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Gavel   Listen
noun
Gavel  n.  A gable. (Prov. Eng.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Gavel" Quotes from Famous Books



... Selah Adams. The women took their places in two empty chairs among those at the back; the Judge approached the table in the middle of the rostrum, stood for a moment, a tall and elegant figure, looking out over the sea of faces below him. Then, lifting the gavel, he rapped ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris

... surprised. He looked self-conscious. His heart pounded. He was still more agitated when the ballots were counted and Gunch said, "It's a pleasure to announce that Georgie Babbitt will be the next assistant gavel-wielder. I know of no man who stands more stanchly for common sense and enterprise than good old George. Come on, let's give him our ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... the court-room at this—a sharp, mirthless laugh which was checked by the insistent sound of the bailiff's gavel. ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman

... definite information," he began, when recognized and after the President of the Senate had pounded with the gavel to restore quiet, "so that this house can consider this important matter ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise

... in some of Sophie Arnould's more distinguished art contemporaries. Among these, the highest place must be given to Mme. Antoinette Cecile Saint Huberty, nee Gavel. Born in Germany of French descent, she made her first appearance in Paris in a small part in Gluck's "Armide." Small, thin, and unprepossessing in person, her power of expression and artistic vocal-ism won more and more ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris

... personality left a void that nobody was big enough to fill—it was really like the death of Napoleon in that world. There was J. M. Robertson, Foote, and Charles Watts. But Bradlaugh liked Foote as little as most autocrats like their successors; and when he, before his death surrendered the gavel (the hammer for thumping the table to secure order at a meeting) which was the presidential sceptre of the National Secular Society, he did so with an ill will which he did not attempt to conceal; and ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... GAVEL-KIND, name of a land-tenure existing chiefly in Kent; from 16th century often used to denote custom of dividing a deceased man's property ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson

... know a little more law you won't be ignoramus enough to come into a public hearing and try to break it up. You'd better go and study law," said the indignant mayor. He pounded his gavel to indicate that the ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... gavel down on the table and called out, "Order, order." Then turning to Tobias, he said, "Mr. Smith, state your ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... and maids of honor. She wore a wonderful gown all white and gold down the front, with the foamiest of sea-foam green trains hanging from her shoulders away out behind her. Slowly, majestically, she walked across the room, and stopped before a table on which lay a golden gavel. A quick tap of the gavel silenced the little murmur that had arisen at her entrance. The king glanced at the queen, and they both smiled with pride in their stately daughter. The ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... not only wastes your time, but distracts the attention of the audience from your attack or reply. Again, the relief is only temporary, for in a few minutes you are again in the same dilemma. Then, worst of all, right in the middle of an argument, down comes the gavel, and with a lame "I thank you," you sit down. There are men who can carry the time in their heads, but as a rule they are not good debaters, as they do so because only a part of their energies are thrown into ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis

... along smooth for a while but directly dat croton-oil make a demand for 'tention. Dere was a wild rush for de door. De doorkeeper say 'Stand back, you have to 'dress de chairman to git permission to git out'. Chairman rap his gavel and say, 'What's de matter over dere? Take your seats! Parliment law 'quire you to 'dress de chair to git permission to leave de hall'. One old nigger, Andy Stewart, a ring leader shouted: 'To hell wid Parliment law, I's got to git out of here.' Still de doorkeeper stood firm ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various

... very many times that the voice of the law is sometimes silent. It speaks only through those in authority and there should always be some emblem of authority. I therefore took the liberty, Mr. President, of having made for you a gavel from the wood of an Indiana pecan tree, where as a youth I lived and learned of this most delicious of all the nuts, and I take pleasure in presenting it to you, and if anyone doubts the hardiness or hardness of the Indiana pecan, I authorize you to ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... beat a tattoo of outraged authority with the gavel, wholly without avail. The confusion that reigned in the charming drawing-room of Cicily Hamilton did but grow momently the more confounded. The Civitas Club was in full operation, and would brook no restraint. Each of the twelve ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan

... order," said Mrs. White, very rosy. Everyone sat down suddenly, and the chairman gave two emphatic raps of her gavel. ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris

... of the Riverbeds started threateningly toward Elmer, and his friends struggled to get closer to him. An excitable woman in the audience screamed. Miss Grey was pounding vigorously with her gavel, but to no effect. Then Colonel Butler himself took matters in hand. He rose to his feet, stretched out his ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... knew it was there. The old chap falls flat on his face at Dravot's feet and kisses 'em. 'Luck again,' says Dravot, across the Lodge, to me; 'they say it's the missing Mark that no one could understand the why of. We're more than safe now.' Then he bangs the butt of his gun for a gavel and says, 'By virtue of the authority vested in me by my own right hand and the help of Peachey, I declare myself Grand Master of all Freemasonry in Kafiristan in this the Mother Lodge o' the country, and King of Kafiristan equally with Peachey!' At that he puts on ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various

