Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Flatten   Listen
verb
Flatten  v. i.  To become or grow flat, even, depressed, dull, vapid, spiritless, or depressed below pitch.






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





"Flatten" Quotes from Famous Books



... with their servants, and how their middle-aged wives just had to grin and bear it. "An' Mavis," he thought, "can do the same. Heavens an' earth, I've got an answer ready if she tries to make a fuss, or wants to take the dinner-bell and go round as public crier—an answer that ought to flatten her as if a traction engine had bin over her. 'My lass, who began it? Bring out your slate and put it alongside mine, an' we'll see which looks dirtiest, all said and done.'" While he was thinking in this manner, ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... on the retina. It makes as many of these plane pictures as there are points of view from which it can be seen. One can easily convince oneself of this by viewing a statue from a distance, when it will flatten out to a mere outline or silhouette. As such, it should be clear and simple and pleasing, capable of being grasped as a whole irrespective of detail. Michelangelo demanded that every statue be capable ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... and lay on your paint fully and freely. In getting an effect of light, don't be afraid of contrast either of value or of color. Paint loosely; get the vibration which results from half-mixed color. Don't flatten out the tone. Load the color if you want to. In twenty years you will wonder to see ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... entrenching implements, but in ten minutes most of them had very fair "lying down" cover. Ten minutes was all they were allowed. There was no artillery fire by the end of that time, but the bullets began to whizz past, or flatten themselves in the tree trunks. It was rather hard to see precisely what was happening. Black dots emerged from the wood, and quickly flitted back again. The ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"

... the pipe endways. The cause of this contraction is pulling the bend too quickly, and too much at a time, without dressing in the sides at B B as follows: After you have pulled the pipe round until it just begins to flatten, take a soft dresser, or a piece of soft wood, and a hammer, and turn the pipe on its side as at Fig. 37; then strike the bulged part of the pipe from X B toward E, until it appears round like section K. Now pull your pipe round again as before, and keep working it until finished. If you ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various

... is an oft-quoted passage, but can scarcely be quoted too often: "You see that this wrought-iron plate is not quite flat: it sticks up a little, here towards the left—'cockles,' as we say. How shall we flatten it? Obviously, you reply, by hitting down on the part that is prominent. Well, here is a hammer, and I give the plate a blow as you advise. Harder, you say. Still no effect. Another stroke? Well, there ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... Prince has been upon him, What a flatten face he has now? it takes, believe it; How like an ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (2 of 10) - The Humourous Lieutenant • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... besides the same faults with the former, is continually varying his numbers from one sort of verse to another, and alluding to remote hints of medicinal writers, which, though allowed to be useful, are yet so numerous, that they flatten the dignity of verse, and sink it from a poem, to a treatise of physic,' Dr. Sewel has informed us, that Mr. Philips intended to have written a poem on the Resurrection, and the Day of Judgment, and we may reasonably presume, that in such ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... not wish to make a noise on her island any more than she wished smoke to be seen, so at the end of her day's work she went to her gypsy's camp hoping that she might find a tool or something that would serve her for a hammer with which to flatten the tins that were to be used for plates, saucepans, ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot

