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Lever   Listen
noun
Lever  n.  
1.
(Mech.) A rigid piece which is capable of turning about one point, or axis (the fulcrum), and in which are two or more other points where forces are applied; used for transmitting and modifying force and motion. Specif., a bar of metal, wood, or other rigid substance, used to exert a pressure, or sustain a weight, at one point of its length, by receiving a force or power at a second, and turning at a third on a fixed point called a fulcrum. It is usually named as the first of the six mechanical powers, and is of three kinds, according as either the fulcrum F, the weight W, or the power P, respectively, is situated between the other two, as in the figures.
2.
(Mach.)
(a)
A bar, as a capstan bar, applied to a rotatory piece to turn it.
(b)
An arm on a rock shaft, to give motion to the shaft or to obtain motion from it.
Compound lever, a machine consisting of two or more levers acting upon each other.
Lever escapement. See Escapement.
Lever jack. See Jack, n., 5.
Lever watch, a watch having a vibrating lever to connect the action of the escape wheel with that of the balance.
Universal lever, a machine formed by a combination of a lever with the wheel and axle, in such a manner as to convert the reciprocating motion of the lever into a continued rectilinear motion of some body to which the power is applied.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Lever" Quotes from Famous Books



... and a half, therefore, the engineer's hand closed over the handle of the whistle-cord, and Dan Kenyon, standing on the steam-carriage with his hand on the lever, took a thirty-second squint through a rather grimy window that gave upon the drying-yard and the mill-office at ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... the shoulder, and Mike nearly fell back into the water; but this acted like a lever, and the boot was wrenched free, just as another whistle was heard and its answer, ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... was well suited to his task, and he seemed to be everywhere, with a word or two of encouragement and praise, stopping to help the men with the baggage animals, heading a party sent forward to lever the great blocks of stone that impeded progress, and ready directly after to urge his trembling horse back among the rocks the moment the echoes of the shouts behind warned him that there was a fresh attack in the rear. There were two of these, one directly after ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn

... shall forget Augustus's face in the blue light when he see his uncle climbin' out on that stage after him. He was simply desperate—that's it, desperate. And the next thing he did was jump into the saddle of the machine and pull the startin' lever. ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... as he dragged it out into the sun, turned on the petrol and set the controls. He shoved the gear lever into second, lifted the exhaust and pushed, and the willing little twin fired its first spluttering salvo as he bumped out of the rutted lane ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... neutral power may not, consistent with its neutrality, furnish men to either party, for their aid in war, as little can either enrol them in the neutral territory by the law of nations. Wolf, S. 1174, says, 'Puisque Je droit de lever des soldats est un droit de majeste, qui ne peut etre viole par une nation etrangere, il n'est pas permis de lever des soldats sur le territoire d'autrui, sans le consentement du maitre du territoire.' And Vattel, before cited, L. 3, 8, 15. 'Le droit ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... But now help me to get my boot! I'm afraid to lever it out with my rifle-barrel, for ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn

... the angle of the doorway, P. Sybarite pressed out to the booth of the carriage-call apparatus, gave the operator the numbered and perforated cardboard together with a coin, saw the man place it on the machine and shoot home a lever that hissed and spat blue fire; then ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... the lever de Marie Antoinette in some of its details, though she was accustomed to it, and probably minded less than I do. I am not really complaining, you know. But you want to know about my life—so from that you can ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... Betty threw over the lever of the self-starter. The engine responded promptly. As the clutch slipped in, white foam showed at the stern where the industrious propeller whirled about. The Gem slid away ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope

