well represented, while the leg has three talons, which can only be those of this monster. He holds in his grasp some animal form which he is represented as eating. Across the body is a kilt, or ancient blanket, with four diagonal figures which are said to represent flint arrowheads. It is a remarkable fact that these latter symbols are practically the same as those used by Nahuatl people for obsidian arrow- or spearpoints. In Hopi lore Kwataka wore a garment of arrowpoints, ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes

... were of that age where they find the keenest delight in annoying a bashful fellow such as they perceived this new-comer to be. His hair had been badly barbered by Councill and his suit of cotton diagonal, originally too small and never a fit, was now yellow on the shoulders where the sun had faded the analine dye, and his trousers were so tight that they clung to the tops of his great boots, exposing his huge feet in all their enormity of shapeless housing. His ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland

... propelled by two large mat sails, each spread between two bamboo masts, the heels of which were fixed in the same step, the mastheads being spread (athwartships) from twenty to thirty feet asunder, the sail being triangular between these bamboo masts, which were supported by diagonal shores fore and aft on either side; besides these two large sails, the canoe had numerous smaller (square) ones suspended from the principal masts; there was also a small square sail forward. The whole of the spars and rigging was ornamented with ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... were resting there, still vibrant from the rush of the meteoric fall. There were, of course, facts and incidents contrary to such a theory: a steamer starting from New York in the raw March morning, and lurching and twisting through two days of diagonal seas, with people aboard dining and undining, and talking and smoking and cocktailing and hot-scotching and beef-teaing; but when the ship came in sight of the islands, and they began to lift their cedared ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... LACE WHEELS.—This is one of the prettiest stitches in point lace, but also one of the most difficult to work correctly. It is made thus: Work a number of diagonal bars in button-hole stitch on a single thread in one direction, then begin at the opposite side in the same way, and work 5 or 6 stitches past the spot where the two lines cross; pass the thread round the cross twice, under and over the thread to form a circle. Work in button-hole ...
— The Art of Modern Lace Making • The Butterick Publishing Co.

... streets that bounded the lot, Hanlon made no pause, but started on a straight diagonal toward the center of the lot. He stepped into a tangle of charred logs and ashes, but forged ahead unhesitatingly, though slowly, and picked his way by thrusting the toe ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells

... its course to the river. It ran south past the corner of the Treasury Building for the matter of a hundred yards or more, and then broke south and west across the White Lot between the White House and the Monument. In the end it abandoned this diagonal flight and soberly took to the center of a street that lay to the west of the White House, and ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... dissimilar; those which terminate the principal axes being different in form from those which are added on the diagonal sides of the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... out his second drawing, which was easier to understand, for it was a sketch of his appliance, showing the outer appearance, and giving a diagonal section of a desk or room, with a wire running through ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... either." I have pored over blue books long enough to know that this is a place which earned a most unenviable notoriety during the recent troubles, and is described as "a stronghold of piracy, lawlessness, and disaffection." As we were making a diagonal crossing of the Perak, the Singhalese said, "A few months ago they would have been firing at us from both sides of the river." It was a beautiful view at that point, with the lovely river in its windings, and on the top of the steep bank a kampong of largish houses under palms and durions. ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... view was outspread where it dipped over the brow of the high table-land and disappeared into the naked sky beyond? The billowy towans sweeping up from the beach appeared to him like an illimitable prairie on which buffaloes and bison might roam. Whither led the sandy track, the summit of whose long diagonal was lost in the brightness of the morning sky? And surely that huddled grey building against an isolated green cliff must be grandfather's church of which his mother had often told him. Mark walked round the stone walls that held up the little churchyard and, entering by a gate ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie



Words linked to "Diagonal" :   maths, aslant, principal diagonal, secondary diagonal, mathematics, straight line, oblique, checker board, separatrix, line, inclined, slash, diagonalize, diagonal matrix, virgule, bias, square matrix, diagonalise, sloped, set, aslope, slanted, solidus, punctuation, main diagonal, stroke, geometry, punctuation mark, sloping, checkerboard, math, slanting



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