... PORT! PORT!" roared David, in a voice like the roar of a wounded lion; and, in his anxiety, he bounded to the helm himself; but Lucy obeyed orders at half a word, and David, seeing this, sprang forward to help Jack flatten in the foresheet. The boat, which all through answered the helm beautifully, fell off the moment Lucy ported the helm, and thus they escaped the impending and terrible danger of her making sternway. ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... drawing forth from his pocket a bunch weighing some four pounds, "opens the door at the end ov the passage, and this one opens the street gate; now jist take that bit ov wood and bang me on one side ov my hed—not savagely, you know, but jist enough to flatten me, and make ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... rolling,—massive and formidable. Sometimes, just before breaking, a towering swell would crack all its green length with a tinkle as of shivering glass; then would fall and flatten with a peal that shook the wall beneath me.... I thought of the great dead Russian general who made his army to storm as a sea,—wave upon wave of steel,—thunder following thunder.... There was yet scarcely any wind; but there ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... looking out at the fields where the grains and vegetables were growing, thinking how easy it was to farm here—plenty of rain, plenty of sun, no storms to flatten and ruin the crops, not even enough insect pests to worry a man. He looked out at the fenced pastures where the colony's ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... of the flute brings out this quality of song. I must not allow the pressure of too much greed to flatten out the reed, for then, as I fear, music will give place to the questions "Why?" "What is the use of so much?" "How am I to get it?"—not a word of which will rhyme with what Radhika sang! So, as I was saying, illusion alone is real—it is the ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... in respect of the concupiscent; as mese to nete, in respect of the irascible; insomuch as it depresses and heightens,—and in fine makes a harmony,—by abating what is too much and by not suffering them to flatten and grow dull. For what is moderate and symmetrous is defined by mediocrity. Still more is it the end of the rational faculty to bring the passions to moderation, which is called sacred, as making a harmony of the extremes with reason, and through reason with each other. ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... this mode of flattening the forehead appeared to us to violate nature and good taste, they answered that it was only slaves who had not their heads flattened. The slaves, in fact, have the usual rounded head, and they are not permitted to flatten the foreheads of their children, destined to bear the chains of their sires. The natives of the Columbia procure these slaves from the neighboring tribes, and from the interior, in exchange for beads and furs. They treat them with humanity while their services are useful, but as soon as they become ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere

... the solid part of these strata, it is necessary to make a shaft at the foot of the wall of great depth through the strata; and in this shaft, on the side from which the hill slopes, smooth and flatten a space one palm wide from the top to the bottom; and after some time this smooth portion made on the side of the shaft, will show plainly which part of the hill is ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... tiny as I descended into his Titanic arms, I was handed down the steps to him. He was dressed in a kind of long surplice, underneath which—as I could not, even in that moment, help observing—the air gathered in long bubbles which he strove to flatten out. The end of his noble beard he had tucked away; his shirt-sleeves were turned ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... the singing lessons as a sort of obedience to Deronda's advice, but day followed day with that want of perceived leisure which belongs to lives where there is no work to mark off intervals; and the continual liability to Grandcourt's presence and surveillance seemed to flatten every effort to the level of the boredom which his manner expressed; his negative mind was as diffusive as fog, clinging to all objects, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... on in amazement, he found that by heating one he could flatten it out, then he could make small ones stick to it while hot and hammer all into one mass, then into a bar, and from that he could make an axe-head with an edge which would cut clean through a copper ring as though it was but cheese; next, when he was in a hurry to cool it off, and for that ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True

... shock. She had to flatten herself against the wall, too, and remain rigid, for the man abruptly turned the corner and marched down the driveway. Half way to the brilliantly lighted street he dodged behind the building opposite the hotel, threading his way through narrow back yards. Josie followed, swift ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... tiny window and window-sill whereon lay her coil of "plait" and the simple straw-splitting machine she had just been working. When Marcella had taken the only other chair the hovel contained, nothing else remained for Wharton but to flatten himself as closely against the door ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... just got to keep Hynds House, if only to teach these Hyndsville women a lesson." She spoke after a pause. "Sophy, they flatten their ears and arch their backs at sight of us; and whenever there's a good chance for a wipe of a paw, why, we catch it across the nose. Now I," she admitted frankly, "am naturally full of cat feelings myself. I will not do what you want to do—walk off looking aggrieved, after the fashion ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... changing terrain. He saw the place of solid-spouted rock end; saw it flatten out to an undulating surface that had rolled and heaved itself into many-colored shapes. Even in the earthlight the kaleidoscopic colors were vivid in their changing reds and blues and yellow sheens. Then ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin

... the whole world in every dull detail, regardless of the right of other men to get an occasional word in edgewise—these are the true marks of the genuine bore. He must know that you take no interest in him or his story. Even if you did, his manner of telling it would flatten you, yet he fascinates you with that glassy stare, that self-conscious and self-admiring smirk, and distils his tale into your ears at the very moment when you are burning to talk over old College-days ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various

