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Floss   Listen
noun
Floss  n.  
1.
A small stream of water. (Eng.)
2.
Fluid glass floating on iron in the puddling furnace, produced by the vitrification of oxides and earths which are present.
Floss hole.
(a)
A hole at the back of a puddling furnace, at which the slags pass out.
(b)
The tap hole of a melting furnace.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Floss" Quotes from Famous Books



... flesh and blood than Emeline. She was larger and of a warmer and browner tint—that type of brunette with startling black hair which breaks into a floss of little curls, and with unexpected blue eyes. Her full lips made a bud, and it only half bloomed when she smiled. From crown to slipper she was a ripe and supple woman. Though clad, like Emeline, in black, her garment was a transparent texture over ...
— The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... floss silk between the teeth, provided care is taken not to press it against the gums, is ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk

... gather into apparent bars, crossing the sheets of broader cloud above; and all these bathed throughout in an unspeakable light of pure rose-color, and purple, and amber, and blue, not shining, but misty-soft, the barred masses, when seen nearer, found to be woven in tresses of cloud, like floss silk, looking as if each knot were a little swathe or ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin

... pearl earings, the cost of them—no matter what—less than diamonds, however. A sapphire blue demi-saison with a satin stripe, sack and petticoat trimmed with a broad black lace; crape flounce, & leave made of blue ribbon, and trimmed with white floss; wreaths of black velvet ribbon spotted with steel beads, which are much in fashion, and brought to such perfection as to resemble diamonds; white ribbon also in the van dyke style, made up of the trimming, which looked very elegant, a full dress handkerchief, and a ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... has now almost superseded floss, is used for working on satin and silk, or for any fine work. It is made in strands, each of which has a slight twist in it to prevent its fraying as floss does. As this silk is required in all varieties of thickness, it is manufactured in what is technically called "rope," ...
— Handbook of Embroidery • L. Higgin

... bright scarlet Berlin wool; 5 shades of green ditto, 6 skeins each; 12 skeins of black, and 4 of gray; 4 skeins of white, and 4 of gray floss silk, or filoselle. A handsome shaded tassel, and ...
— The Ladies' Work-Book - Containing Instructions In Knitting, Crochet, Point-Lace, etc. • Unknown

... downs high to the cool sky; And the feel of the sun-warmed moss; And each cardoon, like a full moon, Fairy-spun of the thistle floss; And the beech grove, and a wood dove, And the trail where the shepherds pass; And the lark's song, and the wind-song, And the scent of ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various

... laboring oar, that toils in the surf of the ocean, Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the notary public; Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize, hung Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal. Father of twenty children was he, and more than a hundred Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his great watch tick. Four long years in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... Briggs never spoke ill of her: high and mighty Miss Saltire allowed that her figure was genteel; and as for Miss Swartz, the rich woolly-haired mulatto from St. Kitts, on the day Amelia went away she was in such a passion of tears that they were obliged to send for Dr. Floss, and half-tipsify her with salvolatile. Miss Pinkerton's attachment was, as may be supposed, from the high position and eminent virtues of that lady, calm and dignified; but Miss Jemima had already whimpered several times at the ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... from between the teeth silk or linen floss can be recommended. Holding the thread between the fingers of each hand force it down between two teeth and bring it back and forth. If you have no regular dental floss, use any white silk thread for the purpose. It does not do one much good to brush the teeth if he does not remove decaying and ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden

... George Sand felt it. She never ceased to care for the cause of social progress, just as she was always heart and soul an artist. George Eliot has written words "to the reader" about the ruined villages on the Rhone. In "The Mill on the Floss," she writes, and again the remarkable difference between the two writers appears as forcibly as in the two prefaces. "These dead tinted, hollow-eyed skeletons of villages on the Rhone, oppress me with the feeling ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne

... ugliness has offended artistic taste and one's love of neatness all winter, clothes itself in foliage and hides its ungraceful outlines in bowery verdure. Lilacs scent the air, roses crowd through the broken fences, the milky floss of the cottonwood trees is strewed upon the sidewalks or floats like thistledown upon the air. To one sensitive to physical surroundings the change is like that from a sullen face to a smiling one, from a forbidding aspect to a cheerful one. The constant bracing of one's self against ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... in itself a grace and glory—rippling from crown to waist in sheeny, golden splendor, fine as silk, and glossy as the yellow floss threads of pale, ripe Indian-corn—beautiful, even in its dishevelled and drenched condition, as an artist's dream. Devoid as it was of regular beauty, the face beneath, with its clear blue eyes, red lips, and pure complexion, the pink and white that reminds ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... foreigners; but among the few Americans who had courage to stay were the sculptor Gibson and Theodore Parker—now near the close of his life—whose tete-a-tetes were eloquent of beliefs and disbeliefs. As the spring advanced the authoress of "The Mill on the Floss" was reported to be now and again visible in Rome, "with her elective affinity," as Mrs Browning puts it, "on the Corso walking, or in the Vatican musing. Always together." A grand-daughter of Lord Byron—"very quiet and very intense"—was among ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... nevertheless, give rise to an important commerce, having its center at Marseilles. The appearance of the cocoon is probably well known to most of our readers. Industrially considered, the cocoon may be divided into three parts: (1) The floss, which consists of the remains of the filaments used for supporting the cocoon on the twigs of the brush among which it was built and the outside layer of the cocoon, together with such ends and parts of the thread forming the main part of the shell as have become broken in detaching ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... came from under the pillow; and out of the box trotted a curly black dog, with long ears, a silver collar, and such bright, kind eyes May was not a bit afraid of him, but loved him at once, and named him Floss, he was so soft and silky. Pussy liked him too; and when May was sleepy they both snuggled down in the same basket like two good babies, ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott

... intervals some expert visits each tray to inspect progress, picks up the plumpest feeders, and decides, by gently rolling them between forefinger and thumb, which are ready to spin. These are dropped into covered boxes, where they soon swathe themselves out of sight in white floss. A few only of the best are suffered to emerge from their silky sleep,—the selected breeders. They have beautiful wings, but cannot use them. They have mouths, but do not eat. They only pair, lay eggs, and die. For thousands of years their ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... midday as at midnight. So that now—when she shook her head at the boy—a wonderful long, thick, silky lock escaped its fastenings, and the wind caught it and spun it like silk into the finest blue-black floss. ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks

... so large or elaborate as hers, and when I finished, she still had quite a piece to do, and was out of floss. She had pin-pricked from an embroidered silk shawl on to strips of white paper, the outline of a vine representing foliage, buds, and blossoms; then basted the paper in place around the skirt. The colors were shaded ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... his life—and before I'd been with them a fortnight they all knew me. I was only a wee laddie, but they answered to my call like friendly dogs rather than the great powerful splendid beasts they were, with their rough coats shining like floss silk in the sunset, when I went to drive them home, singing as I came. And my father said to me one night—'Laddie, tell me the truth—are ye ever scared at the bulls!' 'No, father!' said I—'It's a bonnie boy I am to the bulls!' And he laughed—by Jove!—how he laughed! 'Ye're a wee raskell!' ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... "the Gregorys get along without a maid, and use a fireless cooker, and drink cereal coffee, but admit, darling, that you'd rather have me useless and frivolous as I am!—than Gertrude or Florence or Winifred Gregory! Why, when Floss was married, Dad, Gertrude played the piano, for music, and for refreshments they had raspberry ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris

... attempt at a coil, though, like her own rebellious nature, it could not brook restraint, and persistently escaped in a hundred little curls that fringed her face and lay upon the soft white nape of her neck like fluffy shreds of sun-lit floss on ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... the alabaster lily cups, which one of the statues held, sat down in the faint moonshine, with which she had thus flooded the room, and fell into a train of restless thought; a pale gleam darted up now and then from the lilies, and trembled through the floss-like curls under which she had thrust her hand, revealing a face more earnest and thoughtful than was usual to the gay young creature. Whether it was that she had become anxious from the dart of suspicion that had been ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... Emmie," she said presently; "do you remember in The Mill on the Floss, when Maggie Tulliver closed the golden gates of childhood behind her? I can almost see them swing; almost hear them clang; and I can't tell whether I am glad ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... can recollect at this moment as plainly as though they were of yesterday, for notwithstanding I was greatly troubled at the time, nothing escaped me; the faintest touch of shading, the little dark speck at the point of the chin, the imperceptible down at the corners of the lips, the velvety floss upon the brow, the quivering shadows of the eyelashes upon the cheeks—I could notice everything with astonishing ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier

... Expiate their egg-shell sins By reclining on their drumsticks, Waving fans and burning gum-sticks. Land of poppy and pekoe! Could thy sacred artists know— Could they distantly conjecture How we use their architecture, Ousting the indignant Joss For a pampered Flirt or Floss, Poodle, Blenheim, Skye, Maltese, Lapped in purple and proud ease— They might read their god's reproof Here on blister'd wall and roof; Scaling lacquer, dinted bells, Floor befoul'd of weed and shells, Where, as erst the tabid Curse Brooded over Pelops' hearse, Squats the sea-cow, ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... silver floss, where rose the golden moon half-hid Behind a shadowy pyramid; a land beneath the ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson

... the red eye-mask which came across my father's face when he did his greater duties and tied it about her head. Her great, innocent, childish eyes looked elfishly through the black socket holes, sparkling with a fairy merriment, and her tangled floss of sunny hair escaped from the string at the back and ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... the living ones I saw the object of her solicitude; a lovely sight it was! Two young bluejays huddled close together on a twig. They were "humped up," with heads drawn down into their shoulders, and breast feathers fluffed out like snowy-white floss silk, completely covering their feet and the perch. No wonder that poor little mother was anxious, for a more beautiful pair I never saw, and to see them was to long to take ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... beautiful, white teeth—and who doesn't?—one must treat them well. Just before going to bed, give them a thorough cleaning, using waxed dental floss to remove any large particles which may be between them. Use only a pure powder, the ingredients of which you know. Be sure that all powder is well rinsed away. See that your brush is kept scrupulously clean. Upon arising in the morning rinse the mouth with diluted listerine. ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... her charges to let no persuasion induce him to consent to Babington's overtures, adding that she hoped soon to obtain permission to have the maiden amongst her authorised attendants. She gave him a billet, loosely tied with black floss silk and unsealed, so that if needful, Sadler and Shrewsbury might both inspect the tender, playful, messages she wrote to her "mignonne," and which she took care should not outrun those which she had often addressed to ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... sah ich, und die milde Freude Floss aus dem suessen Blick auf mich, Ganz war mein Herz an deiner Seite, Und jeder Athemzug fuer dich. Ein rosenfarbnes Fruehlingswetter Umgab das liebliche Gesicht, Und Zaertlichkeit fuer mich, ihr Goetter! Ich hofft' es, ich ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... to handle a needle and thread when something showy and fanciful was to be evolved thereby, she almost rebelled against the plain sewing, it was such dull, uninteresting work; it made so much difference if the sharp little instrument held Berlin wool, floss, etc., or the common cotton thread, which, though so useful, was too prosaic to ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... hour, and returned freshened by a plunge in the river and a puff in his wig. But, alas! he found that Mistress Betty, without quitting Mistress Fiddy's bedchamber, and by the mere sleight of hand of tying on a worked apron with vine clusters and leaves and tendrils all in purple and green floss silks, pinning a pink bow under her mob-cap, and sticking in her bosom a bunch of dewy ponceau polyanthuses, had ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... got sixpence,' he said; 'that'll buy milk for her. We'll manage quite well, Floss. When mother goes out with her market-basket, we'll slip downstairs with Dickory, and well take her away, and we'll hide her somewhere. She shan't go to no workhouse, the ...
— Dickory Dock • L. T. Meade

... deception; there was always the sting of that fact. Miss Granger was rarely absent for ten minutes together on these occasions; it was only some lucky chance which took her from the room to fetch some Berlin wool, or a forgotten skein of floss silk for the perennial spaniels, and afforded the brother and sister an opportunity for a few hurried words. The model villagers almost faded out of Miss Granger's mind in this agreeable society. She found herself listening ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... the history of which was vague, was a white woman's head. What wife of what navigator there was no telling. But earrings of gold and emerald still clung to the withered ears, and the hair, two-thirds of a fathom long, a shimmering silk of golden floss, flowed from the scalp that covered what had once been the wit and will of her that Bashti reasoned had in her ancient time been quick with love ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... the new boy, whose age it appeared was thirteen years, was the eldest pupil in the school, and Floss Jones, who ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner

... doll, and fastened the glossy black curls to a wigwam improvised with the curtains of the four-post bed in the best bedroom, Dot was sorely tried. As her eyes passed from the crown-less doll on the floor to the floss-silk ringlets hanging from the bed-furniture, her round rosy face grew rounder and rosier, and tears burst from her eyes. But in a moment more she clenched her little fists, forced back the tears, and gave vent to her favourite ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... during the winter. The Duke of Shen said to him: "Many of the soldiers are suffering severely from the cold." So he made a round of the whole army, comforting and encouraging the men; and straightway they felt as if they were clothed in garments lined with floss silk.] ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu

... is turned and she apes her mistress' wardrobe. The child's dresses were of a better quality, and one embroidered petticoat bore the name 'Jerrine,' while the letter 'J.' was upon them all, except a towel of the finest linen, on one corner of which was the letter 'M.' worked with colored floss. ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... and was not likely to be home till afternoon tea. Bessie was left in charge of the younger members of the household, and was further deeply engaged in an elaborate piece of ecclesiastical embroidery, all crimson and gold, and peacock floss, which she hoped to finish before ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... appearance of Guenevere, whom Jurgen loved with an entire heart, was this:—She was of middling height, with a figure not yet wholly the figure of a woman. She had fine and very thick hair, and the color of it was the yellow of corn floss. When Guenevere undid her hair it was a marvel to Jurgen to note how snugly this hair descended about the small head and slender throat, and then broadened boldly and clothed her with a loose soft foam of pallid gold. For Jurgen delighted in her hair; and with increasing intimacy, ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... never shaved and rarely trimmed it. It was glossy, soft, clean, and altogether not unprepossessing. It was such that ladies might desire to reel it off and work it into their patterns in lieu of floss silk. His complexion was fair and almost pink; he was small in height and slender in limb, but well-made; and his voice was ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... Flamborough, and has since played both Sophia and the Gipsy. My brother Charlie's little girl, Beatrice, made her first appearance as Bill, a part which her sister Minnie had already played; my sister Floss played Olivia on a provincial tour, and my sister Marion played it at the Lyceum when ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... and yet rather sad to have finished; sad that I shall live with my people on the banks of the Floss no longer. But it is time that I should go, and absorb some new life and gather fresh ideas." They went at once to Italy, where they spent several months in ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... Bede" we have all the circumstances of Hetty's seduction and the birth and murder of her illegitimate child; and in the "Mill on the Floss" there are the almost indecent details of mere animal passion in the loves of Stephen and Maggie. If these are, as the writer's more thorough-going admirers would tell us, the depths of human nature, we do not see what good can be expected from raking them up,—not for the benefit ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... a bottle of soda mint tablets, a spool of dental floss, a Bath bun, a bit of gray frizz that aunt Celia pins into her steamer cap, a spectacle case, a brandy flask, and a bonbon box, which broke and scattered cloves and cardamom seeds. (I hope he guessed aunt Celia is a dyspeptic, ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... little leathern case, containing moss well dried and rubbed between the hands, and also the white floss of the seed of the ground-willow, to serve as tinder. The sparks are struck from two lumps of iron pyrites; and as soon as the tinder has caught, it is gently blown till the fire has spread an inch around, when the pointed end of a piece of oiled wick ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... had it for years. My grandfather's people, over in France, were silk weavers. It is through my mother that I am related to Mr. Minot; my father's people were French," she said, noticing an incredulous look in the eyes of Jane. "I have a lot of silk in thread and floss: I'll get the box and show it ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell

... all come back. She had put on a striped silk dress, faint rose and green, made very full in the skirt; her flat lace collar was fastened by a little old pin—an oval of pearls holding a strand of hair like floss-silk. ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... Kite-goddess shows thee Gulls agape, 5 Return my muffler thou hast dared to rape, Saetaban napkins, tablets of Thynos, all Which (Fool!) ancestral heirlooms thou didst call. These now unglue-ing from thy claws restore, Lest thy soft hands, and floss-like flanklets score 10 The burning scourges, basely signed and lined, And thou unwonted toss like wee barque tyned 'Mid vasty ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... small one in the Chinese style, with piazza around it has the outer wall covered with blue and white tiles, and inside blinds inlaid with mother of pearl. The floor was matted, and the divans were of white silk embroidered with gilt thread and crimson and green floss. A ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... somebody who cares only for pleasant and simple or pathetic books is very creditable; but it weighs on the average human being. Why on earth should a girl leave the tenderness of "The Mill on the Floss" and rise to "Daniel Deronda's" elevated but barren and abhorrent level? There are people capable of advising girls to read such a literary production as "Robert Elsmere"; and this advice reveals a capacity for cruelty worthy of an inquisitor. Then we ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... das Leben; Fr uns starb er seitdem, 245 Er ward nach eignem Willen An das Kreuz gehangen. Da hielten seine Hnde Die harten Nagelbande, Galle und Essig war sein Trank; 250 Also erlst' uns der Heiland. Von seiner Seite floss das Blut, Von dem wir alle geheiligt. Zwischen zwei Verbrechern Hingen sie den Sohn Gottes. 255 Von Holz[1] entstand der Tod, Von Holz fiel er, gottlob! Der Teufel schnappte nach dem Fleisch, Die Angel[2] war die Gottheit; Nun ist es wohl ergangen, ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas

... in its easy candour to please her altogether: but she knew very well she was "stunning." She could see herself in a long old-fashioned mirror on the wall. Her hair was like gold floss. There was no sign of the embonpoint she feared in the slender grace of her figure. The pearls about her neck became her mightily, as did the green ribbon, the same shade as her dress, ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan

... allowed poor Pike no peaceful thought, no calm absorption of high mind into the world of flies, no placid period of cobblers' wax, floss-silk, turned hackles, and dubbing. For in making of flies John Pike had his special moments of inspiration, times of clearer insight into the everlasting verities, times of brighter conception and more subtle execution, tails of more elastic grace ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore

... ornaments of the home—now valued curios—there are cases formerly used on a lady's toilet table, embroidered with floss silk and frequently dated. Some were made to hold devotional books, others were portable boxes, the covers of which were worked on white satin with coloured silks and beads, oftentimes scriptural scenes ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess

... was so graciously proffered that Honor deposited a light kiss on the coiled floss silk of Evelyn's hair as she bent above the table. Then she took up the tray, and ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... her; she staggered on the uneven pavement and fell against the wall. Her sisters, who had been sadly following her, unseen, came forwards much alarmed and begged her to desist; but, smiling wanly, she went on and gave Floss and Keeper their last supper ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... that slopes to the south and the sun, A garden in Kerry I know, Where the poppy 's a-bloom, and the red roses run O'er the wall, and the pampas-plume's streamers seem spun Of the floss of the moon in the dusk watches won, And the lake ...
— Sprays of Shamrock • Clinton Scollard

... had provided himself with a powerful helper. He had bought a little white spaniel, the tiniest creature that ever ran on four legs; she was no more than a doll, in Rea's arms; her hair was like white silk floss. She had a blue satin collar with a gilt clasp and padlock; and on the padlock, in raised letters, was the name "Fairy." Jim had thought of this in New York, and bought the collar and padlock there; and the dog he had bought ...
— The Hunter Cats of Connorloa • Helen Jackson