... some hidden spring or lever on the ground, and a massive door swung open, revealing to the astonished eyes of Myra a big, irregularly-shaped room that looked as if it had been hewn out of the solid rock, a room furnished with roughly-constructed chairs and a settee on which there were many cushions, and with ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... of which, holding about one hundred and twenty gallons, must take up a space four feet in diameter. The pressing room itself, if the pressure is exerted by means of levers and a beam, and not worked by turning screws, should be not less than forty feet long, which will give the lever man a convenient amount of space. It should be not less than sixteen feet wide, which will give the men who are at work plenty of free space to do the turning conveniently. If two presses are required in the place, allow twenty-four ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... train, and on schedule time the engine moved. The engineer took hold of the lever and up with the smoke from the engine went the prayer: "Lord, hold that train fifteen minutes for that good mother." With this prayer more steam was turned on than usual and at the next station the train ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... distance behind her. When quite close, she rose up a little till she was something higher than the Tower, to which she came as straight as an arrow from the bow, and glided to her moorings, stopping dead as Rupert pulled a lever, which seemed to turn a barrier to the wind. The Voivode sat beside Rupert, but I must say that he seemed to hold on to the bar in front of him even more firmly than Rupert ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... geologists thought twenty years ago; but, like the foundations of a Chicago house, have been put in long after the building was finished and occupied. But then comes the question how they were inserted—whether as Elie de Beaumont thinks, the mountains were upheaved by starts, lever fashion, or, as Lyell affirms, very gradually, and imperceptibly, like the elevation of a brick house by screws.[373] Nor is there the least likelihood of any future agreement among them; inasmuch as they can not agree either as to the thickness of the earth's solid ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... a modern coal-mine you will see a man in charge of a huge machine that raises and lowers a cage. In his hand he holds a lever that stops and reverses the course of the machine; he lowers it and the cage reverses its course in the twinkling of an eye; he sends it upwards or downwards into the depths of the shaft with a giddy swiftness. All ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... was shining clearly, and of course I did not mind, and Aristides got his hand on the lever, and we were soon getting out of the dangerous zone. "I think," he said, "they ought to abolish that pest-hole. I doubt if it serves any good purpose, now, though it has been useful in times ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells

... years after his discharge, he filed an application for a pension, alleging that about June, 1862, while carrying logs to aid in building quarters, a log slipped and fell upon a lever, which flew up and struck him, injuring ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... thought, long research and hard study, he decided to commence with the land as the necessary basis of all progress; with the farm as the rational progressive unit; with improved farm methods on co-operative lines, as the lever by which to restore the control of the land to the farmers, and to lift them and their sons and daughters from the class of ignorant dependents, to a class of cultured independents, which should be well worthy of serving as a model in the race ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... very philosophical and abstract form, the theory of 'descent with modification' without the distinctive Darwinian adjunct of 'natural selection' or survival of the fittest. Yet it was just that lever dexterously applied, and carefully weighted with the whole weight of his endlessly accumulated inductive instances, that finally enabled our modern Archimedes ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... 1 foot broad, carved and painted. 16. A side view of ditto 17. War-club of heavy wood, rounded and tapering. 18. Port Lincoln Wirris, or stick used for throwing at game, 2 feet. 19. Murray River Bwirri, or ditto ditto 20. War club, with a heavy knob, and pointed. 21. Port Lincoln Midla, or lever, with quartz knife attached to the end. ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... orderly host marching on to more or less definite goals. The individual, however, can do little by himself; he needs the strength of union for his herculean tasks; and he has found that union in the state. It is not an engine of tyranny, but the lever of social morality; and the function of English government is not merely to embody the organized might and the executive brain of England, but also to enforce its ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard

... touched a lever, and the car seemed to jump over the smooth roads. The hedges and houses flew by and the whole earth seemed to vibrate to the roar and rattle of the car. It was Vera's first experience of anything like racing, and she held her ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White

... reindeer and foxes. The spiked end is then thrust down in front of one of the knees or uprights of the runners, and drags in that position through the snow, the upper end being firmly held by the driver. It is a powerful lever, and when skilfully used brakes up a sledge very ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... say ready, you push this lever here," he said, indicating a little brass handle fastened to the stern-post. "Don't let her move an inch until you do that. You'll see ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... The cam, D, is so shaped that when the advancing plaiting knife and cloth reach the front edge of the gripper bar, the gripper is raised from the table to admit them freely. The instant the end of the stroke is reached the anchor pallet or lever, E, escapes from the cam, and the gripper bar is suddenly forced on to the knife and cloth by the springs before mentioned, securely retaining the piece in its position. Simultaneously with the first of these motions the plaiting table itself is lowered, and, when ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various

... own past as if it were simply part of the pathos. In reality, Mr. Vincy's wishes about his son had had a great deal of pride, inconsiderateness, and egoistic folly in them. But still the disappointed father held a strong lever; and Fred felt as if he were being ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... 12th; and as maize or Indian corn was now necessarily become the principal part of each person's subsistence, hand-mills and querns were set to work to grind it coarse for every person both at Sydney and at Parramatta; and at this latter place, wooden mortars, with a lever and a pestle, were also used to break the corn, and these pounded it much finer than it could be ground by the hand-mills; but it was ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... fin-radii was gradually reduced, and sank finally to five. But these five remaining radii became much stronger. The soft cartilaginous radii became bony rods. The rest of the skeleton was similarly strengthened. Thus from the one-armed lever of the many-toed fish-fin arose the improved many-armed lever system of the five-toed amphibian limbs. The movements of the body gained in variety as well as in strength. The various parts of the skeletal system and correlated muscular system began to differentiate ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel

... lever," said his father, "he was bound to take good care of it,—something more than mere ordinary care; and I don't know whether the law would consider hanging watches up at a window as good care or not. It would depend upon that, I suppose. But the watches ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott

... But yet, by Saint Thomas! *Me rueth sore of* Hendy Nicholas: *I am very sorry for* He shall be *rated of* his studying, *chidden for* If that I may, by Jesus, heaven's king! Get me a staff, that I may underspore* *lever up While that thou, Robin, heavest off the door: He shall out of his studying, as I guess." And to the chamber door he gan him dress* *apply himself. His knave was a strong carl for the nonce, And by the hasp he heav'd it off at once; Into the floor the door ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... already overpaid," he asserted. "For a man there is nothing so great, no influence so nearly omnipotent, as the love of a good woman. It is the lever that moves the world—what little it does move—up the ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... one has a rope of sufficient length, and is used frequently to help haul in a large rope or for similar purposes. It consists simply of a number of half-hitches taken at intervals around the object and is sometimes used with a lever or handspike, as shown in Fig. 47. The "Rolling Hitch" is a modified Clove hitch and is shown in Fig. 48. The "Magnus Hitch" (Fig. 49) is a method frequently used on shipboard for holding spars; and the "Studding-sail Bend" (Fig. 50) is also used for this purpose. Occasions sometimes arise where ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill

... by King Nikola as part of his effort to obtain a kingdom. Taking advantage of the unrest caused by Young Turk rule, he used as his lever old Sokol Batzi, a worthy man of the Gruda tribe, who had fought against the Turks in 1877, and therefore taken Montenegrin nationality. Nikola rewarded him suitably, and Sokol, in return, served him with dog-like fidelity. ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... *The Lever.*—The lever may be described as a stiff bar which turns about a fixed point of support, called the fulcrum. The force applied to the bar to make it turn is called the power, and that which is lifted or moved is termed the weight. The weight, the power, and the fulcrum may ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... of bearing down upon the lever of the baling machine. He paused, with the lever pressed only half way home. He stood listening, his bent figure unmoving. There was a sound beyond the door. It might have been the sound of a snowfall from ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... they tightened with the short iron bar, in the end of which a V-shaped cut had been made. While Pete caught the slack wire with this bar, and, using the post as a fulcrum, the bar as a lever, drew it taut, Conniston with hammer and staples made it secure. Now and again they found a rotten post which must be taken out, while a new one from a row which had been dumped from a wagon yesterday ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... intenseness. Your forcible acts have impressed me. I resolved and have conquered. God bless you! I am now organizing a temperance league among my brother traveling men, paradoxical as it may sound, and am meeting with a fair support, yet I believe an impetus and a stronger influential lever can be extended through the expression of your well wishes and any timely topics you care to extend in furtherance of the cause. Asking your kind indulgence, and with best wishes for your ultimate welfare, believe me. Your loyal supporter, ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... up within thirty seconds your fate will be upon your own heads," said the stranger, shortly, as he laid his hand upon a lever. ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster

... William. On arrival there, "the newcomers," says an account that has been preserved, "were entertained with lavish hospitality and in a fashion to be compared only with the festivities pictured in the novels of Charles Lever." But all ranks had strong heads, and were none the ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... mechanism is modeled after the De Bange system. The block has three smooth and three threaded sectors, and is locked in place by one-sixth of a turn of a block, and secured by the eccentric end of a heavy lever, which revolves into a cut made in the rear breech of the gun. The gas check consists of a pad made of two steel plates or cups, between which is a pad of asbestos and mutton suet formed under heavy pressure. The rifling consists of narrow grooves ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various

... in human beings. It is the latter object that chiefly occupies my mind, but I shall not attempt to bring it before the native princes in too abrupt a manner. In some cases, indeed, to allude to it at all would be disastrous. The promotion of legitimate traffic must, after all, be our great lever. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... Aix-la-Chapelle. To consolidate the throne, and raise it above the storms which threatened it, not this or that electoral law, but the electoral power itself, should, if possible, be abolished. For in whatever hands this formidable lever was placed, it was impossible that royalty could long resist its action. To shift the elective power was only to give the monarchy other enemies, not to save it. * * * The aim of the new ministry was to preserve the electoral law; which amounted to this—the monarchy chose ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... though my father very seldom touched wine himself, he of course saw that his guests had sufficient; indeed, sufficient seems rather an elastic term, judging by what I saw and what I was told. It must have been rather like one of the scenes described by Charles Lever in his books. In 1866 political, religious, and racial animosities had not yet assumed the intensely bitter character they have since reached in Ireland, and the traditional Irish wit, at present apparently ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... epaule faible. L'Echelle pour redresser les epaules. Le Cheval pour apprendre a y monter, et tenir le corps dans un etat naturel. Le Jube pour redresser la tete et donner des graces; les Plombs pour apprendre a marcher avec grace. Le Fauteuil pour lever un cote de la poitrine qui seroit plus bas que l'autre; le soufflet pour donner un exercise regulier a ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard

... a traveling rope of wire running over guttered wheels in a conduit, and driven by immense engines, conveniently located in adjacent stations or "power-houses." The cars carried a readily manipulated "grip-lever," or steel hand, which reached down through a slot into a conduit and "gripped" the moving cable. This invention solved the problem of hauling heavily laden street-cars up and down steep grades. About the same time he also heard, in a roundabout ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... was restored to some extent by the Guards on the 27th, and Loos remained firmly in our hands; but a great opportunity had been lost, and the great stroke of the 15th Division had not been turned into a great advance. Lens had been almost in our grasp, and with it a lever to loosen the German hold on Lille ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... sadly to the time when nature has been resolutely expelled by a knowledge of dynamics and statics, and when Lucy, with children of her own, will be directing their attention away from childish fancies, to the fact that the poker is a lever, and that curly hair is a ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... lived for the pleasure he could get out of each successive day. He saw that she demanded that he should have a purpose and aim in life, and he skilfully met this requirement by frequently descanting on aesthetic culture as the great lever which could move the world, and by suggesting that the great question of his future was how he could best bring this culture to the people. As a Christian, she took issue with him as to its being the great lever, but was enthusiastic over it as a most powerful means of elevating the ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... is completely separated from it, when it is again fanned. This business falls principally to the lot of the females of the family, two of whom commonly work at the same mortar. In some places (but not frequently) it is facilitated by the use of a lever, to the end of which a short pestle or pounder is fixed; and in others by a machine which is a hollow cylinder or frustum of a cone, formed of heavy wood, placed upon a solid block of the same diameter, the contiguous surfaces of each being previously cut in notches ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... reporter's was the highest and noblest of all callings; no one could sift wrong from right as he, and punish the wrong. In that I was right. I have not changed my opinion on that point one whit, and I am sure I never shall. The power of fact is the mightiest lever of this or of any day. The reporter has his hand upon it, and it is his grievous fault if he does not use it well. I thought I would make a good reporter. My father had edited our local newspaper, and such little help as I ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various

... was head out and looking back at his train while he jerked frantically at the air-lever. I understood: the air wouldn't work; it never will on those old tubs when you need it. The sweat pushed out on me. I was thinking of how much the silk would bring us after the bath in the Beaver. Bartholomew stuck to his levers like a man in a signal-tower, but every second brought us ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... to use Bessie as a lever to compel her mother to give up those valuable papers. I always said, you remember, Tom, that man was hugging some secret to his heart. And so ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach

... the self-starter had not yet arrived) was a task of magnitude, but he accomplished it and pulled himself into the seat. For a moment he lay upon the steering wheel, panting, fighting back his weakness; then he thrust forward his control lever and the car began to move. The motion, the kindly touch of the cool night air against his head, stimulated him; he stepped on the gas pedal and the car leaped forward as ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... had been obliged to keep the idea of wealth well to the fore; but he brought it forward as a means, not as an end. Unless the mine was good business it could not be touched. He had to insist on that aspect of the enterprise. It was his lever to move men who had capital. And Charles Gould believed in the mine. He knew everything that could be known of it. His faith in the mine was contagious, though it was not served by a great eloquence; but business men are frequently as sanguine and imaginative ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... clear which they had to proceed through a very narrow channel, overhung with the branches of trees, and more than half filled with rushes and tall grass. Soon after passing into the main river, they landed at the town of Lever, or Layaba, which contains a great number of inhabitants, and was then in the hands of the Fellatahs; here they remained till the 4th October. The river at this place ran deep, and was free from rocks. Its ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... Smith. "Our friend Ismail, behind the counter, moves some lever which causes the opening of one door automatically to open the other. Failing his kindly offices, the second exit from the Cafe de l'Egypte is innocent enough. Now—what ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... I was most amiable—but really, my dear Mr. Greville, it is past my power to do justice to this scene. They were like the Count Considines and the Irish gentlemen in Lever's novels." ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell

... have," said Barnabas, making a respectful acknowledgment to the Doctor's dignified address. "It was but this morning she was safe as Mancastle is in the dirt, hard by Mr Lever's house yonder, in the fields. 'Tis a grievous loss, Master Dee, seeing that I was offered a score of pounds for ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... continual obstacle to the advance of the plough. We, however, succeeded in getting clear of them by hitching a logging-chain round the stump near the top, when a sudden jerk from the oxen was generally sufficient to pull it up. For the larger, and those more firmly fixed in the ground, we made use of a lever about twenty feet long, and about eight or nine inches in diameter, one end of which was securely chained to the stump, the oxen being fastened to the other and made to go in a circular direction, ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland

... unless the divine inhabitants were properly and continually propitiated, they would not do their part in supporting the human inhabitants in all their doings and interests. This popular conviction he deliberately determined to use as his chief political lever. ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... enough and strong enough, and something to rest it on, and I can lift the whole world," said an old Greek philosopher. And as a philosopher he was right; theoretically it would be possible. But since he needed a lever that would have been as long as from here to the farthest star whose distance has ever been measured, and since he would have had to push his end of the lever something like a quintillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000) miles to lift the earth one inch, ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... globe?" This ingenious mode of deducing certain conclusions from possible premises is an improvement in syllogistic skill, and proves the good father superior even to Archimedes, for he can turn the world without anything to rest his lever upon. It is only surpassed by the dexterity with which the sturdy old Jesuit in another place cuts the gordian knot—"Nothing," says he, "is more easy. The inhabitants of both hemispheres are certainly the descendants of the same father. The ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... Middle Ages placed upon his activity as an individual in the acquisition for his own behoof, and the disposal at his own pleasure, of wealth, regardless of the consequences to his neighbour, found expression, and a powerful lever, in the introduction from Italy of the Roman law in place of the old canon and customary law of Europe. The latter never regarded the individual as an independent and autonomous entity, but invariably treated him with reference to a group or ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... from the Arizona now. Her bridge had echoed with shouts of warning. The time for that had passed. Armitage had not uttered a sound. Straight he stood by the telegraph, tense and rigid, his hand clutching the lever. ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... signal the engineer to stop. With lever reversed and air brakes on, the train was nearly stopped when the engine reached the station. But seeing the agent surrounded by a group of armed men, the engineer shut off the air and sought to throw his throttle open. His purpose ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... not know, of course, unless he were needed to assist or to supplement their work in some way. But he hoped they had found out something definite, something which the War Department could take hold of; a lever, as it were, to pry up the whole scheme. He was thinking of these things, but his mind was nevertheless alert to the little trail signs which it had become second nature to read. So he saw, there in the dust of the trail, where a buggy had turned around and gone back whence it had come. He saw ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... the gable-wall in the background towered the idol. Its immense disk shone treacherously in the morning light. Victor's heart was beating. The siren howled. The belting-gear cracked and rolled up. The first shot rang out behind the halls. Hoeflinger pressed down the lever and let the idol run. It rang the bell and whistled; but there was a crunching noise. Hoeflinger listened and hastily threw back the lever; the disk made a sweeping movement. Silently he went up to the iron gallery. After a moment which seemed an hour to Victor, he came ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... which is affected by every variation of pressure in the external atmosphere, the corrugations on its surface increasing its elasticity. At the centre of the upper surface of the exhausted chamber there is a solid cylindrical projection x, to the top of which the principal lever cde is attached. This lever rests partly on a spiral spring at d; it is also supported by two vertical pins, with perfect freedom of motion. The end e of the lever is attached to a second or small lever f, from which a chain g extends to h, where ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... far corner and ran quickly toward it, groping with his hands about the posts at its head. He closed his fingers with a quick gasp of satisfaction on a leather belt that hung from it, heavy with cartridges and a revolver that swung from its holder. Holcombe pulled this out and jerked back the lever, spinning the cylinder around under the edge of his thumb. He felt the grease of each cartridge as it passed under his nail. The revolver was loaded in each chamber, and Holcombe slipped it into the pocket of his coat and crept out of the room, closing the door softly behind him. He met no ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... voice. "It's the business of every one who cares for Ann to protect her from her own rash unselfishness. Just to please yourself, you asked her to come here, without a thought as to how it would affect her reputation—how people might talk. And you used those bills of Tony's as a lever." ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... had now read a good deal. I cannot say that he had yet come to understand the mechanical power so thoroughly as to see that the lever and the wheel-and-axle are the same in kind, or that the screw, the inclined plane, and the wedge are the same power in different shapes; but he did understand that while a single pulley gives you no advantage except by enabling ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald

... off the lever of the machine, to catch up the receiver. As before his endeavor to locate the call resulted in a new address: this time in ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... done it unto me." Nowhere do I find myself commanded to enable others to comfort the afflicted and visit the sick and those in prison. Nowhere is recorded God's blessing upon him who makes himself a part of a charity machine—no, not even if he be the guiding lever of ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... the steam to and its release from the cylinder is effected by a four-way cock provided with a lever, which is actuated by a tappet rod attached to the crosshead, as seen on the back view of the engine. To the crosshead is also coupled a lever having its fulcrum on a bracket attached to the boiler; this lever serving to work the feed pump. Unfortunately the original ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various

... seems to me to be a place of unsolvable riddles and a torture-house. There goes the great steam-roller along the road. Everybody can see that it crushes down, and makes its own path. Who drives it? The steam in the boiler, or is there a hand on the lever? And what drives the hand? Christianity answers, and answers with unfaltering lip, rising clear above contradictions apparent and difficulties real, 'The good pleasure of His will,' and there men ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... point—were of a tawny yellowish-brown color, mixed with gray to a slight degree. It would be difficult to analyze his character, for in many ways he was a contradiction. He was not miserly, but his besetting evil was the love of accumulating money—the lever that had made him thoroughly unscrupulous. He was rich, or reputed so, but in amassing gold, by fair means or foul, lay the keynote to his life. And it was a dual life. He had chosen the old mansion at Strand-on-the-Green to be out of the ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon

... while they rigged a lever of sorts, and a rope through an iron ring in the trap, and while Juggut Khan hunted for the secret catch that the fakir swore was hidden underneath a smaller stone that hinged in the middle of the floor. He found it at last, ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... may also mean deterioration, morally and otherwise. Is it not the teaching of Scripture that, unless God interpose, society will steadily slide downwards? And has not the fact been so, wherever the brake and lever of revelation have not arrested the decline and effected elevation? We are told nowadays of evolution, as if the progress of humanity were upwards; but if you withdraw the influence of supernatural revelation, the evidence of power ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... for the deed. They had witnessed the speedy working of Johnny's trap, and evidently had no itching to try what it felt like to hang head downward from the limb of a tree, with a leg almost dislocated by a sudden jerking, powerful lever. ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas

... already gone through the exercise of clearing the aqualung hoses of water, clearing her mask while using the lung underwater, and using the reserve lever on the tank, and Rick had instructed her ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine

... fashionable mob, whose carriages and Broughams go creeping lazily round and round Trafalgar Square. And at parties and balls, and all such reunions, the exhibition forms a main topic of discourse. Bashful gentlemen know it for a blessing. Often and often does it serve as a most creditable lever to break the ice with. The newspapers long resound with critical columns apropos of Trafalgar Square. You see 'sixth notice' attached to a formidable mass of print, and read on, or pass on, as you please. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various

... be the chief commander. Inspired by John XXII., he took the cross, made preparations for an early start, and invoked Edward's co-operation. Edward cleverly utilised his kinsman's zeal as another lever for enforcing the settlement of outstanding differences. "Tell your master," he said to the French ambassador, Peter Roger, now Archbishop of Rouen, "that when he has fulfilled his promises, I will be more eager to go on the holy voyage than he is himself." But the chronic ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... pressure exercised on the air by the pulsations of blood in the veins of the hands reacts on the aerial column of an india-rubber tube, and this in its turn on Marey's tympanum (a small chamber half metal and half gutta-percha). This chamber supports a lever carrying an indicator, which rises and falls with the greater or slighter flow of blood in the hand. This lever registers the oscillations on a moving cylinder covered with smoked paper. If after talking to the patient on indifferent ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... have never heard, needed only a lever to move the world. Such a lever I had put into the hands of Delphine, with which she might move, not indeed the grand globe, with its multiplied attractions, relations, and affinities, but the lesser ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... Cecile, par l'Abbe Gueranger. The simplicity of the old Pope's story is wofully hurt by the grandiloquence of the French Abbe: "Le Pontife ecoutait avec delices l'harmonie des Cantiques que l'Eglise fait monter vers le Seigneur au lever du jour. Un assoupissement produit par la fatigue des veilles saintes vient le saisir sur le siege meme ou il presidait dans la majeste apostolique," etc., etc., ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... devices could not be quite unhinged, Wilhelmine reflected idly. She recollected how Eberhard Ludwig had shown her the grotto's marvellous springs and tricks; she recalled how, after much heaving and turning at an iron lever, the whole grotto had suddenly been converted into a place of living waters. She wondered if the works were still more rusty now; how sad a waste that this curious old-world pleasantry should be allowed to rust to destruction. Wilhelmine fell into a dream: if she were Duchess, she would ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... sink to see On the earth the bloody corpses, in the path the dauntless three. And from the ghastly entrance, where those bold Romans stood, The bravest shrank like boys who rouse an old bear in the wood. But meanwhile ax and lever have manfully been plied, And now the bridge hangs tottering above the boiling tide. "Come back, come back, Horatius!" loud cried the fathers all; "Back, Lartius! back, Herminius! back, ere the ruin fall!" Back darted Spurius ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various