... upon arched insteps like springing bridges of crimson lacquer; they swing up over curved heels like whirling tanagers sucked in a wind-pocket; they flatten out, heelless, like July ponds, flared ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... the eyes and pass the fingers, very gently, several times across them outward, from the canthus, or corner next the nose, towards the temple. This tends slightly to flatten the corner and lens of the eye, and thus to lengthen or extend the angle of vision. The operation should be repeated several times a day, or at least always after making one's toilet, until shortsightedness is nearly or completely removed. For long sight, loss of sight by age, ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... at them; so Wahb found this a land of plenty: every fourth or fifth rock in the pine woods was the roof of a Squirrel or Chipmunk granary, and when he turned it over, if the little owner were there, Wahb did not scruple to flatten him with his paw and devour him as an agreeable relish to his own provisions. And wherever Wahb went he put ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... that flesh-mountains when exposed to heat do not stand up of their own consistency, but have a tendency to melt and flatten; it was necessary that this bulk should be supported, so there were three attendants, one securely braced under each armpit, and the third with a more precarious grip under the mountain's chin. Every thirty seconds or so the heaving, sliding mass ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair

... and protects the scion from rain. As soon as leaves appear on the scion, the sack is removed and all the new sprouts are broken off below the graft. I put only one scion on each graft. I use Beck's cold wax. It is easy to thin with water and I just flatten a stick for my brush. I never wax the bud but wax ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various

... would flatten against most parts of his body. By the by, I saw an instance of a rhinoceros having been destroyed by that cowardly ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... not afford to be squeamish. Obstinate violence had to be overcome by resolute vigour. The mule was now helplessly fixed, with its tongue hanging out and its eyes protruding. Nevertheless, in that condition it continued, without ceasing, to struggle and try to kick, and flatten its ears. It was a magnificent exhibition of determination to resist to the very death!—a glorious quality when exercised in a good cause, thought I—my mind reverting to ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne

... phrase, one that has haunted my mind these many years, that the follies of the West flatten against the sublime wisdom of the East like bullets fired ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... had evidently told the child to flatten himself against the wall, for the little fellow had spread out his arms and pressed his ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... tortures for me, but here I stand, unharmed. This day I will have my revenge. My servant Ahmed has departed for the walled city of Bala Khan. He will return with Bala Khan and an army such as will flatten the city of Allaha to the ground, and crows and vultures and tigers and jackals shall make these temples their abiding-places, and men will forget Allaha as they now forget the mighty Chitor." She swung round toward the priests. "You have yourselves ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath

... more "duchessy" than ever in her dinner dress. Jewels shone in the great puff of snowy hair that lay like a crown about her head. (Graham had always wanted to poke his finger into this marvel to see if it would burst and flatten like a toy balloon.) Jewels shone in the laces of her dress and on her fingers. She sat very straight, as even a make-believe duchess should, and led the conversation. To do so was very easy, for everyone agreed with everything she said, remarked Isobel with pathetic enthusiasm. ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott

... "Get down. Flatten out, Major," I shouted, and he dropped to the ground. I did not know the extent of his injuries at that time but I did know that he was courting death ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... along, keeping step with each other, and uttering a loud, peculiar cry to clear the way, reminding one of the gondoliers on the canals of Venice. People were obliged to step into shops and doorways, or flatten themselves against buildings, in order to make room for us to pass in the palanquins, but they did so with a good grace and took it quite as a matter of course. Whenever we stopped for a trifling purchase or ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... stakes are not easily found in the neighborhood, drive straight ones, then split the tops, flatten the ends of the cross poles and insert them in the clefts ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... also seems necessary to look forward on all the changes which cannot fail to occur. Even the structure of the human body will be modified. It is an uncontradictable fact that without exercise all organs flatten and end by disappearing altogether. It has been observed that fishes deprived of light become blind. I myself have seen in Valais that shepherds who fed on curdled milk lost their teeth very early; some of them never had ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... hope to equal, much less beat, such a mighty cast. I therefore decided on strategy, and, with this in mind, proceeded, in a leisurely fashion, once more to mark out the circle, which was obliterated in places, to flatten the surface underfoot, to roll up my sleeves, and tighten my belt; in fine, I observed all such precautions as a man might be expected to take before ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... our feet made scarcely any sound on the granite floor. Still we were incautious, and it was purely by luck that I glanced ahead and discovered that which made me jerk Harry violently back and flatten myself against ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... repeated blows of her head, such of her neighbours as may seem to hamper her movements. Then, with her mouth and claws, she will seize one of the eight scales that hang from her abdomen, and at once proceed to clip it and plane it, extend it, knead it with her saliva, bend it and flatten it, roll it and straighten it, with the skill of a carpenter handling a pliable panel. When at last the substance, thus treated, appears to her to possess the required dimensions and consistency, she will attach it to the highest ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck

... not to be confounded with those of the name who dwell about the lower waters of the Columbia; neither do they flatten their heads, as the others do. They inhabit the banks of a river on the west side of the mountains, and are described as simple, honest, and hospitable. Like all people of similar character, whether civilized or savage, they are prone to be imposed upon; ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... becalmed, with hanging sails. The men on board the felucca watch them and the sea. There is a shadow on the white, hazy horizon, then a streak, then a broad dark blue band. The schooner braces her top-sail yard and gets her main sheet aft. The martinganes flatten in their jibs along their high steeving bowsprits and jib-booms. Shift your sheets, too, now, for the wind is coming. Past L'Infresco with its lovely harbour of refuge, lonely as a bay in a desert island, its silent shade and its ancient spring. ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford

... is quite another thing. When you can fairly look into eyes as bright and expressive as your own, a long stride has been taken towards friendly relations. You flatten your nose on one side of the glass, and Mr. Fish flattens his on the other. If you have the stoniest of British stares he will outstare you. You long to scratch his back, or show him some similar attention, and ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... Our strength and weight Can flatten the huts of the frightened men! But the glory of smashing is lost of late, We raid less eagerly now than then, For pits are staked, and the traps are blind, The guns be many, the men be more; We fidget with pickets before and behind, Who snoozed in the noonday ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... alone from the party, out of sorts with himself, angry with Azalia, and boiling over with wrath toward Paul. He set his teeth together, and clenched his fist. He would like to blacken Paul's eyes and flatten his nose. The words of Azalia—"I know nothing against Paul's character"—rang in his ears and vexed him. He thought upon them till his steps, falling upon the frozen ground, seemed to say, "Character!—character!—character!" ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin

... say that fish would be delicious?' she cried; and plunging her spoon into the dish the girl helped herself to a large piece. But the instant it touched her mouth a cold shiver ran through her. Her head seemed to flatten, and her eyes to look oddly round the corners; her legs and her arms were stuck to her sides, and she gasped wildly for breath. With a mighty bound she sprang through the window and fell into the river, where she soon felt better, and was able to swim to ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... called on Gorky and agreed to figure prominently in a literary dinner to be given in his honor. The movement was really assuming considerable proportions, when suddenly something happened which caused it to flatten ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... Perhaps Julia and her mother would find George there, with his coat and shoes off, and his big body flung down across the bed, asleep. George would wake up slowly, with much yawning and grumbling, Emeline would add her gloves and belt to the unspeakable confusion of the bureau, and Julia would flatten her tired little back against the curve of an armchair and follow with heavy, brilliant eyes the argument ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... filleting the tail of cod, egging and crumbing the pieces and frying them. Get about a pound and a half of the tail of a fine cod; with a sharp knife divide the flesh from the bone lengthways, cut it into neat pieces as nearly of a size as you can, and flatten with a knife. Dip in egg, then in crumbs mixed with a little flour, pepper, and salt. It is best to fry the cutlets in the wire-basket in plenty of fat, but if this is not convenient they can be done in the frying-pan; in any case, they ...
— Nelson's Home Comforts - Thirteenth Edition • Mary Hooper

... plague—whose quick flash splits The mid-sea mast, and rifts the tower to the rock, And hurls the victor's column down with him That crowns it, hear. Who causest the safe earth to shudder and gape, And gulf and flatten in her closing chasm Domed cities, hear. Whose lava-torrents blast and blacken a province To a cinder, hear. Whose winter-cataracts find a realm and leave it A waste of rock and ruin, hear. I call thee To make my ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... which experience has shown you will square your shoulders and flatten your back most effectually. Throw the hands backward until they touch one another, or bring your elbows together behind you, if you can. Hold the arms close to the side, the elbows against the waist, the forearm at right angles with the arm, the fists clenched, with the ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne

... that filled the Land now seemed suddenly to soften. The clustered tapers had lessened—to a single chandelier of four globes. Next, the forest trees began to flatten, and take on the appearance of a conventional pattern. The grass became rug-like in smoothness. The sky squared itself to ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates

... quickly and lightly, handling as little as possible. Drop large spoonfuls of the batter in muffin pans and bake in a quick oven for tea biscuits; or, sift flour thickly over the bread board, turn out the dough, roll several times in the flour, give one quick turn with the rolling-pin to flatten out dough, and cut out with small cake cutter, (I prefer using a small, empty tin, 1/2 pound baking powder can, to cut out cakes.) Place close together in an agate pan and bake, or bake in one cake in a pie tin and for shortcake; or place spoonfuls of the dough over veal or beef stew ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... with the forefinger as you go, to make it lie quite flat. Beginners should flatten down the seam with their thimbles, or with the handle of the scissors, before they begin to hem, as the outer and wider edge is very apt to get pushed up and bulge over, in the sewing, ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont

... a much more perfect method than this. The eye lens is plastic, like a piece of india-rubber. Its edges are attached to ligaments (L L), which pull outwards and tend to flatten the curve of its surfaces. The normal focus is for distant objects. When we read a book the eye adapts itself to the work. The ligaments relax and the lens decreases in diameter while thickening at ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... placed the ivory rod which she had found in the middle of the roll so as to flatten it out, and her eye fell on the words, "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." To her, if to any one, was this glorious bidding addressed, for few had a heavier burden to bear. But indeed she already felt it lighter, after the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... "Flatten in the jib, and take a pull at the main-sheet, my lads, and we shall run into the bay without a tack, if the wind holds as it does ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston

... Radisson had sprung upon him. The Frenchman's left arm had coiled the fellow round the waist. Our leader's pistol flashed a circle that drove the rabble back, and the ringleader went hurling head foremost through the main hatch with force like to flatten his skull to a gun-wad. There was a mighty scattering back to the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... keep absolutely quiet in the presence of danger. When he was so small that he could hardly hold up his head, she whispered to him: "Listen, White Tail! When I give the signal that the hunters are coming, you must flatten yourself down..." ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh

... on, a num'rous train, And foam, and bellow, till they reach the shore; There burst their noisy pride, and are no more? Thus the successive flows of human race, Chas'd by the coming, the preceding, chase; They sound, and swell, their haughty heads they rear; Then fall, and flatten, break, and disappear. Life is a forfeit we must shortly pay; And where's the mighty lucre of a day? Why should you mourn my fate? 'tis most unkind; Your own you bore with an unshaken mind: And which, can you imagine, was the dart That drank most blood, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... Flatten me not with flattery! Walk with me to the Battery, And see in glassy tanks the seals, The sturgeons, flounders, smelt and eels Disport themselves in ichthyic curves— And when it gets upon our nerves Then, while our wabbling taxi honks I'll tell you ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... any influence on his cheerful mood. He drew in long breaths of the stimulating air and sniffed joyously at the fragrance of the murmuring forests which clothed the higher hills. Far below the timber would dwindle, the ridges would flatten into round knolls and lose their verdure; then would come the dust and lava slopes, and ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts

... Harbor threatened to fade and vanish in the fog and falling dusk, the ice was in motion, great pans of the pack tossing like chips in the gigantic waves. Nowhere was the ice at rest. It was neither heavy enough nor yet sufficiently close packed to flatten the sea with its weight. And a survey of the creeping fog and the ominous approach of a windy night portended that no more than an hour of drab light was ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan

... things be, and Marlowe live no more! O Heywood! Heywood! I had a world of hopes About that woman—now in my heart they rise Confused, as flames from my life's coloured map, That burns until with wrinkling agony Its ashes flatten, separate, and drift Through gusty darkness. Hold me fast by the arm! A little aid will save me:—See! she's here! I clasp thy form—I feel thy breath, my love— And know thee for a sweet saint come to save me! Save!—is it death ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... render the work of reefing easier for the hands, the captain had directed the men at the wheel by a quick motion which they understood to "luff her up" a bit, so as to flatten the sails; and now, on the folds of the main-topsail ballooning out before being hoisted again as it caught the wind, the sail flapped back and jerked the unfortunate fellow off the yard, his hands clutching vainly at the ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... then what Coltman meant when he said that the antelope had not begun to run. At the first shot every animal in the herd seemed to flatten itself and settle to its work. They did not run—they simply flew across the ground, their legs showing only as a blur. The one I killed was four hundred yards away, and I held four feet ahead when I pulled the trigger. They could not have ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... no officers? Call in aid, I ordher you. Can't you make Sam Scaddhan and Phiddher Mackleswig there two policeman get Pancake down—flatten him—if he prove contumacious during my absence. Pancake, mark me, obedience is your cue, or, if not, the castigator here is your alternative; there it is, freshly cut—ripe and ready—and you are not to be told, at this time o' day, ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... that God reaches His aim for you by giving to you Jesus Christ, and that you can only reach it by accepting the Christ who is given and being found in Him. Then the years will take away nothing from us which it is not gain to lose. They will neither weaken our energy nor flatten our hopes, nor dim our confidence, and, at the last we shall reach the mark, and, as we touch it, we shall find dropping on our surprised and humble heads the crown of life which they receive who have so run, not as uncertainly, but doing this one thing, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... his carriage and proceeded to Frankfort, where, as he had expected, he met Julia and his expected son-in-law. His greeting of the former was kind and fatherly enough, but the moment he saw the latter, he felt, as he afterward said, an almost unconquerable desire to flatten his nose, gouge his eyes, knock out his teeth and so forth, which operations would doubtless have greatly astonished Dr. Lacey and given him what almost every man has, viz., a most formidable idea of ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... exclaimed Business, shrugging his shoulders. "He's no good at diving. Doesn't flatten out quick enough. Why I used to come right over the road last Winter when the bombardment was on full tilt. I was then working for the Legion and the Chasseurs. No cinch let me tell you! It used to be—'Popaul here—Popaul there—where's my tobacco? ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard

... object this young man seemed to have was to batter down the score of players and flatten out Jack Dudley, far below at the bottom; but when, with the help of the referee, the mass was disentangled, and Jack, with his mop-like hair, his soiled uniform, and his grimy face, struggled to his feet ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... veins are enlarged veins which are more commonly present on the legs, but are also seen in other parts of the body. They stand out from the skin as bluish, knotty, and winding cords which flatten out when pressure is made upon them, and shrink in size in most cases upon lying down. Sometimes bluish, small, soft, rounded lumps, or a fine, branching network of veins may be seen. Oftentimes varicose veins may exist for years—if not extensive—without either increasing in size or causing ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... crowding pedestrians into doorways or against the walls. One among those so inconvenienced was a youth dressed as a vintner. He was tall, pliantly built, blond as a Viking, possessing a singular beauty of the masculine order. He was forced to flatten himself against the wall of a house, his arms extended on either side, in a kind of temporary crucifixion. Even then the stirrup of the American touched him slightly. But it was not the touch of the stirrup that startled him; it was the dark, clean-cut ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... cried the captain, brandishing his arms furiously. "Up with that fo's'l! Up with it, I say! Ease away on those tops'ls. Lively now! Haul away on that jib. Flatten 'em, boys!" ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown

... painful work to flatten his body out behind a stone and lie there. No trees or bushes grew near enough to give him shade, and the afternoon sun began to send down upon him direct rays that burned. He wondered how long ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Highway Byeway, Grattan, (The Pyrenees begin to flatten, A feast denied to storm and shower, The pen's the wonder-working power); Or Smith, the master of "Addresses," Carves history out in modern messes:— Tells how gay Charles cook'd up his collops, How fleeced his friends, how paid his ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... with the nose; the ancient Huns during the age of Attila were accustomed to flatten the noses of their infants with bandages, "for the sake of exaggerating a natural conformation." With the Tahitians, to be called LONG-NOSE is considered as an insult, and they compress the noses and foreheads of their children for the sake of beauty. The same holds ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... a thin-skinned animal neatly, such as a tiger, lion, large deer, etc. etc., the bullet should be pure lead, unmixed with any other metal. This will flatten to a certain degree immediately upon impact, and it will continue to expand as it meets with resistance in passing through the tough muscles of a large animal, until it assumes the shape of a fully developed mushroom, which, ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... chocolate, melted over hot water, and the vanilla, also more water if necessary. Work with a silver plated knife and knead until thoroughly mixed, then break off small pieces of uniform size and roll them into balls, in the hollow of the hand, flatten the balls a little, set the half of an English walnut upon each, pressing the nut into the candy and thus flattening it still more. The caramel gives the chocolate a particularly ...
— Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes and Home Made Candy Recipes • Miss Parloa