... in a variety of ways, to suit taste and convenience. The border is often made to resemble black lace, and when properly executed, looks extremely well. The parts filled up, should be worked in black floss or black wool. Leaves may be worked with gold twist, or beads may be employed. The grounding should be in fine twisted silk: any color may be used. In other cases, white wool, white silk, silver ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous

... so tall as I having to stand upright and do my duty; but you,—why, you are no taller than one of my green pods that I am filling with floss—" ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann

... is bluish or purplish white, sprinkled with brown, black, or violet spots and streaks, some of which take the form of a wreath at the broad end. The exquisite daintiness and softness of the Wax-wing's coat can be compared only to floss silk. ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... those who had died for her had in some vague, mysterious way imparted an actual fascination to her, and he dismissed it. But even the most familiar spectator, like Sophy, could see that Miss Sally had the softest pink complexion, the silkiest hair, that looked as the floss of the Indian corn might look if curled, or golden spider threads if materialized, and eyes that were in bright gray harmony with both; that the frock of India muslin, albeit home-made, fitted her figure perfectly, from the azure bows on her shoulders to the ribbon around her ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... the three most killing, are a small black fly, with scarlet or crimson silk body, black fly, ribbed with gold, or silver twist, golden plover's speckled feather from the back, and gold twist. They are also rather fond of a fly made from a partridge's breast feather, and body of crimson floss silk. The flies must be fastened upon small hooks not larger than No. 1. Few Smelts are to be seen after the second week in May. ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland

... went to Sophia; and at that hour he was almost angry with her, although he could not have told how, or why, such a feeling existed. When he opened the door of the parlor, her first words were a worry over the non-arrival, by mail, of some floss-silks, needful in the bird's-nest she was ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... a pretty picture: the rosy, dimpled creature, the yellow floss ruffled all over his head, his absurd little mouth open in a beaming smile; beaming above him, Mother Golden's placid face in its frame of silver hair; fronting them, Father Golden in his big leather chair, solid, comfortable, benevolent; and the five children, their honest, sober ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards

... and Maggie Tulliver is taken from the early chapters of George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss. The book follows the fortunes of Tom and Maggie, whom at the opening of the story we find living with their parents at the old mill house on the Floss River, until they meet their death, in their early manhood and womanhood. We give here, however, only a part of the story of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... as it is comfortable, requires six skeins of Shetland floss and a pair of No. 5 amber needles. Pink floss was chosen for the model, but any preferred color ...
— Handbook of Wool Knitting and Crochet • Anonymous

... went back to the tailor's shop to order mourning for the servants; and he had still to discharge another function, for the gloves that he had ordered were of beaver, whereas the right kind for a funeral were floss-silk. ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... she stowed herself into her trunk every night, where she slept on a canvas stretched hammock-wise from the four corners and her food was of the meagerest; nevertheless if a visitor left an offering upon her table, it was largely spent for apparatus or delicately colored silk floss, with which to pursue the fascinating experiment. Another sadly crippled old woman, the widow of a sea captain, although living almost exclusively upon malted milk tablets as affording a cheap form of prepared ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... die milde Freude Floss von dem suessen Blick auf mich; Ganz war mein Herz an deiner Seite, Und jeder Atemzug fuer dich. 20 Ein rosenfarbnes Fruehlingswetter Umgab das liebliche Gesicht, Und Zaertlichkeit fuer mich—ihr Goetter! Ich hofft' es, ich verdient' ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various

... that he had ceased to be sole occupant of the bench. A dog, a tiny toy spaniel, sat beside him. It sidled very close, gazing at him with foolishly prominent eyes. Its ears, black edged with tan, soft and lustrous as floss silk, hung down in long lappets on either side its minute and melancholy face. The tip of its red tongue just showed. It was abnormally self-conscious and solemn. It planted one fringed paw upon ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... missionary monks sent to India. They were commissioned by their queen to embroider them for her to present as wedding gifts to her favourite ladies-in-waiting." On account of intricacy and originality of design this quilt represents years of patient work. It is hand embroidered in golden coloured floss upon a loosely woven linen which had been previously quilted very closely. The work is in chain stitch, and there are at least fifty different stitch patterns. In the centre panel is the sacred cat of India. Doves bearing olive branches, pomegranates, ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster

... with shaggy fair and flowing locks. His right foot served as a horse to a rapturous little boy, whose locks and looks were so like to those of the man that their kinship was obvious—only the man was rugged and rough in exterior; the boy was round and smooth. Tow typified the hair of the man; floss ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... her dolly to sleep, swinging back and forth in her little rocking-chair, the waxen face pressed against the warm pink cushion of her own cheek, the yellow silk of curls palpitating with the owner's vitality mingling with the lifeless floss of her darling's wig. The picture was none the less charming because so common, but it was not in admiring contemplation of it that I arrested my pen in the middle of a word, holding it thus an inch or two above the paper in position to resume the rapid rush along the sheet ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... tow, and a variety of vegetable fibres, thread, floss silk, and cobwebs are all made use of to bind the little nest together and attach it to the twigs whence it depends. Grass again, moss, vegetable fibre, seed-down, silk, cotton, lichen, roots and the like are used in the body of the nest, which is lined with silky down, hair, moss, ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... one is so rash as to say that the name of Boswell would now be known were it not for Johnson. And conversely (or otherwise), if it were the proper place, I could show that were it not for George Henry Lewes we should never have had "Adam Bede" or "The Mill on the Floss." ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... houses—their own little river, the Ripple, where the banks seemed like home, and Tom was always seeing the water-rats, while Maggie gathered the purple plumy tops of the reeds, which she forgot and dropped afterward—above all, the great Floss, along which they wandered with a sense of travel, to see the rushing spring-tide, the awful Eagre, come up like a hungry monster, or to see the Great Ash which had once wailed and groaned like a man—these ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... answers "adsum" to the great roll-call, or when Tom and Maggie Tulliver, clasping hands through the mists that have divided them, go down, locked in each other's arms, beneath the swollen waters of the Floss. ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... thoroughly imbued with this sense of her indisputable superiority that she readily mistook Flossy's affability for fawning; whereas that young woman's ingenuous friendliness was the result of a warning sentence from Gregory when Selma and her husband were seen approaching—"Keep a check on your tongue, Floss. This statesman with a beard like a goat is likely to have a ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... travel Westminster Review; literary and scientific men Her alliance with George Henry Lewes Her life with him Literary labors First work of fiction, "Amos Barton," with criticism upon her qualities as a novelist, illustrated by the story "Mr. Gilfils Love Story" "Adam Bede" "The Mill on the Floss" "Silas Marner" "Romola" "Felix Holt" "Middlemarch" "Daniel Deronda" "Theophrastus Such" General characteristics of George Eliot Death of Mr. Lewes; her marriage with Mr. Cross Lofty position of George Eliot in literature Religious views and philosophical opinions Her failure as a teacher of morals ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord

... Agony Column of a daily paper is not actually so domestic as it seems. When "Mother" apparently says to "Floss," "Come home at once. Father gone away for week. Bert and Sid longing to see you," what is really happening is that Barney Hoker is telling Jud Batson to meet him outside the Duke of Westminster's little place at ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... half-tropical country. She was, one knew at a glance, warm-blooded, full-blooded, with an even, comfortable balance of temperament. Her neck was thick, and sloped to her shoulders, with full, beautiful curves, and under her chin and under her ears the flesh was as white and smooth as floss satin, shading exquisitely to a faint delicate brown on her nape at the roots of her hair. Her throat rounded to meet her chin and cheek, with a soft swell of the skin, tinted pale amber in the shadows, but blending by barely perceptible gradations to the sweet, warm flush ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... washed from Freckles' face in sweats of agony. It was a smooth, even white, its brown rift scarcely showing. What the nurses and Lady O'More had done to Freckles' hair McLean could not guess, but it was the most beautiful that he ever had seen. Fine as floss, bright in color, waving and crisp, it ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter

... wings,—that busy birring sound, like Neighbor Clark's spinning-wheel? Is he busy as well, this bit of pure light and heat? Yes! he, too, has got a little home down in the swamp over there,—that bit of a knot on the young oak-sapling. Last year we found a nest (and brought it home) lined with the floss of willow-catkin, stuck all over with lichens, deep enough to secure the two pure round pearls from being thrown out, strongly fastened to the forked branch,—a home so snug, so warm, so soft!—a home ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... deal with words of which only half the meaning is understood or half the sound heard. Mrs. Gamp's "aperiently so"—and the "underminded" with primal sense of undermine, of—I forget which gossip, in the "Mill on the Floss," are master-and mistress-pieces in this latter kind. Mrs. Malaprop's "allegories on the banks of the Nile" are in somewhat higher order of mistake: Mrs. Tabitha Bramble's ignorance is vulgarized by her selfishness, and Winifred ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... according to the views which he and his reader entertain of nature. To the optimist, to the youthful and romantic, "The Heart of Midlothian" and "Guy Mannering" will seem a truthful representation of life. The more worldly and practical will find their idea of reality in "The Mill on the Floss," in "Vanity Fair," in "The Prime Minister." And finally those whose taste or lot has kept them "raking in the dirt of mankind" will think their view of truth best expressed by ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... is essential to cleanse the interstices between the teeth with a quill toothpick or dental floss, never with a pin, for it is the decomposition of tiny particles that starts decay; a ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... much of the world as I have," soliloquized Joel; at the same time thinking to make some advances, he hitched a little nearer, and taking hold of a strip of embroidery on which she was engaged, he said, "Now, du tell, if they've got to workin' with floss way down here. Waste of time, I tell 'em, this makin' holes for the sake of sewin' 'em up. But law!" he added, as he saw the deepening scowl on Carrie's face, "wimmin may jest as well by putterin' about that as anything else, for ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... found myself in London society. I suppose Ellen and Mary [her nieces] would like to know what I wore on one occasion. I had on a sky-blue glace silk, with three flounces, which were embroidered with white floss, making a very silvery shine. The dress had low neck and short sleeves; but I wore a jacket of starred blonde with flowing sleeves; and had round me also a shawl of Madeira lace, which, though very airy, fleecy, and cloud-looking, is warm and soft. My ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... appeared in the hall Tavia grasped the neglected little article. Dorothy had been sewing as she talked. She loved to do certain kinds of stitches, particularly those of floss silk on fine flannel, and this morning she had almost finished the shawl ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose

... her eyes and drew the baby closer. It looked like a rose dipped in milk, she thought, this pink and white blossom of girlhood, or like a pink cherub, with its halo of pale yellow hair, finer than floss silk. ...
— The Birds' Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... Jack and Floss's adventures at the seaside, and what they did when they returned home. The simple style in which it is written—in words of one syllable—renders it suitable for the ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke

... the pure metal, and the chinking curb-patterned silver anklets hanging low over the rosy ankle-bone. She was dressed in jade-green muslin as befitted a daughter of the Faith, and from shoulder to elbow and elbow to wrist ran bracelets of silver tied with floss silk, frail glass bangles slipped over the wrist in proof of the slenderness of the hand, and certain heavy gold bracelets that had no part in her country's ornaments but, since they were Holden's gift and fastened ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... peculiarities, sufficiently softened and idealised to suit modern tastes, forms a picturesque background to a modern picture. Some of Miss Bronte's rough Yorkshiremen would have drunk punch with Mr. Tovell; and the farmers in the 'Mill on the Floss' are representatives of the same race, slightly degenerate, in so far as they are just conscious that a new cause of disturbance is setting into the quiet rural districts. Dandie Dinmont again is a relation of Crabbe's ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... supported by a lesser band of scarlet silken crape, and is tied into huge loops behind. The skirt of the dress sweeps in a trail. Her under-dress is of the finest and softest white silk. In her hands she carries a half-moon-shaped cap or veil of floss silk. Its use we shall see hereafter. She salutes her cousin, who, clad in ceremonial dress with his ever-present two swords, is waiting to accompany her in addition to her family servants and bearers, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... five-and-twenty years. Rule soft and gentle, not like his father's, and inclining rather to improvement in the arts and elegancies than to anything severe or dangerously laborious. A slim-built, witty-talking, popular and pretty man, with uncommonly bright eyes, and hair like floss silk: they called him Olaf ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... trailing skirts of cream satin, front width richly embroidered in gold floss, with the perfume of tea roses from her corsage and bouquet she carried, in all the fulness of her rich beauty, with proud head bent as she chatted with the dark-eyed, black-haired boy beside her, followed Trevalyon ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... waited for the dread of these days to pass; he saw the joy coming. He saw the lovely, creamy, cool little ear of the baby, a bit of dark hair rubbed to a bronze floss, like bronze-dust. And he waited, for the child to become his, to look ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... sat down in the straightest chair, and although she had never in her life touched a spinning wheel before, she began to spin. Whirr, whirr, the wheel turned and sang, as fine white thread grew from the bunch of linen floss. The fire danced, and the tea kettle sang, and the spinning wheel whirred merrily. It was so pleasant to have had such a nice tea and to be working in her own little house that the Princess began to sing too. She sang like a bird, and she ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

... I have dragged off my green floss," exclaimed her aunt, in irritation. "I am quite ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney

... Dr. Rob deliberately, "it is mostly tucked away under a modest little cap; but, were it not for that wise restraint, I should say it might be that kind of fluffy, fly-away floss-silk, which puts the finishing touch to a dainty, ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... In Ireland "dapping" with the green drake or the daddy-longlegs is practised from boats on most of the big loughs. A light whole-cane rod of stiff build, about 16 ft. in length, is required with a floss-silk line light enough to be carried out on the breeze; the "dap" (generally two mayflies or daddy-longlegs on a small stout-wired hook) is carried out by the breeze and just allowed to touch the water. When a trout rises it is well to count "ten" before striking. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... lady lighted softly on an ottoman, and sank gracefully back with a weary-o'-the-world air; and when she had settled down like so much floss silk, fixing her eye on the ceiling, and doling her words out languidly yet thoughtfully—just above a whisper, "Uncle, darling," inquired she, "where are the men we ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... Berta, he amuses himself winding the linen floss or the silks with which she is embroidering, or in cutting fantastic figures out of any scrap of paper that may be at hand. Then he is like a child. At other times he speaks of the world and of men, of foreign countries and of remote ages, with so much gravity and judgment ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various