... of sense to Jock. He grabbed the first thing within reach, a wrench, and brained the Hun station-master with a blow; then the mad but somewhat sobered adventurers found and pulled the switch lever so as to bring the approaching trains into collision, and departed. When Jock saw the crowd which had collected about his aeroplane, he took a solemn oath never to touch beer but to stick to whiskey; but the crowd, which included a few Hun soldiers, ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece

... the torches of Moscow. We should find united, too generally it is to be feared, at least in a considerable portion, the timidity and selfishness which signed the capitulation of Venice. How important, then, to gain possession of so mighty a lever for moving the general mind, and counteracting the selfishness which is degrading society, as the enthusiasm of the theatre affords; and instead of permitting it to fall into the hands of vice, to become the handmaid of licentiousness, to turn its vast powers to the rousing of elevated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... giving a ball with the gold obtained by a parricide. She never thought of the morrow; for her the future was after dinner, and the end of the month eternity, even if she had bills to pay. Du Tillet, delighted to have found such a lever, exacted from la belle Hollandaise a promise that she would love Roguin for thirty thousand francs a year instead of fifty thousand,—a service which infatuated ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... Sketch Book came out in 1843, in which he used, but only half used, the name of Michael Angelo Titmarsh. He dedicates it to Charles Lever, and in signing the dedication gave his own name. "Laying aside," he says, "for a moment the travelling title of Mr. Titmarsh, let me acknowledge these favours in my own name, and subscribe myself, &c. &c., W. M. Thackeray." So he gradually fell into the declaration of his own identity. In ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... into the level flats of thought, a political movement was agitating Germany. Simple-minded poets were celebrating atheism with an enthusiasm which seemed sincere; and, at the same time, men who are not simple-minded, journalists and demagogues, were laying hold of the irreligion as a lever with which to make a breach in the social edifice. In the year 1845, the attention of the Swiss authorities was drawn to certain secret societies, composed of Germans, and having for their object a ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... to a platform on which was a roughly-chalked square where two hinged flaps met. As he stood on this spot the noose of the greased rope was placed round his neck by a warder who then looked to Major Ranald for a sign, received it, and pulled over a lever which withdrew the bolts supporting the hinged flaps. These fell apart, Ross-Ellison dropped through the platform, ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... a dozen places on her deck the ninety-two doors of nineteen water-tight compartments could be closed in half a minute by turning a lever. These doors would also close automatically in the presence of water. With nine compartments flooded the ship would still float, and as no known accident of the sea could possibly fill this many, the steamship ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... one time, that's true. But now we've got the machines. The machines drove the women from their homes. Up to lately one had to have a man's strength for the work; now, by just pulling a lever, a woman can do as much and more than the strongest ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... biplane was still a hundred feet away he threw his lever into the reverse and allowed the gears to connect with the engine. Then the automobile began to move backwards, slowly at first and then faster and faster, as the youngest Rover ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer

... at as their leader. Moses had disappeared, and, to these people who had only been heaved up to the height of believing in Jehovah by Moses, Jehovah had disappeared with him. They sank down again to the level of other races as soon as that strong lever ceased to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... various types. This weapon, at no time our national arm, was used for the defence of fortresses, and later on for sport. The heavy kind were bent by means of arrangements of pulleys, the windlass, or a kind of lifting jack called the Cranequin or Cric. The lighter forms were bent by an attached lever called the Goat's Foot. Specimens of these are in the case, as also two bowstaves from the wreck of the Mary Rose, 1545, and some leaden sling bullets from the battle field of Marathon. In the next case are firearms of early types. Among these observe two guns which belonged to Henry VIII, ...
— Authorised Guide to the Tower of London • W. J. Loftie

... the steam cut-off by means of the shaft, C, crank, J, rod, K, crank, I, and the hollow valve spindle. When the tiller is amidships the valve handle, H, is at right angles to the cylinder, and parallel to the tiller. By moving the lever, H, to right or left, steam is admitted to one end or the other of the cylinder, which, acting on the tiller through the piston, piston rod, and crosshead, moves the rudder; and when the rudder reaches the desired position the cut-off will have been moved the amount necessary to prevent further ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various