... in my youth. Wouldn't the mere force of such an acceleration as you mention flatten you on the floor and hold you there? And any sudden jar would ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... high and strange roof. The manufactory in which the men were at work was a strong contrast to this desolate place, a stunning noise, Cyclops with bared arms dragging sheets of red-hot copper, and thrusting it between the cylinders to flatten it; while it passed between these, the flame issued forth with a sort of screeching noise. When I first heard it I thought somebody was hurt: the flame was occasioned by the burning of the grease put between the rollers. ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... not follow the advice to flatten himself on the ground. Instead, he stood straighter—even rose on his toes and stared in the direction whence he judged the shot to ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock

... Brandon, "when I look around me on these varied attractions, when I behold those raspberry turnovers of a flakiness and a puffiness so ethereal, that one might think the very eyes of the observer should drop lightly on them, lest that too appreciative glance should flatten them down—I say, ladies and gentlemen, when I smell that crackling, when I cast my eyes on those cinders in the gravy, I am irresistibly reminded of occasions when I myself, arrayed in a holland pinafore, have presided over like entertainments; and of one in particular when, being of tender ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... a mere precipice overlooking the ocean, a sudden gust of wind dashed so violently against us, that in the danger of being blown into the sea, I dropped on the turf at full length, and saw Diane do the same, with her four paws spread as widely as possible, to flatten her body more ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... renounce the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard casing, which does not entirely cover the core, or is pierced ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland

... best, it is only pitiable; at worst, it is detestable. Athanasius contra mundum is grand only in cases where the snag is right, and the mundus wrong. Then persecution becomes the second-highest form of blessedness—the highest form, of course, being the ability to turn round and flatten-out the persecutor. Now, if Alf could open the windows of his understanding——But then, one of the gravest disabilities in the leopard of thirty-five, or thereabout, is connected with the changing of ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... the farther it will go. Tom's object, then, was to flatten the trajectory, by lowering the muzzle of the gun, in order ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton

... him," was Jeff's confident reply. "There aint no winder to the corncrib, and the door fastens with a bar outside. Some of the chinking has fell out atween the logs, but he can't crawl through the cracks less'n he can flatten himself out like a flying squirrel. Furthermore, there's the dogs that will be on to him if he ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon

... Just as in our streets, when the people stay To see the prince, and so fill up the way That weasels scarce could pass; when he comes near They throng and cleave up, and a passage clear, As if for that time their round bodies flatten'd were. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... concentration, agreed that the world was flat—everybody but one man. Now the world was stubborn. It wouldn't give up. It hung on to its roundness, and let the people think what they pleased. They tried to flatten it with countless tons of concentration, but it held its shape. The one man had his way about it. So don't be discouraged by an adverse majority on this plum-pudding project. One lady has shown us a sample of concentrated ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller

... expecting to see the Huns flatten out, when—"Wouff! wouff! wouff! wouff! wouff!" said Archie. The German birds were not hawks at all; they were merely tame decoys used to entice us to a pre-arranged spot, at a height well favoured by A.-A. gunners. The ugly puffs encircled us, and it seemed unlikely that ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... aren't much guide, either," continued the Engineer. "The deceased are simply all over the place. The best plan is to dig until you come to a blanket. (There are usually two or three to a blanket.) Then tell off a man to flatten down clay over the place at once, and try somewhere else. It is a rotten job, though, however ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... soon as the frost and snow were gone, Quinbey employed laborers to flatten the ground near his house to the extent of a hundred feet by ten; then, with stakes, he laid out the plan of a ship's deck. Next he contracted with spar makers, ship carpenters, and ship chandlers for material and labor; and before ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... then'—Oh, what a little fool I am, and so many cookies to make. Please don't send me home. I will work now like a beaver," and her round white arms grew tense as she rolled with a vigor that would almost flatten brickbats. ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... Flossie, who had, by this time, wiggled herself to a place beside Freddie, and so near the window that she could flatten her little nose ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope

... many bodies which cannot be reduced to powder by any of the foregoing methods; such are fibrous substances, as woods; such as are tough and elastic, as the horns of animals, elastic gum, &c. and the malleable metals which flatten under the pestle, instead of being reduced to powder. For reducing the woods to powder, rasps, as Pl. I. Fig. 8. are employed; files of a finer kind are used for horn, and still finer, Pl. 1. Fig. 9. and ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier

... confessed that Peter had many sufficient reasons for entertaining these encouraging hopes. He was capitally fed, had very little more to do than to ease off, or flatten in a sheet, the boat being too large to be rowed; and cigars, and liquors of various sorts were pretty much at his command, for the obvious reason that they were under his care. In delivering his sentiments, however, Peter was reasonably ...
— The Lake Gun • James Fenimore Cooper

... interested in the above important question; for up to that moment I had always been haunted by a horrid paragraph I had met with somewhere in an Icelandic book of travels, to the effect that it was the practice of Icelandic women, from early childhood, to flatten down their bosoms as much as possible. This fact, for the honour of the island, I am now in a position to deny; and I here declare that, as far as I had the indiscretion to observe, those maligned ladies appeared to me as buxom ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... bin, the middlings which are sufficiently well purified go to the middlings stone, while those from near the tail of the machine which contain a little germ and bran specks go to the second germ rolls, these being a pair of smooth rolls which flatten out the germ and crush the middlings, loosening adhering particles from the bran specks. From the second germ rolls the material goes to a reel, where it is separated into flour which goes into the baker's grade, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... and knees, began operations at the top step. But he had barely got the first "plaster" fairly made and ready to apply when there came a rush of footsteps behind him and he was obliged to duck down and flatten himself against the floor of the landing to escape being run down by a man who dashed in through the lower floor, flew at top speed up the stairs, and, with a sort of blended cheer and yell, whirled open a door on the ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... existence; to the moral ones upon whom Beauty exercises a lascivious and corrupting influence; to the moral ones who have relentlessly chased God out of their bedrooms; to the moral ones who cringe before Nature, who flatten themselves upon prayer rugs, who shut their eyes, stuff their ears, bind, gag and truss themselves and offer their mutilations to the idiot God they have invented (the Devil take them, I grow bored with laughing at them); ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht

... and the ham cut up into little pieces, at the same time add the bread cut up into three or four small dice, salt, pepper, and a dash of nutmeg. Mix all together well. Cut the meat into six slices, pound them to flatten out; salt slightly, and when the other ingredients are cooked, put a portion on each slice of meat. Then roll up the meat like sausages, put them on skewers, alternating with a piece of fried bread of the same size. Butter ...
— Simple Italian Cookery • Antonia Isola

... chimney and this ridge the train passed out of sight; but still her gaze followed the long curve of the metals across the marsh. They stretched away, and with them the country seemed to expand and flatten itself, yielding to the sky an altogether disproportionate share of the prospect—at any rate in eyes accustomed to the close elms and crooked hedgerows ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... greater the pressure until, at, say, six miles, the greatest known depth of the ocean, the pressure is beyond belief. And yet is possible that marine monsters may live in that pressure which would flatten out a block of solid steel into a sheet as thin ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton

... plate, that they could have effected this by gnawing away the convex side; and I suspect that the bees in such cases stand in the opposed cells and push and bend the ductile and warm wax (which as I have tried is easily done) into its proper intermediate plane, and thus flatten it. ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... emptied out in as many neat little piles on a plate, and left there over night. Next morning the piles are examined, and if any of them has fallen down, he or she whom it represents will die within the year. Again, the women carefully sweep out the ashes from under the fireplace and flatten them down neatly on the open hearth. If they find next morning a footprint turned towards the door, it signifies a death in the family within the year; but if the footprint is turned in the opposite direction, it bodes a marriage. Again, divination by eavesdropping is practised ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... distinct parts of the calender, threaded amongst the tension rails near the bottom roller or bowl, and then passed over two or more of the bowls according to the type of finish desired. For calender finish, the bowls flatten the cloth by pressing out the threads and picks, so that all the interstices which appear in most cloths as they leave the loom, and which are exaggerated in the plan view in Fig. 34, are eliminated by this calendering action. The cloth is then delivered at the far side ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour



Words linked to "Flatten" :   steamroller, steamroll, press, deform, modify, music, splat, laminate, form, roll, drop, sharpen, change form, change shape, change



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com