... finding the bitterness of the people growing more intense as they proceeded. They found many women using thorns instead of pins and knitting one pair of stockings with the ravelings of another. They were also flossing out their silk gowns and spinning the floss into gloves with cotton. All this was to avoid buying goods ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... "Red floss Mountain's" wrapped in gloom, And "Silas Pettibone's shef-doover" Has long since vanished from the room With "Casey" ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... another home, in the parish of Griff, where her childhood was largely passed. The scenery of the Midland counties and many details of her own family life are reflected in her earlier novels. Thus we find her and her brother, as Maggie and Tom Tulliver, in The Mill on the Floss; her aunt, as Dinah Morris, and her mother, as Mrs. Poyser, in Adam Bede. We have a suggestion of her father in the hero of the latter novel, but the picture is more fully drawn as Caleb Garth, in Middlemarch. For a few years she studied at two private schools for young ladies, at Nuneaton and ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... little feet still project from a sort of gaiter of flesh, whose little boneless legs cannot carry the fat little paunch, the heavy big head. Note that its little skull is still soft, like an apple, under the thin floss hair. Its elder brother or sister is still vaguely contemplative of the world, with eyes that easily grow sleepy in their blueness. Those a little older have learned already that the world is full of solemn people on whom ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... and beat them upon the roof, till a host of warriors seemed breaking their way through, while the old vines were seized by the wind and ripped from the sides of the house, as the storm seizes upon the cords of a vessel, and tears them up into a net work of tangled floss. ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... pussy willow table the guests must show how expert they can be at cutting cats, free hand, from flannel. Beads for eyes, and floss and bristles for whiskers, ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt

... to come down the stair, Are "Noble" and "Floss," and his favorite mare— "Brenda" the gentle, with skin soft and gray, Waiting the ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous

... which have lodged between adjacent teeth, a quill or wooden toothpick should be used. Even better than these is the use of surgeon's floss, or silk, which when drawn between the teeth, effectually dislodges retained particles. If the teeth are not regularly cleansed they become discolored, and a hard coating known as tartar accumulates on them and tends to loosen them. It is said that after the age of thirty more teeth are ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... once seen a creature tinier and feebler than either of these, a mere handful of yellow floss-silk curls, defend its insensible master with frenzy, as the sick man lay in the deadly stupor of cerebral congestion, from those who sought to aid. Valet and nurse and doctor were held at bay until that snapping, foaming, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... our coronet withal!" And Agnes evermore avoided him, Clinging more closely to the old man's side; And in the chapel never raised an eye, But knelt there like a medieval saint, Her holiness her buckler and her shield,— That, and the golden floss of her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... selected the new guest, Mr. Starbuck, to show OTHERS, particularly Larry Hawkins, what she COULD do if she were inclined to be civil. For two days she "fixed up" her distracting hair at him so that its silken floss encircled her head like a nimbus; she tucked her oval chin into a white fichu instead of a buttonless collar; she appeared at dinner in a newly starched yellow frock! She talked to him with "company manners;" said ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... remain, it is supposed for a year or two, concealed thus, until at length the queen discovered the secret. The story is that the king found his way in and out the labyrinth by means of a clew of floss silk, and that the queen one day, when riding with the king in the park, observed this clew, a part of which had, in some way or other, become attached to his spur. She said nothing, but, watching a private opportunity, she followed ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... with a golden gloss, Janette, It was finer than silk of the floss—my pet; 'Twas a beautiful mist falling down to your wrist, 'Twas a thing to be braided, and jewelled, and kissed— 'Twas the loveliest hair ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... was a lovely specimen, and surely there are none lovelier in the world. Dorothea listened to her pretty tongue, and mused over her with a silent rapture. Her hair fell about her face like flakes of floss-silk, loose, and yellow as Indian corn; and her rosy cheeks were deeply dimpled. She was the only one of the Mortimers who was small for her years. She liked being nursed and petted, and while Dorothea smoothed out the fingers of her tiny gloves, the ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... thick with shells and lithe moving creatures of all shapes, while every now and then, there streamed past them, brilliantly tinted specimens of the Medusae, with their long feelers or tendrils, looking like torn skins of crimson and azure floss silk. ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... last indeed Of these five little ones of whom you read— Was baby Lizzie, with her velvet lisp,— As though her Elfin lips had caught some wisp Of floss between them as they strove with speech, Which ever seemed just in yet out of reach— Though what her lips missed, her dark eyes could say With looks that made her meaning clear ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley

... dear Jenny, sweet Jenny Wren: If you'll be my own wife, I will love you through life; We'll gather the moss, Soft feathers, and floss; And build us a nest, The neatest and best, And sing ...
— The Nursery, May 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various

... morning light came some degree of resignation. Several days went slowly by, bringing the first of April, which was to be the wedding-day. August Naab had said it would come before the cottonwoods shed their white floss; and their buds had just commenced to open. The day was not a holiday, and George and Zeke and Dave began to pack for the ranges, yet there was an air of jollity and festivity. Snap Naab had a springy step and jaunty mien. Once he regarded Hare ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey

... Cho San," she said, "the day of yesterday you so big and strong. The morning of to-day you have the weakness of cold body. That Jack Floss him ve'y ...
— Little Sister Snow • Frances Little

... unfastened the cords and stitches that secured the canvas covering, within which lay folds on folds of linen, and in the midst a rich silver goblet, long ago brought by her father from Italy, a few of her own possessions, and a letter from her uncle secured with black floss silk, with a ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge



Words linked to "Floss" :   cleanse, thread, clean



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