... disease, Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please. But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave, What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gavel How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you raised, While he was be-Rosciused and you were be-praised! But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies, To act as an angel and mix with the skies; Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill, Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will; ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... Pleiades, clump, pencil; set, batch, lot, pack; budget, assortment, bunch; parcel; packet, package; bundle, fascine[obs3], fasces[obs3], bale; seron[obs3], seroon[obs3]; fagot, wisp, truss, tuft; shock, rick, fardel[obs3], stack, sheaf, haycock[obs3]; fascicle, fascicule[obs3], fasciculus[Lat], gavel, hattock[obs3], stook[obs3]. accumulation &c. (store) 636; congeries, heap, lump, pile, rouleau[obs3], tissue, mass, pyramid; bing[obs3]; drift; snowball, snowdrift; acervation[obs3], cumulation; glomeration[obs3], agglomeration; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... this, other members, seated, wrote studiously; others mildly read newspapers; others lounged, half-standing against their desks, unlighted cigars in their mouths, laughing; all the while the patient Speaker tapped with his gavel on a small square of marble. Suddenly perfect calm would come and the voice of the reading clerk drone for half an hour or more, like a single bee in a country garden on ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... have been forcibly impressed upon the mind of the earl, by this affecting circumstance; and he agreed with the burgesses and inhabitants of Leicester, on the payment of one penny for every house that had a gable or gavel in the High-street (a payment afterwards known by the term gavel pence) that all pleas of the above mentioned nature should be determined by a jury ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts

... a sudden outbreak of wild enthusiasm as the verdict was given, quickly checked by the court's gavel, then all craned their necks while in a few kind words, the judge congratulated and dismissed the prisoner. Then counsel and friends gathered about Nate with outstretched hands, till his arm ached with the constant pumping, and his tongue was tied with the excitement ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... Revolutionary activities—a hanging matter once, but harmless enough now; a box of foreign coins, all gold; a charge, in medieval Latin, on fine parchment, which exquisitely illuminated initial letters; a plain silver chalice and a patten; some threadbare robes and regalia, and a gavel; a most carefully done chart of the Hynds family, ending, however, with Colonel James Hampden Hynds himself; two letters, and a miniature of Charles the First; letters signed, "Yours, B. Franklin," "Yours, John Hancock"; several from ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... settles the matter without further action or discussion," said the president, bringing her gavel down with an imperative stroke; for this last announcement had created a breezy flutter among the mischief-brewers, who had planned to have ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... of a court banquet. When the chapel bell rings out noon hour and workers file to the long table, there stands the Master of the Revels, napkin on shoulder, chain of honor round his neck, truncheon in his hand. The gavel strikes, and there enter the Brotherhood, each bearing a steaming dish in his hand,—moose hump, beaver tail, bears' paws, wild fowl smelling luscious as food smells only to out-of-doors men. Old Chief Membertou dines with the whites. Crouching ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... organization making much use of registration by alphabetical list. They all wore garments which had the indefinable but unmistakable appearance of uniforms. When they had all seated themselves at a large oval table, Harkaman drew his pistol and used the butt for a gavel. ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper

... likely to be a scandalous state of things if this went on; everybody noticed with distress that the shorthand scribes were scribbling like mad; many people were crying "Chair, chair! Order! order!" Burgess rapped with his gavel, and said: ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain

... voice rings over the room, transfixing for one moment the entire court; then the gavel descends; order is commanded with double unction, because of the recent lapse. Mr. O'Meara is on his feet; Mr. Rand's impromptu speech is at ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... "Bang!" went Babson's gavel just as Mr. Tutt was leading Mr. Walsh, Mr. Tompkins and the others through the winding paths of the Argonne forests with tin helmets on their heads in the ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... four hundred thousand dollars. All told, there were twenty-three of these bubbles that burst in 1905, twenty-one in 1906, and twelve in 1907. So high has been the death-rate among these isolated companies that at a recent convention of telephone agents, the chairman's gavel was made of thirty-five pieces of wood, taken from thirty-five ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... who were awake roared with laughter, the Speaker pounded furiously with his gavel, the sleepy little pages jumped up, rubbing their eyes, and ran here and there answering imaginary calls, and the whole House waked to ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... over every session, and never was in better voice or more enthusiastic spirits. As she sat by the table clad in a handsome dress of black satin, she was the life and soul of the meetings.... She does not make much noise with her gavel,[80] nor does she have to use it often, but she manages to keep the organization over which she presides in a state of order that puts to shame many a convention of the other sex. Business is transacted in proper shape, and every important measure ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... question are being discussed is such a gathering possible in the South. There is a loud rap: the hum of voices ceases. The individual who gives the signal stands at a small table at the end of the long narrow hall. One hand rests upon the table, with the other he nervously toys with a gavel. He is a tall, lean, lank, ungainly chap, whose cheek bones as prominent as an Indian's seem to be on the eve of pushing through his sallow skin. A pair of restless black eyes, set far apart, are apparently at times hidden by the scowls ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... please, Doctor," said Sir Walter Raleigh, the chairman, rapping the table vigorously with the shade of a handsome gavel that had ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs

... budget, assortment, bunch; parcel; packet, package; bundle, fascine^, fasces^, bale; seron^, seroon^; fagot, wisp, truss, tuft; shock, rick, fardel^, stack, sheaf, haycock^; fascicle, fascicule^, fasciculus [Lat.], gavel, hattock^, stook^. accumulation &c (store) 636; congeries, heap, lump, pile, rouleau^, tissue, mass, pyramid; bing^; drift; snowball, snowdrift; acervation^, cumulation; glomeration^, agglomeration; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... tobacco crusade. Flanking this were badges of divers shape and size, representing societies to which she belonged. In the cabinet at her left were still more disturbing treasures such as Gerald's first pair of shoes, and the gavel that the last president of the Federated Sisterhood had used before she had, as Mrs. Ivy was fond of saying, "been called upon to hand in her resignation ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... Senator Jones lifted his gavel, idle until now, and banged it on the table, smashing his spectacles thoughtlessly placed in front of him a moment before. This did nothing to appease his rising choler. "Silence, madam! We have perhaps been too lenient in deference to your, um, sex. I'll remind you that this body is ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... "Order! Order!" and "Sit down!" and the gavel was rattling on the chairman's desk. Then some one rose to a point of order, so dear to the heart of the negro debater. The point was sustained and the Ohioan yielded the floor, but not until he had gazed straight into the eyes of Miss Kirkman ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... upon the nation in the winter of 1856, with the nation's sword of commander-in-chief in the hand of the impulsive Fremont, and Lincoln, inheriting the patient wariness and cool blood of three generations of pioneers and Indian-fighters, wielding only the powerless gavel of Vice-President? But the hour of ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... green, with its glittering serpent stream, lay below us; and, on we looked to the Mountains near the Sea,—Black Comb pre-eminent,—and, still beyond, to the Sea itself, in dazzling brightness. Turning round we saw the Mountains of Wastdale in tumult; to our right, Great Gavel, the loftiest, a distinct, and huge form, though the middle of the mountain was, to ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... have here the official gavel of The Northern Nut Growers Association, which was sent to me by Mildred Jones Langdoc, who unfortunately is not able to come to this meeting. She, of course, is our president. She expected to come until fairly recently but on her doctor's orders changed her plans and wrote to me ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various

... be for accepting Paul's suggestion with a whoop, and declared that it took them by storm. A few, however, seemed to raise objections; and such was the racket that nobody was able to make himself understood. So the chairman called for order; and with the whack of his gavel on the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... cabin there was a platform, reached by several steps. Upon it the chief of the rowers sat; in front of him a sounding-table, upon which, with a gavel, he beat time for the oarsmen; at his right a clepsydra, or water-clock, to measure the reliefs and watches. Above him, on a higher platform, well guarded by gilded railing, the tribune had his quarters, overlooking everything, and furnished with a couch, a table, and a ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... said Geoffrey, crushingly, bringing down his fist as an imaginary gavel with incredible force and dignity. 'Dr. and Mrs. Winship, will you oblige the Chair by acting as ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... gavel down hard, for want of a better gesture, and was grateful when a tall, dignified man with a look of deepest concern on his face rose from behind his desk out ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman

... be propelled. In the formation of language, I may say correctly, "Solomon built the temple;" for he stood in that relation to the matter which supposes it would not have been built without his direction and command. To accomplish such an action, however, he need not raise a hammer or a gavel, or draw a line on the trestle board. His command made known to his ministers was sufficient to cause the work to be done. Hence the whole fact is indicated or declared by the single ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch



Words linked to "Gavel" :   mallet, beetle



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