... English are unsurpassed. The presence of the English engineer, the solitary representative, among a crew of foreigners, of the mechanical genius of his country, is a familiar recollection to all who have travelled much in the steamers of the Mediterranean. Consul Lever says that in the vast establishment of the Austrian Lloyds at Trieste, a number of English mechanical engineers are employed, not only in the workshops, but as navigating engineers in the company's fleet. Although there is no difficulty ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... (support) 215. spring, fountain, well, font; fountainhead, spring head, wellhead; fons et origo [Lat.], genesis; descent &c (paternity) 166; remote cause; influence. pivot, hinge, turning point, lever, crux, fulcrum; key; proximate cause, causa causans [Lat.]; straw that breaks the camel's back. ground; reason, reason why; why and wherefore, rationale, occasion, derivation; final cause &c (intention) 620; les dessous des cartes [Fr.]; undercurrents. rudiment. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... first approach to a correct method was that of Archimedes, who by much thinking worked out the law of the lever, reached the conception of the centre of gravity, and demonstrated the first principles of hydrostatics. It is remarkable that he did not extend his researches into the phenomena of motion, whether spontaneous or produced by force. The stationary condition of the ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb

... short sixty-mile hop down Long Island, Dirk passed out to the landing stage and, stepping into the cabin of his plane, he threw in the helicopter lever. The machine rose straight into the air for a couple of hundred feet and then Dirk headed it westward to where the nearest ascension beam sent its red light towering toward the stars. It marked a vertical air-lane that led upward to the horizontal ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... now note the difference: The inside shank is longer; If we would last it very smooth, We must pull all the stronger. The thumbs at this are very clever, When their part is nicely played, Serving as a splendid lever, While ...
— How to Make a Shoe • Jno. P. Headley

... the understanding to the immediate conviction of feeling; from the imaginations of science to the unerring voice of the heart and the conscience; from the artificial conditions of culture to healthy nature. The vaunted Illumination is not the lever of progress, but the source of all degeneration; morality does not rest on the shrewd calculation of self-interest, but on original social and sympathetic instincts (love for the good is just as natural to the human heart as self-love; enthusiasm for virtue has nothing to do with our interest; ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... been thrown on the Irish character, not only by the great names I have already enumerated, but by some equally high which I have omitted. On this subject it would be impossible to overlook the names of Lever, Maxwell, or Otway, or to forget the mellow hearth-light and chimney-corner tone, the happy dialogue and legendary truth which characterize the exquisite fairy legends of Crofton Croker. Much of the difficulty of the task, I say, has ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... felt that he would hardly turn his hand over to have a million of dollars put in it for the mere money's worth, if he could not discover a silver-mine, or build a railroad over the Rocky Mountains, he might become a rich man. Wealth was a mighty lever, after all. He shut his lips grimly, and pushed his hat down over his eyes. In the early summer dusk, fragrant with rose and violet, he went over the old battle-ground. Did some enemy sow it continually with dragon's teeth? To stay here eight or ten years, mayhap, ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... whole, is the purest and most perfect form of power that exists, because it is a lever on the nature of things. If a man is born with the wrong neighbours it brings the right ones flocking to him. It is the universe to order. It makes the world like a globe in a child's hands. He turns up the part where he chooses to live—now one way and now another, that ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... or act. In the only true sense of the word power, it applies with equal force to the lodestone as to the human will. Do you think these motives, which I shall present, are powerful enough to rouse him? is a question just as common as, Do you think this lever has the power of raising this weight? The advocates of free-will assert that the will has the power of refusing to be determined by the strongest motive; but the strongest motive is that which, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... showing what he can do, of being put into circulation, of having the chance of being tested, like a shilling, by the ring of the customer and the bite of the critic; for the opportunity, the chance to edge in, the chink to wedge in, the purchase whereon to work the length of his lever, he must be ever on the watch; for the sunshine blink of encouragement, the April shower of praise, he must await the long winter of "hope deferred" passing away. Patience, the courage of the man of talent, he must exert for many a dreary ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... once. So I took my bucket of grease and climbed up to the royal-mast-head. Here the rocking of the vessel, which increases the higher you go from the foot of the mast, which is the fulcrum of the lever, and the smell of the grease, which offended my fastidious senses, upset my stomach again, and I was not a little rejoiced when I had finished my job and got upon the comparative terra firma of the deck. In a few minutes seven bells were struck, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana



Words linked to "Lever" :   tire tool, trigger, key, loosen, hand throttle, pinch bar, ripping bar, gear lever, tumbler, lever tumbler, simple machine, gun trigger, open, pedal, tappet, foot pedal, pry, machine, dog hook, loose, lever lock, peavey, prise, spark lever, bar, pry bar, tire iron, tiller, foot lever, lever scale



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